The Formula One fracas featuring warring factions Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes partner, if not best friend, Nico Rosberg is all set to run and run ...
And who will benefit? Answer: The thrill-hungry likes of you, me and the millions of Grand Prix enthusiasts worldwide, as well as the series showcase’s stage manager Bernie Ecclestone who is anxious to ensure value for money for those packing the stadia or watching the unfolding drama on television.
It would be remiss of me not to confess, I am sure in keeping with the sport’s eager fan following, that the battle between Hamilton, the champion, and Rosberg, who desperately craves his crown, is bursting with intrigue enough to get us awakening at dawn and even earlier to watch the outcome on the box if we cannot be trackside.
Whatever protective frontage Mercedes build to shut out and hide the feud between the resentful twosome ahead of the next confrontation in Monaco may only be an easily ripped down wall when the teammates, in name only, get stuck into each other as simmering revenge for their crucial and costly crash in Spain when each blamed the other and neither was punished by the team — though legend Niki Lauda, a Mercedes principal, did dub Hamilton as “stupid”.
And Sir Jackie Stewart, three times world champion, opined he should have been punished for his disastrous plunge into the narrowest of spaces left by a slowing Rosberg who had rather misjudged his performance set-up.
At varying levels of intensity all F1 drivers are ego-trippers desperate to bask in the glory of dash and daring antics at 200-plus mph aiming for the narrowest of gaps left by the guy ahead ... à la Hamilton, anxious to make a comeback, and Rosberg equally intent on ensuring his foe fails, last Sunday in Spain.
And why not? Virtual parade laps with cars, nose to boring tail, unable or unwilling to challenge for an overtake are a yawn and the heavily-paying customers in close-up trackside want to get their money’s worth with all-out action, incidents, near-misses, valiant effort — with drivers’ courage and skill compensating for differences in the speed and performance of their cars against the others.
If the teams’ hierarchy were fans and they did not have to fork out fortunes to fund their drivers’ mess-ups, they would, I am sure, share the wishes of the spectators who gloat over the crash-bang-wallop interaction on track.
We watchers are not interested in corrective behavioural counselling by team managers on the deeds of a driver who may have taken a risk
too many to move up a place getting the crowd to its feet but creating a dent in the team coffers.
Down the years tense loggerhead racing and confrontation between teammates has fascinated F1 followers worldwide and ensured packed houses.
I tingle now at the action replays in my mind’s eye ... Ayrton Senna versus Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell v Nelson Piquet, dozens more, and now Hamilton versus Rosberg.
For sure they will be hard at it next week in Monaco, that most treacherously narrow circuit, hilly and bumpy, with unforgiving steel barriers barely millimetres inches away in the tightest of turns.
I can’t wait. And I just hope the Mercedes management do not attempt to enforce a caution into the efforts of champion Hamilton and Rosberg, a fearsome competitor, giving his all to snatch the world crown.
So, chaps, go for it ... thrill a watching world.
