Full Throttle

As one gets older there are many signs that give you a hint that hand to hand combat with Brad Pitt, Samuel L. Jackson or a young Clint Eastwood isn’t the thing to do on a calm Sunday afternoon.

When everything hurts and what doesn’t hurt, doesn’t work, or the gleam in your eyes is from the sun hitting your bifocals discretion is, or should be, the better part of valor.

As much as the above may seem to be personal, and overlooking my aching back and failing eyesight for a moment, this is about F1 Supremo Bernie “The Gnome” Ecclestone.

Bernie is thinking again, this time about the lack overtaking opportunities that have become few and far in-between for a decade or more.

Not to long ago he got spun up over the awarding of points (he’s still complaining about the new system adopted for 2010) as a way to promote more passing.

Now, in the face of all common sense, he’s suggested F1 impose “short cuts,” short cut meaning an alternative route.

The short cut, its use limited to five times per race, would be a way for a faster driver/car caught behind a slower one be able bypass that rolling chicane.

BRILLIANT.

Not.

Of course implementation of this nonsense would mean many if not all tracks would need to provide these short cuts at some considerable cost I suspect. Laying down a few yards of tarmac can’t be cheap.

Wonder how that would work at Monaco, would they cut a bypass just short of the Grand Hotel Hairpin or maybe at La Rascasse?

Then there’s Singapore, where you could rejigger turn 13 to provide this so called short cut.

And leave us not forget the extra cost to track owners for new signage, things like, “Next Exit 100 Meters,” and “Last Short Cut For 3.340 kms.” (In Monacos case)

On the other hand, everyone involved with F1 could collectively send Bernie a letter requesting his immediate and complete retirement from the sport.

Alternatively some smart doctor can produce a new Alzheimer’s vaccine inject Bernie with it, so he would forget any and everything he knows about F1 and has no ability to expound on its future.

Before I leave let me point out irony must be lost on Ecclestone, as many things are, in the Guardian article linked above the last paragraph notes the new track for Italy has been approved.

The track is located in the city of Rome. It’s a street race, the type of track that is the bane of passing now, in the past and will be for the foreseeable future.