A good story needs a baddie – or two: a black hat, a blackguard, preferably driving a black car.
They come in all shapes and guises, from Edward G Robinson’s Little Caesar and the metal-toothed Bond henchman Jaws to Formula 1’s Bonnie and Clyde: Romain ‘Grosmisconduct’ and Pastor ‘Malfeasance’.
The latter matches the clichéd descriptions. A swarthy tough guy from ‘deepest, darkest’ Venezuela, he gives the impression that a few rounds sparring with Manny Pacquiao wouldn’t be too big a deal, or that if he were a Shark and you were a Jet, you’d have to be on your guard. Call him a nutcase and he might just stick the nut in.
He can handle himself is what I’m trying to say. So be it if expanding and protecting his F1 patch means treading on others’ winglets or slicing their sidewalls. He will, of course, have to draw a line under this attitude at some point, settle down and rack up the results his speed and employers demand, but right now his pen is sheathed while his sword is waved. He is, in common parlance, not bovvered.
Grosjean, however, clearly is bovvered, and clearly doesn’t know how to handle himself. The under-fire Frenchman doesn’t fit the usual photofit, with his hint of posh-boy high colour, bum-fluff beard and Hugh Grant hair. He’s probably got a glass jaw too. His previous job was as a Swiss banker – no, that’s not rhyming slang – and he looks the type better suited to counting money rather than demanding it with menaces. If he were a Jet, the Sharks would be circling. (And they are.) Call him a nutcase and he’d likely crack.
That’s almost what happened at Suzuka when Mark Webber, with his Desperate Dan beard and Kirk Douglas chin, provided soundbites his compatriot Alan Jones would have been proud of. He had every right to be angry – Grosjean’s punting of him at Turn 2 was clodhoppingly inept – but I hope he joins me in forgiving him one last time.
When a glistening tear welled in Romain’s eye as he chokingly tried to explain his eighth – sigh – incident of the season before asking for outside help, I must admit to melting. His critics reckon him an automaton without imagination from the PlayStation generation, but I reckon he’s more Old School than that. Unlike Maldonado, he craves acceptance rather than demands respect. The former, though, has been the harder to achieve since Ayrton Senna rewrote the rules of engagement. Niceties are weaknesses – especially on opening laps – and you can be sure the pack will happily bully its shunting runt.
This is a shame all around, because Grosjean, I believe, is special. In a good way. With his Kimi-like speed, he has everything a top F1 driver needs except the street smarts. That’s why, even when he was trying so hard to be so good at Suzuka, he ended up being the baddie. Again. It didn’t help that Maldonado, his partner in crime, finished this time.
Not even Webber was more upset than Grosjean at his actions. The lad clearly needed a cuddle. But where was/is he going to locate one in the paddock? His team has since rightly said the remedy lies with him, while the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association is hardly a self-help group.
The latter was proved when a Formula 1 Safety Committee consisting of James Hunt, Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi, Jody Scheckter and Niki Lauda turned on Riccardo Patrese, another shy sophomore, albeit with a spikier defence mechanism, and got him banned from the 1978 US GP at Watkins Glen. This decision, it said, was taken before his ‘part’ in Ronnie Peterson’s fatal accident at Monza, which in truth was the result of a premature start that concertina-ed a pack soon to be funnelled by a quirky track layout.
The Italian, a charming man with, as it turned out, a passion for model trains, survived the long-running witch-Hunt to become a wise elder statesman of the paddock: accepted, respected and a six-time GP winner.
Grosjean has the potential to become as accepted and respected as Patrese, and perhaps even more successful than him. When given the chance, by himself first and then by others, he is quick, intelligent and eloquent. A deep fish, he admitted that he was handed his first F1 opportunity too early and that he had a lot to learn. Much to his credit, he returned to a junior formula and GTs and earned his second chance. He has proved he deserved it – three podium finishes already this season – but knows he is in danger of blowing it because of a synaptic short circuit. No wonder he’s twitchy.
Hell, everybody’s twitchy as the title race hots up. It’s not just Grosjean who needs to take a chill pill. The others must view him for what he is: one of those drivers who struggles harder than others to find their limits, one whom right now you wouldn’t choose to be next to on the grid or in the pack – and no more.
Grosjean’s dilemma is not new to the sport, nor is it the worst, the most ingrained, of its kind. Belle Epoch racer Camille Jenatzy wasn’t called ‘the Red Devil’ just because he had a ginger beard. Inaugural world champion Giuseppe Farina’s gunslinger’s eye and sensibilities gave a formative Stirling Moss the willies. And ‘Master James’ wasn’t nicknamed ‘the Shunt’ just because it rhymed with Hunt.
Grosjean has been boneheaded, but he’s not bad to the bone. Cut him (a tiny bit) more slack, give him (a tiny bit) more room, and he will probably come good and be an asset.
I say probably because cuddles and street smarts are not obvious bedfellows and thus he must strike – one more and he’s out – a difficult balance if he is to survive. But as he and, in a very different way, Lewis Hamilton are still discovering, some aspects of Formula 1 are never easy no matter how fundamentally talented you are.
Nice article Paul, no more Ken Tyrrels out there to calm down those young Banzai chargers, unfortunately. Hard to achieve that if they keep coming to F1 with their cases full of money.
Another good reason to start from pole position, though….
Mmmh, No I don’t like your article at all. Seems you’re trying to defend and justify this European driver’s faults at all costs, how much did he pay you, I wonder…
! What a nice, intelligent article! And I totally agree. Cut him some slack. The same slack Alonso was given for a rather clumsy move on Kimi. Or Hamiltons long, long list of stupid on track actions (nevermind off track). Or Vettel. Hell, Withmarsh said about him maybe he isnt f1 material either. And look at the young German now.
