Radio ban ruling causes confusion but Lewis Hamilton is on right wavelength

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/sep/19/radio-ban-lewis-hamilton-fia-singapore

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Formula One’s curious reputation for disposing of something simple and replacing it with something far more complex was in robust health on Friday after the decision to postpone part of the radio ban between teams and drivers until next season.

This could be the most confusing radio story since Guglielmo Marconi bewildered everyone by banging on about electromagnetic radiation and wireless telegraphy more than a century ago. It all started because Bernie Ecclestone, the sport’s chief executive, became worried about the perception that the modern F1 driver is little more than a puppet.

Earlier this week the FIA, the sport’s governing body, issued a list of messages that would be banned – some from Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix and others from the following race in Japan. The FIA, however, has made a partial backtrack after talks with the teams on Sunday. Messages concerning the driver’s own performance will still not be allowed – but the expected ban on those relating to the car’s performance will be postponed until 2015.

The teams are still unhappy, though. Franz Tost, the Toro Rosso team principal, said: “It is absolute nonsense what we have discussed because in all other sports the coach can give information and instructions and this does not mean the sportsman cannot do his job. He just does it in a better way. I don’t understand it.”

Pat Symonds, chief technical officer for Williams, added: “The whole thing has been handled hastily. It’s a team sport. I don’t see any difference between an engineer advising a driver how to drive and a caddie helping a golfer choose an iron. Golf is not a team sport but that is perfectly permissible. Racing is a team sport. Should drivers get out and change the tyres during a pitstop?”

He added: “We want personalities in the sport and if the personalities are engineers and not just drivers what’s wrong with that? I think the banter between the engineer and a driver is a good thing.”

As for the FIA, the race director, Charlie Whiting, admits there will be problems policing coded radio messages. He said: “I agree it won’t be straightforward.” Chaos and confusion vie for pole in Singapore.

Meanwhile, there is still a race to be run. Singapore is full of people who, in all truth would rather be elsewhere, for this is a popular staging post for long-haulers on their way to somewhere even more exotic. The Marina Bay Street Circuit, however, is a favourite for F1 fans, the sport’s original night race in which the drivers and teams – and many spectators – keep their watches resolutely set on UK time.

Formula One folk arrive at the track as dusk closes in, nightshift workers battling their way past those on their way home from more regular employment. The narrative, however, remains doggedly the same: it’s Lewis Hamilton versus Nico Rosberg in one of the most compelling seasons in years.

“I am so excited for this weekend,” said Hamilton. “The season has been incredible and Singapore is such an amazing place and marks the beginning of the last phase. The night race is fantastic. This is one of the very few places I travel to where I could live. The circuit is just incredible. It’s difficult because we stay on European time. This morning I woke up at 1pm, went to bed at 5am. When I am having lunch everyone is having dinner. When I want to go to the gym in the middle of the night it is closed. It closes at 10pm. Very, very, strange.”

Hamilton must find it even stranger that he has won six races this season yet is 22 points behind his team-mate Rosberg. “When I have made mistakes, I’ve recovered,” he said. “And even when the car – which has been the majority of the time – has had a mistake, then I have generally recovered from it, so I feel like I have come back and maximised in every race, given the scenarios in front of me. I am nearly 30 and the experiences I have had have helped massively. I am getting older and managing things better.”

Hamilton certainly managed practice well on Friday, finishing top in the second session, some 12 places ahead of Rosberg. Rosberg had to abort his flying lap on super-soft tyres because of a crash by Lotus’s Pastor Maldonado. Who else?

In the first practice run, Hamilton was edged out of top spot by Fernando Alonso by 0.122sec, with Rosberg in third place.

Hamilton does not require a radio message from Mercedes to tell him he must repeat his win in the last race at Monza to reduce the gap between himself and Rosberg – he cannot afford any more mishaps.