article in The Guardian 31.7.03

[The Moon Monkey]

any views on this article?

Formula one is nothing but a global circus for the white and rich

Martin Jacques
Thursday July 31, 2003
The Guardian

Formula one likes to think of itself as one of the three great global sports, along with the Olympics and the World Cup. The sport's claim to such elevated status rests on the fact that it stages 16 races every season across the world, all of which are televised worldwide. Moreover, declare the Bernie-istas, formula one takes place every year, whereas the World Cup and the Olympic Games are limited to once every four years. Their case rests.
On these grounds, formula one is a global sport. Races this season are being held in Malaysia, Japan, Brazil, the United States, Canada and Australia, as well as the usual venues in Europe; next season China will be added to the menu, probably followed in due course by others such as Bahrain and perhaps India. That is not a bad geographical spread. Races are also shown on television in many countries, though not infrequently on obscure channels with small audiences.
These, though, are the only ways in which formula one can be described as global. The 20 drivers are, with the exception of the three Latin Americans, all from the developed world. Wander round the paddock and you will be hard pressed to find a non-white face. No team principals, no designers, no team managers, one driver: a sea of white faces. You will find only a handful of exceptions: the odd mechanic, Michael Schumacher's physio, Jaguar's spin doctor, Bridgestone's boss. How can a sport that is so white claim to be global in a world where whites account for a mere 17% of the population?
Formula one - much more than tennis, even more than golf - is a first world sport whose only concession to globality is a handful of races and a significant television audience in parts of the developing world. This is hardly surprising. More than any other sport, formula one is hugely expensive - and absurdly rewarding (if your name is Bernie, or Ron Dennis or Frank Williams). Only the first world (by which I include Japan) can afford to take part in this kind of extravagance - with the exception of the odd oil company such as Malaysia's Petronas and Brazil's Petrobras.
Formula one calls itself a show; it is an apt description. The races, wherever they are held, are utterly homogeneous: exactly the same timetable, the same officials responsible for running them, the same cars and drivers; moreover the tracks, often penned by the same designer, have acquired an increasingly numbing uniformity. The only variables are the crowd (which the television viewer is utterly unaware of in any case, unlike the crowd at a football match or in an Olympic stadium) and the marshals.
Formula one is globalisation at its most homogenous, in its most extreme western form. It is a first world show for the locals. McDonald's or Kentucky Fried Chicken make greater concessions to local culture - by adapting the menu to the local palate - than formula one.
In comparison, football and the Olympics are truly global sports. Unlike formula one, which is an almost exclusively spectator sport, they are played or performed almost the whole world over. Last year's World Cup was a kaleidoscopic representation of the world's races and cultures: who can forget those extraordinary Korean and Japanese crowds, or the South Korean team, or those from Senegal, Cameroon and, of course, Brazil - the poor, multiracial and multicultural country that is synonymous with the very pinnacle of the sport.
Much the same can be said of athletics. There are very few occasions when Africa achieves pre-eminence on the global stage but one of them is in middle-distance and long-distance running.
These are global sports because they are mass sports. Everyone knows how to run or kick a ball. Unlike golf, which requires huge expanses of manicured real estate and equally large expanses of time, running and football require little or no material resources. Unlike formula one, a show, a circus - nay, in the absence of overtaking, increasingly a contrivance - these sports are accessible to most of humanity, not just the small minority that live in the developed world.
Of course, this is not to say that global inequalities are not reproduced in football or the Olympics. The world's elite of players is concentrated among a small group of European clubs, because that is where the money is. Real Madrid are eloquent testimony to this. But whatever the inequalities, there is no hiding the fact that football also reflects a rough and ready global democracy which is very different from the league table of national GDP/head.
Football and athletics allow us to imagine a different world, to escape from a reality always dominated by the first world, to enjoy and savour a world turned upside down. It is their special magic.
Formula one lies at the opposite end of the scale. It lives, breathes and excretes the domination of the first world. It is a global show, not a global sport.

[jonathanc]

Who cares??

[JimW]

Originally posted by jonathanc
Who cares??

about either the Grauniad or F1.

