
Dear Ferrari haters: the rules for racing are not that complicated; they cover measurable items like engine size, bodywork and chassis arrangements, tyres, etc.
It appears that building your own test track and running on it or building a wind tunnel, or spending large amounts of time and money trying to find the most talented engineers, designers, team members and drivers and, having found them, protecting your investment by paying them well and employing lawyers to remind them of the terms of their employment, are all things some would like to eliminate in the interest of "fairness" or "sport."
Of course that would result in something like the IRL or the Champ Car Series in the U.S. Even there, however, the richer teams appear to win more races than the poorer ones.
How odd that this season, if nothing else, isn't a perfect example of how even the most clever strategies and the largest expenditure of funds can't guarantee winning. MacLaren and Renault are fighting it out for the title and they are NOT the biggest spenders in F1.
F1 posts the rules and tries to enforce them (never mind that they are currently driving themselves and most of the teams nuts because they can't decide what the rules MEAN). To the extent they stay out of poking their noses into what happens in the teams off the race track, in the interest of "faireness" or "entertainment value" the better off they are.
And why is that, you ask? Because real rules are simple; they cover MEASURABLE items and they are enforced with MEASURING DEVICES. People can and will (witness B.A.R.) try to get round them to get an advantage. When they're caught they pay.
But whining about Ferrari's (or anyone else's) testing and budget and strategy is like Rubens' whining about not being "allowed" to race Michael: if you don't like it, beat it ON THE RACETRACK. If you can't [or won't] do it, then shut up. If Rubens consistently beat Michael, race in and race out; out-qualified and out-placed him, do you seriously think Ferrari would fire him and keep Michael Number One?
Indeed, Rubens has lately been saying that he deserves his own shot at winning a title and that he thinks he can do it with B.A.R. next year (a team that is, by the by, no slouch in spending cash!).
I say, go to it little Rube. My personal hunch is that you'll be a slightly better team mate to Jenson than little Tak has been. In the end of your career, though, my hunch is that you'll have more points and more victories in red cars from Maranello than in all the others put together. And you can go back to Brazil with no one to blame but yourself because you had five or six years when you were in the best car money could buy.
p.s. why do I think Jenson will NOT be with Williams next year? Because he's more interested in winning than fairness. I call that racing; you call it unsporting and cheating. I say if you want to see a bunch of sporting types running at high speed and changing first place like a roulette wheel, tune in to NASCAR. But please, don't think that money doesn't buy wins and points, even in that farce.
Jim Watt