I think it was former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone who was quoted as saying that ‘the next F1 superstar could well come from the Amazon……’
I checked but could find no immediately obvious link to the quote, via Google, so I could well have it completely wrong. But it’s one of those little nuggets that have remained in a far-off corner of my brain for use……. well, for use in a column just like this one.
You see, I’ve often wondered why one driver, rider, competitor etc ‘makes it,’ and why another, with the same and often-times very much more talent or skill behind the wheel, er, doesn’t!
Money (or rather the lack of it) is often cited as the main reason, but though I’m sure it is definitely a contributing factor, I’m inclined to think it’s not that simple.
Hence Ecclestone (or whoever’s) quote about where the next F1 superstar is going to come from. What he ‘meant’ (or at least what I ‘think’ he meant) was that no matter how many super-talented teens nursery categories like Karts and Junior MX/Road Racing turn out every year there is actually a lot more chance/happenstance/luck involved in the process than the likes of Ron Dennis (who backed both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg through their last years in karts and into the junior single-seater formulae) would like you to believe.
The pair, as I remember it, were virtually indistinguishable in terms of speed, race craft and results in karts and single seaters, with the cracks only really beginning to show, in Rosberg’s case anyway, after several seasons of F1.
Talent, as another old saying goes, will out. And if you have both the talent, and the burning, all-consuming desire to succeed, as Lewis Hamilton so obviously does, then it is going to be hard on a teammate – any teammate – to keep up, let alone justify his own position with the team. Even if your name is Rosberg…. or Villeneuve…or Hill.
Which (better late than never, I say!) brings me around to the real subject of this week’s column; are great – or even just plain good – racing drivers born, made, or a combination of both?
As per most of the subjects I end up writing about, this week’s literally popped into my head when I saw – but sorry guys, I haven’t yet fully watched – a reference on one of my social media channels to a Jaguar-backed video Mitch and Simon Evans ahead of the penultimate round of the 2018/19 ABB Formula E championship at Bern in Switzerland over the weekend.
To say that Mitch and Simon were born into a motor racing family is something of an understatement. With their father Owen and before him, his father Laurie, each involved in their own way while building up the family panel-beating and spray-painting business, Mitch and Simon are actually third-generation racers.
Which – you’d think – would put them in a fairly exclusive club.
Here and around the world, for instance, there are any number second-generation drivers from F1 down, though only two – Damon Hill and Nico Rosberg have managed to match the ultimate accolade their fathers achieved and also won the annual F1 championship title.
To be fair the rest are a mix of towering talent (the likes of Jacque Villeneuve’s Dad Gilles) and mis-aligned stars (the odd case of Kevin Magnusson’s Dad Jan).
Closer to home, Aussie pioneer Jack Brabham – a three-time World F1 champion – lived to see not one but two of his sons, Gary and David, get to follow him to Formula 1, though in both cases neither managed to make a mark.
If anything, in fact, it would appear harder for a son to emerge from the shadow of a successful father, as – both Michael (son of Mario) and Marco (son of Michael) Andretti, and Christian (son of Emerson) Fittipaldi are wont to prove.
That said your Dad doesn’t necessarily have to be a World Champion to help you get you a leg-up (or fast track) to F1.
Here I’m thinking specifically of the obviously brilliant and mercurial French-Canadian Gilles Villeneuve’s famous battle with Rene Arnoux for second place in the French Grand Prix of 1979.
I’ll also include the similarly flamboyant, but still very much alive, Jos Verstappen in this particular word picture as well, for no better reason than the impact the bugger had when he rocked up to race a Formula Pacific here back in 1991.
Both flared as quickly and brightly as a lit match before circumstances got the better of their life (Villeneuve) or career (Verstappen).
Neither stopped sons Jacque and Max going on to great(er) things, however.
Here, of course, we are perfectly positioned to watch as several multi-generational scenarios play themselves out in real time.
One – obviously – involves the Evans family, with both Mitch and Simon now racing at the highest global level outside F1 – on the ABB Formula E/Jaguar I-Pace e-Trophy platform.
Then there are the other third generation family groupings currently bubbling under on the world scene, one with its roots in Ashburton (OK Tinwald if you want to split hairs), the other in Feilding.
Though he was born in the United States, and has lived most of his life in Australia, the current Mazda Road To Indy USF2000 $200K Scholarship winner, recent series race winner, and series runner-up at the half-way point of the 2019 US season, Hunter McElrea, considers New Zealand ‘home.’
Which is fair enough because Dad Andy and Mum Melanie still retain strong links with their families here, despite living and working on Australia’s Gold Coast for the past 15 or so years.
One of the reasons for those links is the presence of family patriarch Rod McElrea, who – in 2017 – suited up with son Andy and grandson Hunter to contest the Timaru round of the South Island Endurance Series in a Toyota 86.
There’s also a strong familial link – believe it or not – with one of New Zealand’s other third-generation racing families, the Lesters.
While the names of family patriarch Rob, racing son Richard and racing daughter Debbie, and Richard’s sportscar racing son Jono Lester, should be familiar with most readers of this column, the name of Debbie and husband John Evans’ son Jaxon (main picture) might not.
Born in Levin and initially raised here before, like the McElreas, the Evans family crossed the Tasman seeking new opportunities, Jaxon raced karts in Australia and here, contesting the 2014 ProKart series in the KZ2 class, before returning to Australia and a fast-track ride to a win in last year’s Porsche Wilson Security Carrera Cup Australia championship with…McElrea Racing!
Not only did the 22-year-old win the 2018 Australian title, like the driver who he replaced on the McElrea Racing squad, young Aussie Matt Campbell, the year before, Evans also won Porsche Motorsport’s Junior Programme Shootout, held – in Europe – a month later.
That win, in turn, earned Evans a drive in this year’s F1-supporting Porsche Mobil 1 SuperCup Series, won by another globe-trotting Kiwi, Earl Bamber, back in 2014.
It was that win which propelled Bamber from a talented young driver who raced a Porsche, to a driver with a coveted works contract with the Porsche factory in his back pocket. And it was that contract which saw him reach the pinnacle of the sports car racing world, competing in and winning the Le Mans 24-hour race.
This talk about ‘poppas, dads and lads’ is all very well of course. But if it is nature vs nurture there can be no better illustration available here or anywhere in the world at the moment, for that matter than that between two of our current ‘favourite sons,’ second-generation’ racer Marcus Armstrong, and arch-rival (but motorsport newbie) Liam Lawson.
Each – in my humble opinion anyway – is the ‘real deal.’ Yet bar the obvious ability to drive the wheels of whatever is put underneath them the two could come from two completely different planets.
One – Marcus – grew up around cars and was watching his Dad race them with success from an early age.
The other – Liam – comes from a family with pretty much no formal interest or link with motorsport, bar watching it on TV with his Dad.
Where or how this particular battle ends is still years away, yet it has already provided us with some unforgettable moments………………and it is still in only its first full year.
What it is going to be like in the second, third, fourth etc is anyone’s guess at this (early) juncture. So, all I can say, right here, right now, is strap yourself in and enjoy the ride.
You never know, you might see things so remarkable – like Liam’s pass on Marcus at Highlands, or the way Marcus managed the process of qualifying quickest at Hampton Downs a fortnight later – you’ll want to share with your own children and grandchildren!
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