Jim

[Peter Mallett]

*Yawn*

[Glen]

I don't disagree with any of that, with one exception: the very first bit! F1 doesn't, as far as I can see, consider itself to be anything like the Olympics or the World Cup. It is what it is - the critcism could be levelled at virtually every form of motor-racing, because motor-racing is a product of the first world. Now, that may or may not be a problem in itself - but its an entirely different argument to the one above.

[Cynic]

I'm sure there's some interesting points there........ if you're doing a social-economic degree. Unfortunately, the fact that it's in the Guardian means that the author is probably a white, middle-class male, which makes it seem a tad hypocritical.

[MrSal]

Typical **** Guardian article. Good for wrapping fish and chips in.

[Mekola]

There is one more reason to give to Lewis Hamilton a opportunity to be in F1.

[Peter Mallett]

Political correctness?

[Adam43]

Originally posted by The Moon Monkey
Formula one likes to think of itself as one of the three great global sports, along with the Olympics and the World Cup. The sport's claim to such elevated ...

What a poor way to start an article and it is also the justification of the article.

Surely the accurate assessment is "We (the Guardian) think that Formula One likes to think of itself as..."

Here is a beginning and end of another article "The Guardian's journalists like to think of themselves as very clever and superior...

...It is a national soap box, not a national newspaper."

[Hugh Jarce]

Any article that has the word 'nay' in it says it all!

Must of been lacking 'copy' that day!

By the way, I thought fishing was the number one global sport!

[BootsOntheSide]

Formula 1's interenational TV figures for an average race are in fact only bettered by the World Cup finals and Olympics, so saying that it's considered as the third-biggest sporting event in the world isn'ta big stethc, considerign that there are 48-52 races in teh 4 years between those events.

I think this writer's absoultely correct. the sheer financial needs that F1 has are responsibelf ro the virtual abscence of non-whties, and I agree that his isn't truly global until we rectify this. Can anyone even name 10 non-white / Japanese (you can count Malaysians as that's a poor country by compairson) racing drivers, past or present? Montoya would be a stretch, Jason Watt, Lewis Hamilton, Alex Yoong, Narain Karthekayen (sp?), B Bira, Willy T Ribbs, who else?

[Peter Mallett]

I disagree. This is just an excuse for the Guardian to bring pc into the sport. How many non-white drivers do you see in club racing? Or indeed swimming? I know of a few club racers.

Let's get real here, the article is suggesting that there may be a policy of discrimination. I don't believe there is.

[Matthopps]

It seems to be a flowery attack on the fact that there are very few black (coloured) people in F1 - or the whole of motorsport for that matter. Which is nobody's fault - its just the way things have turned out.

[ralf fan]

You cant blame F1 for having non-white drivers the simple reason for this is that there are hardly any non-white drivers in the leagues condidered to be the stepping stone to a career in F1.(such as Formula 3000 etc.)

[Tim Falce]

Typical anti everything Gaurdian article, I just hope you didnt waste your money buying the paper. I wonder how many blacks actualy have a position of any power in the Guardian. Motor sport is open to anyone who has enough money to enter in to it, nobody funds me because I am white, so why would anyone be funded because they are black? As usual it's PCness gone mad.

[BootsOntheSide]

I don't think the writer referred to any actual racism in F1, and I don't think anyone but the more extreme PC types will read that into it. The article just reminds people that the sport can't truly be 'global' while there is so much expense involved.

However, there aren't many ethnic minority drivers from rich countries getting far - in my previous list only Ribbs and Watt, and I forgot Rob Nyugen. This contrasts greatly with many sports - non-whites make up aorund 10% of Britian's male 17-40 population, yet around 1/3 of its soccer internationals, and many cricketers. Most of the elading US basketball players and athletes are black, and,a lthough tiger Woods and the Williams sisters are virtual one-offs in tehir respective sports, they have done it.

Somesort of funding system needs to be set up to allow kids to get a chance on teh track at a young age. Essentailly the problem is a lack of access for POOR people, not NON-WHITE per se, but it still needs rectifying.

[garcon]

I really can't be bothered to read the article, so I'll just stick to crass generalisations instead...

