Not About Bears In F1

After an absence from the Bleacher Report for some weeks, I suddenly had an idea for an article.

The article I intended to write was to have been titled "Eating The Bear." It was going to be an upbeat (for me!) piece about how F1 has a sufficiently large fan-base to float it through the recession.

I almost always begin an article with the start and finish fairly clear in my mind, and proceed to build a bridge of words between those two points. The new article was to be no exception; I planned to start with a reprise of how global economic turmoil has affected F1 so far, and to look at how it may be affected in 2009. Then I would make my argument that F1 has the core strengths to survive it all, just as other professional sports do.

In recognition of the fact that there are no certainties about who in F1 will survive the coming season I intended to close the article with the much-loved saying "Some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you." Really that is a picturesque way of saying "you win some, you lose some," and it gave me my title for the article I was never to write.

So, having formed my plan, I looked through some current Bleacher Report F1 articles to get the flavor of what people were talking about, to savor the smells on the wind.

Sadly, there is nothing new in this world, and straight away I came across the same old, same old. Firing from deeply entrenched positions, combatants shot their opinions across the desolate no-man's-land of this closed F1 season.

Perhaps you will permit me to paraphrase.

       X: "Hamilton is not much good, he was just lucky to be in the top car."

       Y: "Rubbish, Hamilton's record in the lower formulae proves he is a top driver."

       Z: "You're against Hamilton because he's black."

Oh no I thought, this is awfully familiar, I've already got the souvenir t-shirt. Just what is the point of saying the same things over and over again? Whatever, there's no point in me reading them again, I'm outta here. It's just dumb to stab your toe on the same rock twice, I'll forget about writing for Bleacher.

Not very long after, though, I changed my mind.

I'd abandoned all thoughts of my original article, because I came to the sudden realization that X,Y, and Z are important because they are people.

Their conflicting views are the salt on the chips, the gherkin in the pickle, or the oil on the salad; they are an essential ingredient to the rivalry of sport. Having experienced my conversion, I now appreciate that F1 is not about rules and tires and silly energy recovery systems. It's about people, and I am interested in the people of F1 2009.

I want to see if Vettel inflicts humiliation on Webber, or if the foxy Aussie slaps the young upstart down.

I really need to see how much rope Ron Dennis will allow Martin Whitmarsh, and if he will step out of the shadows if the McLaren campaign goes pear-shaped, perhaps to throttle his business protege in front of the TV cameras.

Fernando Alonso always intrigues me, and I'd like to see him play a significant role in the championship this year.

Will Robert Kubica deliver on the promise he has shown? Will his arch-rival Nick Heidfeld melt down or raise his game? We'll see, won't we?

My burning truth for today is that everything, absolutely everything, that interests me in F1 is about its people, and suddenly I care nothing for who makes the oily bits.

All this comes from not writing an article, and yet I still got an article out of it, what a result.

Right now you may be thinking I have cheated you, a whole article just to opine that sport is about people? Yes, that is the outrage I have perpetrated, and however many minutes it has taken you to read this piece, that's how much closer I have taken you to that long, dark night of death.

But tough luck buddy, that's the way it goes. Some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you.