Autosport – 18 April 2019

HAVE YOUR SAY, GET IN TOUCH

OPINION PIT + PADDOCK

18 APRIL 2019 AUTOSPORT.COM 15

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A milestone to be celebrated
Congratulations to Formula 1 on the 1000th race,
world championship event or whatever it actually is.
If last weekend’s rather forced celebrations have done
one thing, they have reminded me just how wonderful
this amazing sport can be.
Sadly, the Chinese Grand Prix was a huge statement
about everything currently wrong with the sport. A race
dominated by teams controlling their drivers’ pace and
strategy, with so little action that one of the ‘highlights’
was a double pitstop. A race played out on a sterile
Tilkedrome, a place we only visit for commercial
reasons, a track built for the corporate empires of the car
manufacturers who wield too much power in our sport.
Still, 1000 races is a milestone to be celebrated. If I
have one birthday wish it’s that the sport takes a long,
hard look at itself, learns the lessons from its glorious
past and its troubled present and uses them to create
a prosperous and exciting future.
On another note, Formula E, the sport that so many
are worried F1 will turn into, delivered another epic race
in a fantastic season with an open and unpredictable
title fight – but then electric racing is boring, isn’t it!
Tom Martin
Cardiff

Let’s recapture lost beauty and elegance
I’ve enjoyed reading your F1 1000 races celebration issue
(11 April) and I’d agree that the four Lotus cars that Ben
Anderson tested are indeed some of F1’s greatest game
changers. Moreover, I’d also suggest that the Lotus 49
(especially in its 1967 pre-wings configuration), 72 and
79 are – to my mind at least – the three best-looking
F1 cars of all time, too.
Such things are of course in the eye of the beholder,
all very subjective, etc, etc; but alongside his undoubted
technical brilliance, Colin Chapman somehow seemed
to have an uncanny knack of creating very aesthetically

If I have one birthday wish it’s that the sport learns the lessons from its glorious past

and its troubled present and uses them to create a prosperous and exciting future

TOM MARTIN

pleasing designs over the years, too. Can we not recapture

at least some of this lost beauty and elegance from the

past in respect of today’s cars?

What price aesthetics in F1 2019?

James Rollin

Belper, Derbyshire

Spot the ex-F1 mechanic...

What a great picture ‘From the archive’ of the ATS

Formula 1 team in your 11 April edition. Lots of

technical detail, and lots of action.

And isn’t that a very youthful Simon Hadfield,

historic race car preparation and driving legend,

second ATS shirt from left?

Adam Going

Somerset

Yes it is; and yes it is. He was very pleased to be able to point

out the latter to us as soon as he saw the magazine – ed

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