The Times Sport - UK (2020-09-12)

20 2GS Saturday September 12 2020 | the times

This year more than most, the Formula
One world championship is a mara-
thon as well as a series of hybrid-
powered sprints and, as the drivers take
to the track for a ninth race in 11
weekends for the Tuscan Grand Prix
tomorrow, the contest is increasingly
becoming a survival of the fittest.
The first F1 race to be held at the
Mugello circuit in Italy, more comm-
only associated with MotoGP, promises
to be a breathless pursuit featuring a
series of high-speed corners that place
stringent demands not only on the
drivers’ skill, but on their bodies, too.
There are no slow corners on the
circuit and the slowest — perhaps that
should be least quick — will be the first,
San Donato, likely to be taken at an
apex speed of about 90mph. When they
wake up on Monday morning, the

In a grainy film clip James Hunt sits
in his red caretaker’s overalls and
explains to Stirling Moss what is
required for the coming race. “Big
balls,” he says. Then a car explodes.
Crass and burn, old style. Graham
Hill looks like Dick Dastardly or
Terry Thomas. Peter Collins walks
from the grid with a fag in his mouth.
Moss recalls an old lady in Monaco’s
Café de Paris asking if the Formula
One racers could go and practise
elsewhere. Watching all this has made
Jenson Button emotional.
The 2009 world champion is in
Mugello, Italy, for tomorrow’s Tuscan
Grand Prix as a pundit but has
enjoyed trawling the past for Sky’s
new seven-part series, Race to
Perfection, a loving depiction of a
sport straddling triumph and tragedy.
John Watson, the 74-year-old former
F1 driver, frowns on film and says the
new generation do not know their
“aunt from their uncle” and have no
interest in history, but Button
sympathises. There is a reason why
racers do not want to look in the rear-
view mirror.
“We probably don’t know enough
about history — well I might because
I’m older — but they don’t want to
look back because it was a lot more
dangerous,” he says. “Go back
through history and you will see
accidents and deaths. It was a
different sport altogether and they
didn’t know any better. They were
racing in baked bean tins with fuel
tanks on either side. If you crash
you’re gone. It’s scary. And they still
pushed it to the limit.”
It is that insatiable need for speed
that has stopped Button, now 40, Los
Angeles-based and with a second
child on the way, from following his
old team-mate Fernando Alonso into

IndyCar racing. Rumours surfaced

again during lockdown but he says it

is a non-starter. He watched another

clip recently, from 1989, of him

karting with kids called Dan

Wheldon and Justin Wilson, both

since killed in IndyCar. “The oval

scares me,” he says. “But I know if I

close the visor and drive out of the

pitlane I would go flat out. I have

stopped myself before I got there.”

Watch the new series and it is easy

to conclude Formula One used to be

better. Now critics say it’s anodyne

fare, flatliner voices on the team

radio, routine wins for Lewis

Hamilton, dull and duller.

Button does not agree and points to

the speed to negate the knockers.

Mugello is new for F1 but it’s a

breathtaking circuit that MotoGP

bikers have been frequenting for years

with a top speed of 221mph. Marc

Márquez, MotoGP’s world champion

and holder of the Mugello lap record,

said this week that he expected the

cars to be half a minute quicker.

“It’s not danger but it is the buzz in

a high-speed corner,” Button says of

the lure that never leaves. “Your

entire body tingles, your heart drops

and then you are left with only

butterflies. Obviously, you don’t want

to hit anything but that rush...

“Look at the F1 cars of the 1950s

and a Formula Ford is as quick now.

‘They raced in baked bean

tins. One crash, they’re gone’

At Monza last week the average speed

was 167mph, which is just insane. I

love how fast they are now. Go

through the Parabolica [at Monza] at

a minimum of 140mph, I mean that’s

a tight corner. Are they gladiators like

back in the Fifties? Probably not but

I’m glad the sport is where it is — we

don’t want to be losing drivers every

four or five races like we did back

then. They didn’t know seatbelts or

the halo existed, but the craziest thing

back then was lots of them were

paying to go racing. They weren’t

getting anything out of it other than

being a hero.”

So what of today’s hero? Button, a

veteran of 306 starts in F1 and now a

TV analyst, is well placed to judge

Hamilton, who has six world titles,

five wins from seven races this season

and is just two victories short of

Michael Schumacher’s record of 91.

