THE JOY OF MOTORING
Formula One
Racing pulse
Rowan Pelling
PITY David Coulthard. For the last five Years he's been hurtling round racetracks at breakneck speed being courageous and sportsmanlike (letting his team mate win a race because of a gentleman's agreement about strategy). He's endured hair-raising collisions, avoiding somersaulting cars, has won seven races (in a world where British sportsmen win nothing), and remains a thoroughly decent chap with lovely man- ners. But it takes a near-fatal plane crash before the Great British Public even notices him. Meanwhile, a Dutch footballer sprains his leg and a Swedish pine forest is felled to cope with the Sun's extra print run. Well, I feel for you, David, I really do. Your pain is my pain. Like all burning passions, it's easier look- ing back from a mature stage of the romance to see when the touch-paper was lit. I realise now that some influences can be traced back to my formative years: the mother who insisted on buying Ford Escorts, one after another; the father who drove me to school at a steady 20 mph; the brother I hero-worshipped who took a per- fectly nice MG sports car to bits and could never put it back together again (one door still rusts forlornly in our coal shed). As Anthony Clare could have predicted, this childhood trauma resurfaced in my twen- ties. But he could never have foreseen that my reaction would be so virulent. In short, became obsessed by Formula One. My awakening was like lightning on a cloudless day. It was eight years ago and my then boyfriend had popped out to buy a steak, giving me strict instructions to watch that Sunday's race in case he missed some- thing- I felt mutinous: the EastEnders omnibus was calling me. But some dark fcIrce — call it the spirito di Punto — stayed MY hand. At that very moment a rookie called Eddie Irvine, in his first year in For- mula One, decided to stuff rank and pulled a reckless overtaking move on Ayrton Sedon't I a. The shock was palpable. New boys . overtake world champions. It's not nice, it's not polite, it's just not cricket. Hur- ray! It's Formula One where the bounder is i_ where Terry-Thomas meets Eurotrash and spawns a paddock full of perma-tanned . deboys in shades. As Irvine swept past, the commentator went berserk (later I came to appreciate Murray Walker's ability to make a motor race sound like the storming of the Iranian Embassy) and the camera flashed from the happy, smiling face of Eddie Jordan, Irvine's then boss, to the sour visage of Frank Williams, Senna's employer. Then the penny dropped: no need to turn over to EastEnders, Formula One is the per- fect soap opera. And, sod football, it's the perfect sport for women who like some plot with their action.
Consider the evidence: a manageable cast of characters (there are only ever about 20 drivers in Fl), plenty of extras (mechanics and aerodynamicists), charac- ter parts (team bosses and Sid Watkins, the Fl medic), occasional guest stars (Prince Rainier of Monaco, Phil Collins and Sylvester Stallone), love interest (if Betty Hill, Damon's mum, is Pauline Fowler, then Danni Minogue, now married to Jacques Villeneuve, is surely Tiffany Mitchell) and, best of all, an anti-hero, who's clawed his way up from the bottom and commands all the puppet-strings from his Fl motorhome. What would Fl be without Bernie Ecclestone? He's Dirty Den and J.R. Ewing rolled into one — a trawlerman's son who became Britain's highest paid businessman. His wife even looks like a Slavic Sue Ellen. And then there's that other vital ingredient, the one it's not nice to talk about, which is as inevitable in Fl as it is essential to the art of the soap opera. It's Death, of course.
Death rides pillion with the Fl driver like the slaves in the chariots of Roman generals who whispered in their ear, `Remember, you are only mortal.' It's unfashionable to say so, but it's Death that makes Fl so bloody sexy. Like bullfighting, it's the last refuge of the real man, the man who would stand between his girl and a
THE JOY OF MOTORING
bullet and who'd volunteer for duty behind enemy lines. Rugby players and footballers may have heart and stamina, they may even have charisma, but you can't say they look Death in the face every time they trot on to the pitch. They don't speed on at 200 mph while a colleague is scraped out of the tyre- wall. I'll never forget Martin Brundle doing a television interview five minutes after his car had launched itself over three other cars, flown hundreds of metres through the air, and done a treble somersault before splintering into wheels, nose and chassis. Compare that with Paul Gascoigne who bursts into tears if he's so much as tripped up. Crying is frowned on in the macho world of Fl. When Mika Hakkinen wept last year at Silverstone after a driving error took him out of the lead, I was so mortified I had to turn off the television.
Which is why I'm mystified by the swelling band of female football support- ers, clutching cans of lager and being well 'ard on the terraces. How can they stom- ach all those long-haired Nancies, forever kissing one another, or whimpering that the nasty big boy attacked them, while their flabby bellies and soft calves show that they do as much training in the pub as on the pitch? If, on the other hand, you're ever lucky enough to see a Fl driv- er out of his kit (yes I have — no, not telling) then you'll get an eyeful of the most finely honed physique you're ever likely to encounter. You can't drive a Fl car unless you're in tip-top condition both because you need to fit into a cockpit the size of a child's canoe and because the G- forces exerted on the body, particularly the neck, are so considerable. And since all those intimations of mortality make racing-drivers feel horny and racing- drivers make girls feel horny, it's no won- der the pit-lanes are stuffed with models and dolly birds: gather ye rosebuds while ye may. And some of these boys are clever (for sportsmen). Damon Hill is the Albert Camus of British motor-sport, riven with existential angst, Coulthard is like David Niven with his over-sculpted jaw and ready wit, Johnny Herbert is instinctive, a Michael Caine character, while Eddie Irvine is Byron: mad, bad and dangerous to know. And why swoon over David Beckham, when you can prostrate yourself at pretty Jenson Button's feet? If all this fails to inspire, slake your lust on the rac- ing cars themselves. The thought of all that horsepower is enough to set anyone's loins on fire.
So let us hear no more about football being the new sex. Football is for ladettes. Real women watch Formula One — then rush upstairs for some quality time with the Autosport centrefold, the new Ferrari.
Rowan Pelling is editor of the Erotic Review.
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