Gains, not games

Sir
Are we lowly readers proffered the belief that the professional contributors to publications such as MOTOR SPORT did not equate the realities behind the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix shunt. Formula One in the nineties no longer represents a game played largely by Europe’s gentlemen, but a nucleus for world competition orchestrated by the worlds leading industrialists.

These “gentlemen” pay for, expect and get results; poor Senna, Prost and company merely represent the brilliant fit aggressive young athletes operating in this twentieth century arena, who the public in glorious oblivion require to behave like Olympus whilst armed with equipment that Mars would have coveted.

Indycar racing sets the pinnacle of achievement for that type of road racing, but does not yet achieve world wide commercial coverage and therefore does not attract the same amount of cash and resultant results pressure. Cable TV etc may alter this situation which would be the one reason why sponsors may fall into different camps regarding driver behaviour. Regretfully however, promotional activities thrive on goodies and baddies — witness the speculative money which still flows on history’s various examples.

The gentle ramblings of DSJ regarding epithets and the media are becoming obscene from a scribe still at the privileged centre of the white heat of development, who has produced motor racing pieces approaching Ayrton Senna’s fastest laps.
C K Luton,
Bristol.