“His natural ability is extreme,”

Button says of his former McLaren

team-mate. “I would say he is the best

we have ever seen, but there is a

difference between having the most

natural ability and being the greatest.

“Everyone finds themselves in

different situations and Lewis has

been in the best car for six or seven

years, but he has done the job. He is

extremely talented and in terms of

outright speed on one lap he is the

best; in terms of being the best driver

through a career, I don’t know the

answer. He is up there, as is Fangio

and Ayrton, Michael and a few others.

What I do know is when you have

someone like him as your team-mate

it means so much more when you

beat them.”

Button still needs to sate the racing

instinct, so has been getting his speed

kicks by virtual duels with other

drivers on his simulator. There was

also an off-road truck race. Does the

nostalgia of watching Mike

Hawthorne pitch up in a bow tie or

the extraordinary climax to

Hamilton’s first world title in 2008

expose the routine nature of the

present grid?

He insists F1 goes beyond the

Race 9 Tuscany,

Mugello

Turns 15

Laps 59

Circuit length

5.245km

Race distance

309.455km

Lap record N/A

Tomorrow

TV Live on Sky Sports F

at 12.30pm, race starts

2.10pm

Highlights Channel 4,

6.30pm

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10

Drivers Team Points

Constructors

1 2 3 4 5 6

Russia (Sochi); Sept 27, Germany Eifel (Nurburgring);

Oct 11, Portugal (Algarve); Oct 25, Italy (Imola); Nov 1,

Turkey (Istanbul); Nov 15, Bahrain (Sakhir); Nov 29,

Bahrain (Sakhir); Dec 6, Abu Dhabi (Yas Island); Dec 13

Points

L Hamilton Mercedes 164

V Bottas Mercedes 117

M Verstappen Red Bull 110

L Stroll Racing Point 57

L Norris McLaren 57

A Albon Red Bull 48

C Leclerc Ferrari 45

P Gasly Alpha Tauri 43

C Sainz McLaren 41

D Ricciardo Renault 41

Mercedes 281

Red Bull 158

McLaren 98

Racing Point 82

Renault 71

Ferrari 61

DRS zone

‘It’s going to be brutal’ – Mugello will test muscles

drivers’ bodies will swiftly remind them

of the events of the previous day. “It’s

going to be an absolute killer

physically,” George Russell, the Willi-

ams driver, said.

In an F1 calendar radically revamped

to cope with the coronavirus pandemic,

this is also a third race in three weeks, a

sequence that has been repeated three

times in a frenetic first half of the

season during which Lewis Hamilton

has opened up a 47-point lead in the

drivers’ championship over his

Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas.

Following the dramatic Italian Grand

Prix in Monza last weekend, the

caravan has travelled south to Tuscany

to a track owned by Ferrari, where the

iconic Italian team will become the first

to amass 1,000 F1 race appearances.

While there will be an intriguing

sense of the unknown on a track new to

F1, the drivers are already clear on the

gruelling challenge they will face

tomorrow over 59 breakneck laps of the

5.245km circuit. During lockdown

before the championship’s delayed start

in early July, most of the drivers saw an

opportunity to bolster fitness levels.

Hamilton felt he was returning to

racing “fitter and stronger” than ever

before. Bottas, meanwhile, dedicated

himself to improving his powers of

endurance and has been feeling the

benefit over the season’s first nine races.

“My VO2 max [oxygen consumption

during exercise] improved 15 per cent

from the previous year,” he told The

Times. “Over the past two years, I’ve

been swapping the endurance training

more towards cycling than running

and, with lockdown, it’s been a record

year for me in terms of hours spent

training. In the car all through the race,

I feel now like the fatigue is building up

less.”

The switch towards more cycling has

come about, in part, through training

Jenson Button explains

to Rick Broadbent

why modern drivers do

not study the sport’s

history too carefully

Motorsport deaths by

decade

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

Formula One IndyCar

93

42

2

2

25

0

1

The craziest thing then

was lots of them were

paying to race. They just

wanted to be heroes

John Westerby

Wheldon, left, Button’s former go-karting rival, died in the treacherous IndyCar

Button, who raced in comparatively

Sport Formula One