Tom’s Take: Inspiration… Move Me Brightly

Schumi takes a maiden Ferrari win at Barcelona. Image Credit: Motor Trend Archives

Tom’s Take: Inspiration… Move Me Brightly

By Tom Stahler

I just finished watching the Netflix feature, Schumacher. This marvelous document brought back many memories — as Michael and I began our big-time motorsports careers at the same time: MSC with Ford-powered Bennetton Formula One cars and me at Dearborn, Michigan’s Campbell and Company serving Michael Kranefuss at Ford’s Special Vehicle Operations division, as a young racing PR man.

This is not a story about our respective careers though. This is the contrast of top-tier race drivers of just 25 years ago and the silly children that drive in the series today. In just a quarter-century, drivers — and the populous for that matter — have changed significantly.

While everyone is talking about the Monza chicanery between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen — and a season that is stacking up to be a classic title-fight, ala Hill/von Tripps, Hunt/Lauda, Senna/Prost, Schumacher/Hakkinen — I am still lingering on the sad revelations of the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix.

For those of you out there with an attention span longer than a gnat, in this era of the 24-hour news cycle, tic-toc and rampant a-literacy, you may remember the race three weeks ago. A Grand Prix, run on the mythical Spa-Francorchamps Circuit, for two rainy laps behind a safety car.

Huh? What the actual fuck?

I woke up late on Sunday, 29 August. A Saturday night of revelry with friends here in my more recent home of Phoenix, Arizona left me a bit fatigued. Thank goodness for my F1TV subscription… no more VCRs or DVRs. The 6:00 am PST start time of the race would be personally abandoned in favor of walking the dogs, making a lavish breakfast of eggs benedict and hitting the play button on F1TV at about 8:30 am.

What I saw got my blood pumping immediately. Rain! Bucketfuls of glorious, equalizing, legend-crowning rain for the twitchy, open wheel monsters that were lined up on the grid. This is going to be a race! My mind trailed back to a young Ayrton Senna at Monaco and Donnington, Michael Schumacher at Barcelona and so many great rain races.

Then. Nothing.

No rooster tails. No wheel-choking overtakes. No pirouettes into pillow-like tire barriers. Nope. Just a bunch of pansy hairdressers crying about “not being able to see.” I was astonished, but sadly, not surprised.

As I fast-forwarded through the broadcast, absolutely sure there would be a race start soon, all I experienced was the droning on of the commentators, with nothing to report, and images of officials, drivers, team principals and crew looking like the famed Norman Rockwell painting, Tough Call — as the baseball umps surmised the droplets coming from the sky.

Image Credit: Art.com

Fast forward some more. Ah! A rolling start with a couple laps behind the safety car. Nope. Those two laps that carved through the moist mist of the Ardenne Forrest WAS THE GRAND PRIX! Thus proving that qualifying is now more important than the race itself in the face of inclement weather.

Disappointed? No. Frustrated?? You bet!

Baby Boomers and their kids, the millennials, have spent their efforts trying to remove the stink out of shit, creating a generation of pussies that would be laughable at a Grand Prix just 25 years ago. Seventy-six years earlier, on that same hallowed ground near Spa-Francorchamps, brave young allied soldiers slugged it out with the Nazis, and changed the course of World War II, in a six-week long, bloody counter-offensive, known in history books as the Battle of the Bulge. Sadly, the future leaders of the world do not possess the grit and determination of the generation that cleared an earth-wide swath for progress — and the most narcissistic generations in history, concerned only with selfies and upset about mean tweets.

Schumacher is about the grit and sheer determination of a middle-class kid from Kerpen, Germany, who along with basketball great, Michael Jordan, became the highest paid athletes in the world at the time. Schumacher’s ability to inspire his team, wring extra 100ths of a second out of a second-rate car, put in the time, blood, sweat and tears, resulted in a 5-peat of Formula One World Championships for Scuderia Ferrari. This was a hero! The drivers at Spa in 2021? Zeros.

What is wrong with today’s stars?

While a fortunate few in the last 30 years of Formula One got there on their abilities, Schumacher being the beacon, most of the drivers on the Formula One grid are dilettantes. Think Lance Stroll and Nikita Mazepin — to name the top lucky sperm club winners — whose daddys are billionaires. America’s Gene Haas’ car is painted in the national colors of Russia! Talk about collusion! Stroll’s father bought a team so he could control his son’s career. The further you go up the grid, it may surprise you how many “rent-a-rides” actually exist in the top tier of motor racing.

Image Credit: The Guardian

Earlier in the year, Mazepin, finishing dead last, with a number of mishaps through the weekend in his first Grand Prix, declared the experience “the worst day of my life.” Wow! if driving a Formula One car amongst the world’s glitterai with a checkbook worth $Millions, surrounded by “affordable” high-maintenance women is the worst day of your life, it’s easy to guess this is a guy who doesn’t have many bad days.

It also describes the elitist attitude these guys have. It shows in pure hostility for the fans who pay exorbitant amounts for a ticket to watch these young princes. Oh, during the interviews they robotically thank the fans (I’m sure its in their contract somewhere), but the real reason for the two safety car laps with an official result was so the promoters didn’t have to give a dime back to the ticket holders.

Think back to the 2005 US Grand Prix at Indianapolis when the lion’s share of the grid pitted before the start of the race because of “bad Michelins.” It was the same kind of arrogant farce as F1 raised its middle finger to the fans.

Racing in the rain. Making cars dance. Skill, no matter the chassis and engine, rises to the top. I know a number of female race drivers who would have gladly taken the opportunity to start a Grand Prix with the grid-equalizing rain. The emasculated (take a look at some of Lewis’ fashion statements) “men” who climb into these cars won’t race in a cloudburst. Sadly, it mirrors society today. Toxic masculinity? I think not. They are a bunch of girly-men.

This is why I enjoyed Schumacher so much. He was a family patron, a team leader, a champion amongst champions — and most of all a man.

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About the author: Tom Stahler has spent the better part of his motorsport writing career raising eyebrows, embarrassing dynasties, elevating historical footnotes to the forefront, and opining on the automotive world topics others in the business won’t touch. In the process Stahler has won numerous industry awards for his words including the Motor Press Guild’s Dean Batchelor Award, The International Automotive Press’ Gold Medal amongst others. He resides in Phoenix, Arizona with his two dogs “Enzo” and “Taffy von Tripps.”