Grosjean earned a lot of respect, and gives his lauded teammate lots to think about, speed wise.
Could we spare a few column-inches (cm?) for the esteemed Kimi Raikkonen, who ruined the WDC leader’s Japanese Grand Prix by failing to find his brake pedal at just the right moment?
I switched off the telly shortly thereafter, not wanting to watch another case of Vettel being flattered by his car. And on that subject, Vettel mentioned in the same breath as Fangio? I think not.
Dear Carlos,
If Grosjean were Venezuelan and Maldonado French I would hold the same opinions of them as expressed in my article.
And my only direct financial dealings with a famous Grand Prix driver left me considerably out of pocket.
Kind regards,
Paul F
“Could we spare a few column-inches (cm?) for the esteemed Kimi Raikkonen, who ruined the WDC leader’s Japanese Grand Prix by failing to find his brake pedal at just the right moment?”
Perhaps if the current leader of the WDC hadn’t swerved into Raikkonen’s front wing he wouldn’t have spun off. Or do all and sundry have to make way for fred’s red fiat?
PeteH, you and I are the only ones who saw that incident as Kimi’s problem. The rest of the world blamed Alonso even though he was ahead….
Dave, guys, he was ahead yes, but not of Kimi, Alonso from the right (of Raikkonen) then swerved to the left hitting Kimi’s car.
Perhaps a more appropiate penalty for RJ would have been for him to start from the pit lane for the rest of the season.
Tony E
A well balanced story. Hakkinen was banned in 1994 (in his third F1 season), Alonso did some very clumsy things in 03 and 04 (Enormous crash at Interlagos due to ignoring yellow flags and brake testing Coulthard at the Nurburgring). Vettel managed to hit Webber under a safety car in his first year.
The three named above all became back to back champions. We are right to give Romain some slack.
dave, I was quoting someone else. I saw it as Alonso’s error, not Raikkonen’s.
I tend to agree with Paul because it seems his problems are more accidental than deliberate.
With a bit more experience there is a chance of reducing his accident rate.
On the other hand, there are some drivers out there whose problems seem to be deliberate………and there is not much hope for them!
Carlos Sanchez, 11 October 2012 16:28
Dave, guys, he was ahead yes, but not of Kimi, Alonso from the right (of Raikkonen) then swerved to the left hitting Kimi’s car.
Funnily enough Alonso did exactly the same at Monaco and took out ? Romain Grosjean…… Funnily enough though RG got the blame for it . Teflonso ??
True RG has been involved in various incidents this year, but by no means were all of them of his making. Whereas, a couple of things that Maldonado did last year eg driving people off the track should’ve meant a life ban from any form of motor sport. However the petrodollars propping up Williams obviously take priority over other drivers lives.
Paul,
Well written and fair. I agree with you, Roman is early in his career. I hope he reads this article and gets on with it. He should get some driver coaching from Patresse and Scheckter, two drivers who both got flak in their early years.
He does need to butch up and tune out the other drivers. Part of this business is the mind games drivers play. He should go have some drinks with Kimi, a little Vodka takes the edge off. I hope he closes the year strong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZoESZe0mCs
Alonso appears to leave adequate room to his right. No part of the Lotus is visible. To Raikkonen’s right was one of the McLarens. As they say in NASCAR, three into two won’t go.
I guess it’s me alone….. OK, I’ll blame the tiny mirrors on Alonso’s Ferrari. There!
Is it only me who thinks Webber was driving like a tranquilised vicar when Grosjean hit him? He certainly looked to be going a lot slower than Grosjean and Perez. RG seems to have the sort of reputation that people delight in adding to, and it’ll be a while before he can have any sort of incident on a racetrack which people will not see as his fault. I don’t say Webber was wholly to blame for this one, but I’m not sure Grosjean was either.
Good guys, bad guys, lots of yelling and finger pointing; not to mention those automatic passing devices. F1 has become the WWE.
G’day John,
I have tried to stay in denial about Webber’s ‘first lap underperformances’ and put to the back of my mind the thought that there may have been contributory negligence in his coming together with RG last Sunday.
But John, sadly I think you have something there in the comparison with tranquilised vicars.
Let’s not talk about it again please?
regards from Down Under.
John Read, it grieves me to say it, since I generally rate Webber very highly indeed.
If F1 had rolling starts he may have already won the title, but then again if my Auntie…………………..
Gilles Villeneuve destroyed a lot of cars. But, lest we forget the antics of Andrea DeCrasheris (to whom James Hunt said had the optimal number “8″ one season, …because it was the same number upside down).
Truthfully, this all happened in the past with many great drivers, but the difference today is that these cars are so damned fragile that a tiny bump can ruin a race. Gordon Murray has the right idea: move the driver more upright, set a narrower, single-element front wing that can bend if touched, and make the suspension arms out of metal.
It’s very hard to have good close racing when the cars have the resiliency of uncooked pasta.
Gordon Murray’s ideas are nearly *always* right.
One of them was getting away from the dunderheaded f**kwittery of the world of formula 1.
Grosjean a ‘man in black’ ? I don’t think so . Now the late , great , Dale Earnhardt Snr. , there was a man in black . Hell , his appearence in the paddock at an IROC race was enough once to intimidate Martin Brundle . Oh , how F1 could do with a baddie of that order !!!!!!!!!!