Special Feature

Relevance

Michael Lawrence

The FIA has decided that Formula One has to be more relevant to everyday motoring, so the 2014 cars will be turbocharged hybrids. Relevance is the latest idea from the FIA, the people who gave us exploding tires to spice up F1. Here is news for Jean Todt, open-wheel racing has never been relevant to anything else.

Motor racing is a sport and no sport needs justification. Archery is practiced for the satisfaction it gives; not, alas, because it keeps the French in their place. There is only one innovation from open-wheel racing to have become relevant, the rear view mirror. Ray Harroun’s Marmon-Nordyke “Wasp” that won the inaugural Indianapolis 500 in 1911 had one, and it dispensed with the need for a riding mechanic.

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