Presumably, Martin Jacques is from the usual stock of Grauniad contributors. He is white, middle class and probably privately educated. However he's a terrible disappointment to his parents, because he joined the Student Socialists at Cambridge rather than the Young Conservatives. He wears arran cardigans and sandals, and sports an unkempt beard with an inexplicable tinge of ginger. He did once buy a car - a yellow 2CV - but never passed his test, having failed twice for making insufficient progress. He now hates cars, and is undoubtedly a member of Transport 2000. He strongly believes that motorsport should be banned altogether, and that private cars should be priced off the roads to make room for cyclists. He lives in Lambeth, and still supports the Labour group there because they promised to employ more disabled black lesbians.

Is it me?

[Bononi]

What's the point ?

Somebody will say "Oh I'm sorry, we're going to change this !" ???????

Or it's just a subject for old ladies read in a sunday morning ?

[Attila]

I agree with the article, but in my opinion this situation is not F1's fault. Team bosses will not and should not hire drivers based on their racial or nationality backgrounds just to be politically correct. This is the pinnacle of motorsports and to stay that they have to have the best drivers. Right now in my opinion that is the case, every driver excelled in some sort of lower formula.

Without being a little bit of racist on nationalist, in the US it is easier to get a job if one is colored due to the quota requirements. I never liked the idea of being political correct in any society. The great athlets will find their way even if they have a "handycap", just look at the Williams sisters or Tiger Woods. If a very promising, talented individual comes from a third world country, or with "non-caucasean" race, he/she will find the way to F1. Forcing such driver into F1 will only make room for criticism and anger.

Cheers,

[BootsOntheSide]

I'm not sure the cream does rise to the top in motor racing. How many people from African or Asian (other than Japan) countries have so much as driven a racing car, let alone an F1 car, and had the chance to show their ability?

If Michael Schumacher came from one of thse countries, he'd've never reached the top of F1, or even Sportscars or Touring Cars. Likewise, someone form a third cworld country could have to potential to be the wrold's rgeatest racing driver, but never had the chance. maybe Tiger Woods did.

Africans seem to have disproportionate success in sports where money isn't a big object (soccer, atheltics, basketball especially), and Britsh Asians make up much of our cricket team, so the talent is there.

For that matter, how many Africans or Asians have ever held a golf club or tennis racket? Showing your ability in football or atheltics is one thing, but motor racing needs huge funding. Trust me, if a big corporation held a karting ocntest tournament in that part of world, some real talents would emerge.

[Son of Jor-El]

Martin Jacques should really be questioning why there hasn't been a ginger WDC or a WDC who is as bald as a coot!!
(please correct me if there has already been one!)

I believe that he is most certainly accusing F1 to be an "whites only" institution. I don't know about anyone else but it says to me "F1 is racist".

I agree that greater wealth of some countries over others is largely to blame, but his finger is pointing at F1 and FIA. Forget the rest of the gumph about the Olympics and Football, he just doesn't like motorsport!!!

[Lee Janotta]

Screw first world, it's limited to Europe and Japan almost exclusively. The western hemisphere always has been and always will be a secondary consideration to F1. Which was fine with a lot of us up until 1996, when we had a lot of healthy series of our own. Now that's all turned to garbage (even Aussie motorsport is beseiged with financial shortfalls and poor quality of racing).

But, it's up to the rest of us to get our sh*t together, not for Bernie to pander to us. That said, the vast resources a single season of F1 absorbs makes it very difficult for any other series in the world to thrive! Bernie pretty much defines megalomania with regards to motorsport, and while it's made himself and a few others very wealthy, overall his tenure as F1 czar (and Max's concurrent tenure as FIA president) has damaged the sport deeply. So much of F1's spending is pure waste on glitz and glamour, and that overspending is causing the sport to hemmorage money which should instead be returned to the club and national levels to offset the expenses there. If that happened, maybe we wouldn't have to worry about Brands Hatch being plowed under for housing.

[bradenc]

Typical gaurdian, yogurt knitting, whale cleaning, tripe!

[zengiman]

Originally posted by bradenc
Typical gaurdian, yogurt knitting, whale cleaning, tripe!

Seems to me Bernie agrees with the Guardian. That's why he tries to get races in Arab countries, China, Russia and if the infrastructure would be right, South Africa. He knows F1 isn't global and he would like it to be. Races in Western Europe are on the way out, and rightly so.
Bernie has vision, some others have not