SORDID FRIGHTFULNESS

‘jvb123’ has a request: “Give us as many/much diplomatic incidents, scurrilous goss, and sordid frightfulness as possible please. Anything to numb the pain of this pathetic ‘secret testing’ bollocks.”

Your wish is my command, etc.

Well, my op ed piece on Friday in which I pointed out the likelihood that not very much would happen this week caused a bit of a kerfuffle. Some suggested I was having a bad day. The bit about watching paint dry was even (mis)quoted in a Dutch newspaper. But let’s face it, testing, shakedowning, whatever you want to call it, can be a bit of a drag.

Whence, you ask, does my aversion to testing spring? Well from quite a few places actually.

Many years ago I was dispatched to a test in Valencia – not the street circuit, the motorcycle track outside the city. It was very much a send-the-tea-boy job, the purpose being to gather material for a feature centring on Juan Pablo Montoya, then a very hot property. It was to be a ‘testing diary’ and the idea was to present it as a first-person piece, ghost-written by your humble scribe, albeit with access to the man himself…

…who went on to avoid me all day and refuse to utter a word when I finally intercepted him, while the photographer was denied access to the garage, despite all this supposedly having been arranged and OK’d in advance. But I digress.

Anyhow, we repaired to another team’s ‘motorhome’ (in those days, a collection of scaffolding pipes wrapped in tarpaulin with open sides, rather than the bomb-proof ziggurats with smoked windows of today) in the hope of blagging what might be the first and last coffee of the day. This team was known to be quite welcoming to the media, although its lead driver famously wasn’t.

Coffee duly obtained, the snapper and I stowed ourselves at a corner table, all others being occupied by breakfasting mechanics. All of a sudden Grumpy Lead Driver arrived with his physio in tow, and they plonk themselves beside us. Grumpy Lead Driver had a copy of our magazine in his hands, which were literally shaking with rage.

A chill ran through me as I recalled that one of our columnists (still active in the F1 media so no names, no pack drill) had written something about him which was not only rather uncomplimentary, it was probably actionable in a civil court. By this point Grumpy Lead Driver was shaking his copy like a dog shredding a newspaper with its teeth, and turned to us brandishing what was left.

“Who writes this shit?” he said by way of a how-do-you-do.

There was no means of escape, apart from physically climbing over GLD and his physio or jumping out of the window. So with some trepidation I introduced myself as a member of staff on said organ.

“Who the fuck are you?” he thundered, now stabbing at the remnants of the mag. “I don’t see your name in this piece of shit…”

I diplomatically pointed out the first two features, running to 16 pages in total, carrying my byline.  

“Oh,” he sneered. “You write all the arse-kissing shit, do you?”

And with that he stomped off, tossing the tattered pages contemptuously to the floor. Heads by now had well and truly swivelled in our direction and conversation had abated.

Finally the silence was broken by the physio who said, in an accusing tone, “He was actually in a good mood today until he read that.”

And then he too took his leave. Our coffee had gone mysteriously cold. All in all it was a bit like that time the Bee Gees walked out of the Clive Anderson chat show…

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