This Week in Motorsport

Formula Fun!
Formula One World Championship
Round 1
Australian Grand Prix
Sunday, 16 March 2014

Round 2
Malaysian Grand Prix
Sunday, 30 March 2014

Round 3
Bahrain Grand Prix
Sunday, 6 April 2014

There were many, many driver changes in the F1 off-season, but through the first three grands prix of the year the main story, the only story that matters, is the baleful sound produced by the formula's new turbocharged V-6 engines. The high-pitched wail of old naturally-aspirated V-8 engines made my soul sing, touching a nerve inside my brain that said, "I love this;" the closest comparison I can make for the new, low-pitched growl of the turbo V-6s is to a Diesel tractor trailer, such as those that rumble down America's highways & byways. Honest! I didn't realize how important the V-8 wail was to the F1 experience 'til it was gone; I knew I had it good, but I didn't know how good. The latest grand prix was exciting, far & away the most exciting race I'd ever seen run around the flat-as-a-pancake Bahrain International Circuit, but there was still something essential missing. The sound of the engines has removed a key element that made watching an F1 grand prix joyful.

Of the three engine manufacturers in the series, Mercedes-Benz has adapted to the new engine formula better than either Renault or Ferrari. All the Mercedes-powered teams are doing well, none better than the factory Mercedes A.M.G. team, which has secured all three pole positions & won all three grands prix (Australia: Nico Rosberg, Malaysia & Bahrain: '08 World Champion Lewis Hamilton), including one-two finishes at both Malaysia & Bahrain. Reigning four-time Constructors' Champions Red Bull (Renault) (10, '11, '12, & '13) are struggling with their low-revving Renault "power units" (official lingo, as the cars don't have "engines" anymore, I suppose because they have two electric generators supplementing the internal combustion engine that still does the heavy lifting), but have still managed to finish on the podium at Australia & Malaysia & fourth at Bahrain. (Daniel Ricciardo, replacing the retired-from-F1 Mark Webber, finished second at his home grand prix in Australia, but was disqualified, pending appeal.) This is going to be a long, trying season for the defending champs unless Renault—which propels Toro Rosso, Lotus, & Caterham in addition to Red Bull—can work out the bugs in their underpowered "power unit." Reigning four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel's ('10, '11, '12, & '13) bid for a record-tying fifth consecutive championship looks decidedly imperiled, though the season is yet young.

It is really hard to get excited about F1 this year, that's how bad the power units engines sound. The cars are also ugly as sin, even uglier than they were last year with the regrettable "duck-bill" noses. These monstrosities are the last thing a young boy would want as a poster on his wall, they're so hideous. Yet even the rolling eyesore problem is small potatoes compared to the sound issue. The "Formula Fun!" title might have to be retired in favor of something more pessimistic, like "Formula Flub" or "Formula Done." It is almost as if F1 was too good, too enjoyable, & the F.I.A. had to break it because, like the Narrator in Fight Club, they "wanted to destroy something beautiful."

Indy Rock
IndyCar Series
Round 1
Grand Prix of Saint Petersburg
Sunday, 30 March 2014

I knew the F1 cars didn't sound good, but I didn't realize quite how bad they sounded until the IndyCar season opener. Last year, IndyCar's turbocharged V-6s couldn't hold a candle to F1's naturally-aspirated V-8s, but this year IndyCar's wailing turbocharged V-6s knock the socks off of F1's rumbling turbocharged V-6s. This is to my recollection the very first time that America's indigenous open-wheeled series, which I have enjoyed but regarded as F1's yokel cousin, has compared favorably to the globetrotting international open-wheeled extravaganza.

Will Power of Penske (Chevrolet), who finished second in the championship in '10, '11, & '12 but had an uncharacteristically lackluster 2013, was back to his classic form, passing pole-sitter Takuma Sato of Foyt (Honda) in the early running & never looking back. The race was pretty clean for a street circuit, lined as they are with concrete walls that provide precious little margin for error, with only one extended yellow late in the day. Here's hoping that augurs well for the rest of the year's street races, though I won't be holding my breath. The next race, the venerable Grand Prix of Long Beach, is also on a temporary street circuit.

