The F1 Section's Legion Of The Lost

It may be that every Bleacher section chews up writers and spits them out, I don't know. My inspiration for thinking that the F1 section seems to burn people out came from an article by Mike Griffin titled B/R Formula One Community Awards—August.

The article was dated 20th August 2008. Not a lifetime ago, but I was struck by how many of the F1 writers from that period have now vanished. Mike Griffin is still active, of course, and still rated #1 writer in this section, but so many of the award nominees are gone.

These were some of them.

Ben Auty wrote just 31 articles, but had an incredible 9 articles of the day. Ben had a gift for being funny, and I always loved to read his stuff and his comments.

Here is a link to a Ben Auty piece titled Formula 1: Are the Wheels Coming Off for Ferrari? I picked it because it seems slightly apt at this time, and by jiminy, just look at the 151 comments it drew.

In those long-lost days of 2008 the F1 section was extremely vibrant. Can you imagine an F1 article of today getting such a response? No chance.

Paul Heffernan. Paul is still a member, but has deleted all but one of his articles, and rarely even comments now. Perhaps curiously, the remaining article is A Sneak Peek at The Bleacher F1 Hall Of Fame Ballot.

I say curiously because the Hall Of Fame, or the strongly-held views of its participants, led to a great bust-up in the F1 section. Paul himself has been little more than a ghost here since that event.

Dagni Kankkunen. Deleted member. A Finnish lady whose slightly fractured written English was quite charming, and who tantalised certain members with her claimed bi-sexuality.

Alex Levy had a simple and pleasing writing style, the sample I have chosen is Fernando Alonso to Honda: It's So Unlikely... but Why Not? The article illustrates many of the changes that have occurred in F1 in the eight months since it was written, but substitute Brawn GP for Honda and it suddenly looks contemporary. If Barichello retires from F1, wouldn't Brawn look attractive to Fernando?

Steven Stones was a writer I enjoyed. Is Heikki Kovalainen McLaren's Mistake or a Sleeping Megastar? is the sample of his work I have chosen here, for it always seems to be a relevant question.

Mark Andrew is still with us, and I really only include him so I can say he should be writing here more often.

That's probably enough names for one article, except that I must mention our C/L Saraswathi Sirigina, who now appears under the name No Idea. I include Sara in my legion of the lost because she has deleted her considerable body of Bleacher work, which was by no means confined to the F1 section.

When somebody as prominent and well-respected as Sara feels compelled to abandon the written representations of her intellect and her personality that have been published on Bleacher, we might easily think that writing here exposes authors to strains they can sometimes find unbearable.

To all those who have left us I want to say 'thanks for the memory', and to every present F1 writer, especially the outstanding new members who have joined us recently, I send my heartfelt thanks for being my company in this community of F1 fans.