Moan, moan. It's growing tiresome to hear some of Formula One's top drivers complain about the new and slower teams whose cars are bound to get in their way again this weekend on the narrow streets of Monaco.
Take Lewis Hamilton, for example. One would think that McLaren's former world champion owns the track from the way he has grumbled about slower cars taking their time to move aside so that his majesty could lap them.
``I nearly collided with a couple of them,'' the British driver said after the Spanish Grand Prix last weekend. ``It does get very dangerous because there's such a big speed difference.''
It's hard to feel much sympathy for drivers complaining about traffic when they are among the world's best with a steering wheel and are paid so richly for their ability to overtake.
A more constructive solution would be to give serious consideration to a proposal from Tony Fernandes, the boss of new team Lotus, that F1 scrap its requirement that slow cars move aside when being lapped.
``It was shrieked about when I first mentioned it, even within my team,'' Fernandes says, speaking to The Associated Press by telephone from Monaco. ``It's certainly worth looking at, and it's gathering a bit of speed.''
Within the Formula One Teams Association, ``It raised a few eyebrows. But I got a better reaction than I thought, to be honest.''
Fernandes, of course, is not neutral in this argument. His cars are among the slowest in F1.
Still, no more blue flags. Worth thinking about. Instead of having the track conveniently cleared for them by flag-waving marshals ordering lapped cars aside, fast drivers would actually have to work to get past them.
Lapped drivers would then become part of the racing, fast-moving obstacles that must be skillfully negotiated instead of unwanted nuisances that the likes of Hamilton feel free to bawl at when they don't get out of the way double-quick. F1 could benefit from the added spectacle, because there have been moments of boredom this season when rain hasn't fallen to make tracks slick and exciting. One can only hope that there's some truth to the warnings of chaos this weekend in Monaco because there will be so many cars crammed onto the tight and twisting track.
A criticism that could be leveled at new teams Lotus, Virgin and HRT is that they have been so far off the pace that they aren't contributing much to F1's show. But that hardly seems fair when one also considers that they are forced to slow to a crawl the moment faster cars come near them. It's hard to contribute to the spectacle when you're under orders to be invisible, too.
In F1, moving aside when being lapped isn't a matter of good manners. Drivers can be penalized for ignoring three blue flags.
``I seem to spend more than half the race just watching the blue flags,'' Lotus driver Jarno Trulli says. ``It requires a lot of concentration because the speed difference is quite a lot and you are going to hit blue flags nearly every lap.''
Any safety repercussions of abandoning blue flags would need examining. There is also the risk that without the rule, slow drivers could have too much influence over the outcome of races. A lapped team that relies on Ferrari or Renault for its engines, for example, could conceivably allow those manufacturers' cars to get past them while blocking other opponents.
Fernandes' arguments are enticing, too. He described an imaginary scenario where Hamilton could be leading a race but then be stuck behind slower lapped cars which are not forced to make way, allowing another top driver like Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull to catch up.
``And maybe Vettel makes a great move, and goes from third to first. That's what people want to see,'' Fernandes said.
``In the good old days there were no blue flags. There are no blue flags in NASCAR and IndyCar, and it's more exciting and I think it's actually safer,'' he added. ``I do think blue flags sometimes actually cause more headaches and are bigger safety issues than not having blue flags. The driver who has to make way is constantly thinking, 'Should I maybe go left? Right?'''
More broadly, it is still too early to say whether the new teams truly merit their place in F1. Their multiple technical problems and sluggishness in this season's first five races suggest that it still takes massive amounts of money to be competitive in F1. It was a little embarrassing that in practice on Thursday in Monaco, one of the Virgins and both HRTs were actually slower than the fastest car in GP2, which is F1's kid-brother series.
Still, Fernandes insists that Lotus is making progress and that ``next year we'll be in the middle of the pack.''
``The gap is closing,'' he says. ``It's just a matter of time.''
---
John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester(at)ap.org
