PIT LANE BLACKOUT... A Couch view of the 2003 F1 season.

Article, written by Boz and originally appeared in SCANNER magazine no.13, March 2003

It's a wonderful start to the year... I couldn't have asked for more, because 2003, apart from so far being cold and drunken, is the year that insufferable shithead Eddie Irvine could be out of a job. It may not happen, and by the time this sees print, Benson & Hedges could have insisted on a celebrity rather than a racer. It seems that the Jordan racing team are keen on Jos " The Boss " Verstappen ( who probably has sponsorship funds from some manky dutch red beer ), and apart from the small fact that I haven't spared a passing thought for The Boss since he last fell from favour in the exclusive Piranha club that is Formula 1 politics, it's still a wonderful prospect. All we need now is for life to hand Irvine a beautiful lemon - Maybe something like a load of poor choice business investments eating away at his nest egg - anything that will keep his subnormal head out of the spotlight ( or at least, on b-list celeb gossip pages of the Mirror where he belongs ). I hope he still has nightmares about Ayrton Senna punching him in the face.

It's pretty much what he deserves! I've got my fingers crossed - won't you join me?

There is, however, an implied terror which I had not considered - and one which will most likely not affect people with cable TV who have the choice of listening to Jim Rosenthal and pondering Brundle's pit lane antics, rather than suffering RTE sports anchor-twat Peter Collins and his slightly capable cohorts - but for broke filth like me, it's a harrowing possibility - That this tosser will become a pundit if left without a ace.

......That's bad news.

Considering Irvine's brand of vanity, It's been fun to watch him struggling with his Jaguar, slumming it with the valiantly pathetic splutter of Minardi cars. This is nothing but rough justice. He was too fucking bigheaded to remain in Schumacher's shadow a few years back - the pair suited each other, and it would have made it easier for any given sniper to kill two birds with one stone. The most pathetic thing, of course, is that Irvine was definitely capable in a Ferrari, but couldn't handle the fact that Schumacher was getting to use the shower in the mobile home first every time.

It was exactly the same at McClaren, where year-in-year-out, squareface David Coultard squealed like a little girl that he deserved the same treatment as the then world champion, Mika Hakkinen. And it's this time of year that Coultard, a close relation to Kryten from Red Dwarf, will start his weaseling campaign - And at the bottom of the main soccer gossip, a range of articles like " Coultard - This is my year " will start to appear. This has been the pattern for a long time, and as anyone who slumps, hung over on the couch every second Sunday between March and October will know, Haggis Bastard Coultard has about as much chance of ever getting that title as the Ralf Schumacher's and Rubens Barrichello's have. Forget it lads - Just try and capitalise on the sponsorship money while people are still willing to give it to you. it's not going to last forever.

Jaysus, just imagine what it would have been like growing up in the Schumacher gaf with those two cunts - every 5 minutes - (german accents for full effect now) "Herr Father, Michael he is give me one punch in the eye, and always, he must be first go on the toboggan" .... although this does account for the best thing Michael Schumacher has probably ever done in his life - punch little Ralfy repeatedly in the face when they were growing up.

The likable of the top 6 ( amazingly there are a couple, given that most Formula One drivers are Phil Collins fans ) are also the ones most likely to eventually dethrone Schumacher, or at least fight for the title when he retires from the cockpit in a couple of years. These are Hakkinen's replacement, Kimi Raikkonen, another Reindeer munching Finn, who has already won favour at McClaren over Kryten's continued pleading to be treated as a contender - And big arsed Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, the nearest thing Formula one has had to a driver with personality since Senna.

And further down the food chain, it remains to be seen how much longer Jacques Villeneuve is going to be deluded that his Bar-Honda can actually go fast. I think the only headlines he'll ever make with regard to FI are his retirement, or preferably, if he copied his old man and headbutted a tree at 200kmPH. And it's going to be business as usual for the hoi-polloi of FI - the hopelessly hyped up Jordans, and the Renaults and Saubers. There'll be the odd point, but it won't be that interesting - I mean Jenson Button, Giancarlo Fisichella, Nick Heidfeld.... hardly a bunch of charismatic, aggressive drivers - I don't see a James Hunt among them. And it wears thin very quickly hearing Eddie Jordan bull on about how Fisichella is one of the best drivers out there. These fuckwits are basically bait for those of us who view it as a bloodsport and demand carnage. Let's hope there's some serious injury this year. There was no memorable serious crash in 2002 and it was a drag. The fucking FIA and their continued safety modifications... they're like junkie dealers cutting their drugs beyond a piss-take, and they're in danger of losing their audiences to the undertelevised world
rally championships.

But while Montoya and Kimi build on their race experience (considerably less than those around them ), and lay foundations for what might actually be an interesting season in 2004, this year, I'll have my finger crossed for the Minardi's. Alex Yoong provided us all with endless entertainment last year as an example of "How not to sign a driver just because he brings sponsorship money even though he hasn't the vaguest notion what he is doing" - but with continued financial gremlins, it's a passive miracle that they haven't slipped off the grid like Prost and Arrows. They deserve the freak points they tend to fluke from time to time! ( and as usual, I'll be up for the safety car driver too!).

As for the Yoda of it all.... well, Mr Ecclestone, I think it's fair to say that the clock is ticking away for him in a manner that could at least outpace the perrenial midfielders. He's not gonna have his hands on those controls forever, and total control of the boardgame will be passed along eventually. But it's strange to think that a small wrinkled old man continues to instill fear over one of the most corporately whored sports entities on the planet - He's the best creature George Lucas never created!

And despite what initial pre-season reports suggest, especially with regard to the new points system ( which I won't go into here to spare the uninterested ), unless the new McClaren car is remarkable, it's going to be a carbon copy of last season, But I guess it's easy enough to default the two Ferrari's as if they're a different event on the same track, and watch some actual cars racing against each other as opposed to the running if some sort of neo-Nuremberg Schumacher rally.

- Boz