MPH: F1 is in survival mode and the effects could be long-lasting

This event has been very much predicated on the sensation that is Max Verstappen and how he has lit up that nation’s taste for the sport until it’s madly clamouring for more. The race, originally scheduled for May 3, was vastly over-subscribed. It represented a refreshing move back to a more grass roots sort of model – arsing not from a regime’s bid for global investment or political legitimacy but from the inspirational factor of one particular driver carrying a country’s sporting hopes. Maybe the ‘regime’ commercial model was already waning.

There’s something indefinable about the quality of the drivers that so catch the imagination, that they single-handedly become a huge part of the sport’s commercial appeal. Why was Michael Schumacher so immensely popular with the German fans that F1 could comfortably carry two grands prix for a time, yet Sebastian Vettel, even at his peak when he was comparably successful to Schumacher, couldn’t? Nor could Nico Rosberg – nor indeed Mercedes.

Fernando Alonso lit up his nation for F1 in much the same way as Schumacher had for his; it wasn’t all that long ago we had sell-outs at both Barcelona and Valencia. Now Germany is out of the calendar and the single event in Spain is hanging on by its fingernails.

After the expected cancellation of Baku, the theoretical first race would be Canada, June 14. Given that this is likely to coincide with projected ‘peak virus’, it wouldn’t be a great surprise if Montreal were added to the list of ‘postponed’ 2020 races. This is another event that was boosted hugely by the inspirational effect of one driver, in this case Gilles Villeneuve.

His fairytale maiden victory on the race’s first hosting in Montreal, in 1978, was reckoned to have carried the event for a generation – even after his untimely death. That, at least, is the opinion of the race’s modern day promoter Francois Dumontier who in an interview with F1 a couple of years ago related: “Gilles’ victory was so important for the sport here. I’m not sure that if Gilles hadn’t won the race in ‘78, Formula 1 would still be here, because he created a momentum. The fans discovered a new hero, because everyone was looking at hockey, and now it was suddenly, oh, race cars! That guy’s in a Ferrari and he won the Canadian Grand Prix. And remember in 1981 when he kept racing in the rain, with his front wing pointing upwards… He did get people’s imagination. So for me Gilles is the one who created sport in our country. Without him, you never know.”

Just think: if a leak had not developed in the braking system of Jean-Pierre Jarier’s Lotus when it was leading the race by half-a-minute, the Canadian Grand Prix might be just a fond memory – and grass might be growing through the cracks of what was just a failed experiment of a race track.

In these difficult times, the warm glow of memories can keep F1 fans going for a time yet. Here’s hoping it can start creating new ones soon enough – but only after the contagion is brought under control.