By Endurance We Conquer
United SportsCar Championship
Round 1
24 at Daytona (A.K.A. the "24 Hours of Daytona")
Saturday & Sunday, 25-26 January 2014

Round 2
12 Hours of Sebring
Saturday, 15 March 2014

It is early days yet for the blandly named United SportsCar Championship (U.S.C.C.), the Frankenstein's monster wrought from the merger of the American Le Mans Series (A.L.M.S.) & the Grand-Am (sponsor) Sports Car Series, but what's been seen on-track is far from encouraging. The officiating has been laughably bad, & fully half of Sebring's twelve hours was spend running under yellow flags due to caution-period procedures that appear to have been devised by someone who had never before seen a motor race. Crashes happen, which means yellow flags must be flown for safety's sake, but there is a right way & a wrong way to do these things. So far, the U.S.C.C. has been all thumbs. They're acknowledged the undeniable & changes to the rules have been put in place for the next round at Long Beach, but given the merged series's mantra, "Getting it right, the first time" & how badly they got it wrong the first time, I have no confidence that they'll do any better on the second try.

The "balance of performance" in the top Prototype category is a joke. Prior to this year, the Le Mans Prototype 2 (L.M.P.2, or just "P.2") cars from the A.L.M.S. were vastly swifter than Grand-Am's primitive Daytona Prototypes at every track on which both types of cars ran, but with the weight, horsepower, & aerodynamic advantages that were given to the D.P.s in the off-season, combined with the weight, horsepower, & aerodynamic disadvantages to the P.2s, there is no fair competition in the Prototype class. The D.P.s cannot lose, despite their obvious disadvantages. It was bad enough that N.A.S.C.A.R., the owners of the U.S.C.C., banned the way cool, top-tier P.1-class prototypes, but now to have made the P.2s artificially inferior to the D.P.s, well, it's as if they've sucked all the oxygen out of the room. The new series feels like seventy per cent (70%) Grand-Am to only thirty per cent (30%) A.L.M.S., which was not what we fans were promised &, given the A.L.M.S. significantly greater popularity than Grand-Am, not what was in the new series's own best interests.

In G.T. Le Mans, the A.L.M.S.'s amazing G.T. category, transferred over without any changes & thus the only category not handicapped by ovular, inferior Continental tires, the brand-new Corvette Stingray C7.R has been competitive the brand-new-for-2013, all-conquering Porsche 911 RSR, except for mechanical unreliability, i.e., breakdowns. There hasn't been enough green-flag running to know whether the Corvettes can make up any of that lost time. Here's hoping the bugs are worked out before Le Mans, where the 911s were in a league of their own last year.

Below is a missive I posted to the U.S.C.C.'s FaceSpace page, in the probably vain hope that this train wreck of a series can be saved from itself, & with it the future of endurance racing in these United States.

To whom it may concern:
As a fan of the A.L.M.S., I was deeply concerned when the series was purchased by N.A.S.C.A.R., whose Grand-Am series had never been half as interesting as the A.L.M.S. I was encouraged by the inclusion of A.L.M.S. management personnel into the new U.S.C.C. structure & the prominence given to the august I.M.S.A. name as the "new" sanctioning body. Sure, the mantra "Getting it right, the first time" was a bad joke, exposed when the name of the new series changed from the uninspired United SportsCar Racing to the uninspiring United SportsCar Championship, but there was every reason to believe those behind the scene really were trying to get it right, the second or third or fourth time.

To this point, after two races, almost nothing has gone right. The officiating has been outrageous & the procedures have been a nightmare, faults acknowledged by the rules changes put in place ahead of Long Beach. The so-called "balance of performance" between the formerly sluggish Daytona Prototypes & the formerly swift Le Mans Prototypes has confirmed my worst fears: that this new series is not a merger between Grand-Am & the A.L.M.S., but Grand-Am, almost the same as before with just a little bit of A.L.M.S. window dressing. The imbalance of performance proves that N.A.S.C.A.R.—sorry, "I.M.S.A."—has no interest in creating a level playing field for the former A.L.M.S. teams. Including them in the U.S.C.C. is nothing but a cynical attempt to curry favor with the A.L.M.S.'s much larger fan base.

I love endurance racing & would hate for there not to be an American endurance racing series worth watching. Right now, alas, there is not an American endurance racing series worth watching. But it is not too late to fix this mess. You have the rest of this season to keep tinkering, to keep trying to get it right, be it for sixth or the seventh or the eighth time. But you do not have forever. If nothing changes through the rest of 2014, I won't be back in 2015. I speak only for myself, but I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking along these lines. Get it right, gentlemen, or I'll have to content myself with seeing my beloved Corvettes compete just once a year, at Le Mans.

Mike Wilson

P.S. Please prove me wrong. Please get this right & make the United SportsCar Championship worth my while.