Running on empty
31 years ago today, Alain Prost won the 1986 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola. I remember this one because everyone seemed to be running out of fuel at the end, not least Alain who had to weave like crazy on the last half-lap to slop the dregs of petrol into his Porsche engine, with Nelson Piquet was rapidly catching him in the background. Alain crossed the line to win and immediately parked up at the end of the pitlane, completely out of juice.
I think the ultra-reliability of modern F1 cars makes the show less exciting in one respect. My memory of the eighties is that even when your favourite driver was dominating a race and had a handy lead over the rest, you couldn’t relax because there was a fifty/fifty chance that the car was going to pack up in a cloud of white smoke on the last lap. The races were never boring because you were always biting your nails.
In 2016 the Mercedes were so reliable that a single catastrophic break-down (Hamilton in Malaysia) was effectively enough to hand the title to Rosberg. I’ve heard some commentators imply that reliability is good thing because otherwise we might be robbed of a battle between two top drivers – I’m not sure I agree, although it depends on the circumstances at the time of course.
Oh well, time to take off my rose-tinted glasses. Oh look, McLarens are still breaking down regularly, maybe modern F1 is not so bad after all….
