Sau Paulo GP – will God play dice with the weather, or will He back His man?

The last race of the year is at a wonderful circuit in a troubled but atmospheric city in the heart of a passionate country. And this country is passionate about Formula One. To say that is not to say that everyone in the streets of Sao Paulo will be following the race, or that the teeming masses who scrape a subsistence living in the dangerous slums think about the sport much or at all. But this is a country in which an unusually high proportion of the public not only follow the sport closely but are much better informed about it than most people in the UK. There are daily sports papers in Brazil, just as there are in many countries outside the British Isles. And these papers report the facts of the season in great detail as well as providing comment. The facts are generally kept separate from the opinion.

I like Sao Paulo although it is not a pretty place. If you look at my postings about this race last year you will know that there is good food and wine and friendly warm people. There is also an underbelly: parts of the city where it is best not to venture unless you are the sort of person who can blend into the scenery like a human chameleon. The folk I will call the paddock-people usually stand out because everything they wear looks brand new. There is perhaps a way of walking that signals a casual self-assurance that is perhaps a very self-conscious act, and there may be a way of talking that suggests an unusual confidence that everyone else will be eager to hear one’s words; but there are always those brand new clothes. There are also the items of personal jewellery: by their watches you shall know them. And here’s the rub. There are huge swathes of Sao Paulo where a Rolex or a Breitling, or a TAG Heuer, invites an armed robbery that could turn nasty in the blink of an eye. Stories of fingers being cut off to steal rings are usually urban myths. But in Sao Paulo it is hard to be certain.

So a lot of this city will be a no-go area for most of the paddock and most of the press, though the more concupiscent among these people may risk an exciting taxi ride to one of the dubious ‘clubs’ in one of the shadowy districts of the place. Everyone will suffer the snail like progress of the traffic on the motorway that circles the city and passes right by the circuit. Except for the gilded few who will swoop over the traffic jams to arrive by helicopter. I suppose what I mean is that few people at all from Formula One will have any opportunity to walk the streets of the city or get a feeling for its life and its people. That is a pity. Great, I might say exaggerated, wealth places you at a distance from what the rest of us would call real life. And celebrity sends you to an altogether different planet. The time was when grand prix drivers were heroes but not celebrities. Now their celebrity often blinds people to their heroism.

Much is being made of Lewis Hamilton’s exposure to racism. If anything is certain it is that Brazil, like all of Latin America, is not a racist society. There may be overpowering snobbery, particularly amongst the patrician families who can trace their history back to the first colonial invasion, but the population is a genuine mixture of native South Americans, Europeans, and Africans who came initially as slaves of course. This racial mix is at the heart of Brazil and Lewis, with his white mother and black father, will be viewed purely as another human being. Despite this he will not be popular here with a crowd that hopes that Felipe Massa’s bad luck this season can somehow transfer to McLaren’s number one. They will want to see their countryman win.

One thing that will not help make Lewis popular is that he speaks English. There really is widespread hostility to the USA in most of Latin America, and speaking the same language tends to leave the British tarred with the same brush. Come to think of it we Brits are possibly viewed as a bunch of maritime pirates who somehow seized control of much of the world. I suppose we do still have quite a firm grip on motorsport, though there are now only a few privateers in the paddock…..

Long term readers of this blog will know that I was tremendously impressed by Lewis Hamilton when he entered F1. Gradually I became aware that his public manner was not what I would have hoped for, and recently he has irritated me enormously. Part of this has come from his team, and much of it has come from his puerile cheerleaders among the press. But a big part of it is down to Lewis himself. He has chosen to promote himself and his own view of his central importance to Formula 1 at every opportunity. Other drivers may feel the same way but they are all much less egocentric in public. Lewis gave my patience another test after the race in China, which he had won very easily in a car with a big technical advantage on the day. This was the opening exchange of the post-race press conference:

Q: Lewis, it looked as if everything went perfectly for you in that race?
Lewis HAMILTON: Yeah, all weekend we have had God on our side as always.

I realise that there are many people who would regard this as perfectly reasonable but it gives great offense to me. I am a quiet atheist and dislike people parading their beliefs in this sort of style. Any close reading of the New testament reveals that Jesus himself spoke against this sort of self-justification through belief, so Christians should be offended too. The basic problem with sportspeople saying that God helped them to victory is that it is a direct insult to all their competitors. It reveals that the speaker believes that there is some quality that they possess that has been recognised by God, who has singled them out. He she or it has poured confusion on their enemies and borne them to victory. In the spirit of Christian evangelicalism, which is where I believe Lewis is coming from, this means that the speaker is saved, has been born again in Christ, and is one of God’s chosen: whereas the others are the sinful damned who will suffer misfortune in life and a final painful obliteration at Armageddon.The final word on God and sport was well made by the great golfer Lee Trevino. He said that if there is a lightning storm the safest thing to do is hold a one-iron above your head because "Even God can’t hit a one-iron".

Lewis said something about God riding in the cockpit with him a year ago and I commented on it then. Since then he has stuck to his PR script and talked mainly about himself. Now the mask has slipped again, and I like what is revealed no more than I enjoy his usual repetitive self-absorption. Make no mistake, this man is a great driver and will be a major force in the sport for many years. He may even mellow and mature as a man, and I think that it would be good for him if he fails to win the championship again this year as it might kick-start this process of growing up and gaining a dignified humility.

I find myself writing the same things as last year before this race. Lewis has almost certainly secured the championship and only a very lucky race could bring it to Felipe, though Ferrari are well placed to secure the manufacturers’ championship. The weather forecast suggests rain on Sunday and another chaotic race could be the result. While this is hardly anticipated with relish by Maranello it is exactly the sort of thing that might derail the McLaren cruise to the championship. The temperatures this year are forecast to be cooler than usual so the hand of Bridgestone may have already weighted the scales in McLaren’s favour by bringing harder tyres than last year to Brazil. On the other hand both McLarens are running used engines while the Ferraris have fresh ones. Ferrari are behind because of earlier unreliability but McLaren have had a bad run recently with Heikki Kovalainen’s car. The odds may seem clearly in Lewis’s favour but as always anything could happen.

I spent Tuesday at Rye House, perhaps the first really good kart track built in the UK. It is now looking better than ever in spite of its awkward location. I was helping with a young cadet-karter making his first steps in the sport. It gave me the opportunity to re-acquaint myself with ‘karting dads’. It made me think about Lewis Hamilton’s roots in karting (pictures of him are displayed prominently in the impressive new race centre) and about the family commitment needed to run these young children in what is a very technical sport even at cadet-kart level. You can also hurt yourself in these entry-level karts and everyone involved must always be aware that there are risks at every level of motorsport. This leads me towards two lovely quotes. Massa’s very striking mother was in the pits in China. Generally it is a hard thing for mothers to watch their children in any dangerous sport like motor racing, and I love Felipe’s comment during Thursday’s press conference:

“For sure I don’t follow so much the advice from my mum, otherwise I would go very slow!”

Elsewhere Fernando Alonso has made a remark that perfectly sums up my own feelings as we wait for this final race:

"I said many times that I have great respect for Lewis …… We have no problems.”
"But I think I will always prefer to see any team other than McLaren winning."

So will most of the people watching in Brazil….Ciao