Robin Miller's Mailbag for October 21

IndyCar

Robin Miller’s Mailbag for October 21

Hamilton-rants, Mad Dog-musings and more.

Robin Miller | Posted October 21, 2008 Indianapolis, Ind.

Are Roth's days of dicing with the likes of Danica Patrick at an end? (LAT photo)

Hello open wheel types and thanks for all your questions. I intend to answer your questions every week during the season, so just e-mail them to openwheelmailbag@gmail.com. Don’t feel left out if I didn’t directly respond. I appreciate your interest and passion.

~Robin Miller

Q: Your SPEEDtv F1 brethren are England-centric cheerleaders (minus Bob Varsha) whose never-ending praise of McLaren-Mercedes is ridiculous, nauseating, and downright wrong.

How can they be so obtuse? This incessant raving of McLaren-Mercedes is driving me and others way from the broadcasts. Every show they go on and on about the marvelous development of McLaren-Mercedes and the way the team has improved since the first race in Oz. Do they think the people that watch are idiots? Do they think the people that watch have forgotten (like Hobbs, Matchett and Windsor so desperately want everyone to do) that McLaren-Mercedes STOLE 720 pages of Ferrari data? First, McLaren-Mercedes rescinds their initial car submission from the FIA becuse it has too many “Ferrari-like” elements. Then every race weekend or so, SURPRISE! – the McLaren-Mercedes has made performance gains on the Ferraris. They have 720 pages of technical data their disposal from their only competition! Are we supposed to believe that they just forgot about all of that data? Even if they do not have the actual pages in front of them, they still have had at least 18 months to glean through all it before it they got caught. Not to mention the intellectual property they bought/stole.

Performance in F1 gains are measured in tiny increments because all avenues of thought are extensively tested. McLaren-Mercedes received years of Ferrari data showing them where they may not have been looking or areas where they were being beaten. Why was anyone shocked to find that McLaren-Mercedes were the only team to make a seamless transition to Bridgestone tires? Hmm, I wonder why. Why were McLaren-Mercedes, a team the had been previously hard on rear tires, suddenly the team that had the easiest wear rates. If you combine their already strong engineering with the might of Ferrari’s data it is not too tough to see that McLaren-Mercedes has profited immeasurably. The McLaren-Mercedes arrogance about the entire situation only furthers my disgust or the whole thing. This “we are McLaren-Mercedes and you’re a peasant” arrogance has thoroughly penetrated Lewis Hamilton. His “out of my way-don’t you know who I am” driving style and comments in interviews reek of the McLaren-Mercedes snobbery. I know my venting will be in vain but I hope you can forward it to your bosses at SPEED and maybe just maybe they can water down the McLaren-Mercedes Kool-aid that those “commentators” are drinking.
Randy Burdsal, Indianapolis

RM: Since that was more of a rant than a question I guess you want a comment. First off, I watch all the F1 races on SPEED and I really don’t get the sense that Hobbs, Matchett and Windsor openly cheer for McLaren. Sure, they’re Brits and they probably pull for the Union Jack (under their breath) but McLaren is obviously one of the two top dogs and it’s hard not to sing the praises of Lewis Hamilton and this team. It seems to me they criticize anyone and everyone when it’s deserved and Hobbs is hardly one for faint praise. It’s true that StepneyGate has kind of been forgotten but it’s not like McLaren didn’t have some great cars before they stole Ferrari’s files. It’s easy to despise the arrogance of Ron Dennis and I rather enjoyed the look on his face after they threw last year’s championship away. But Hamilton, regardless of what you think of his personality, is fun to watch and obviously very talented.

I will say it does seem like Ferrari gets its share of favoritism from the race stewards (the Bourdais penalty to give Massa points was a joke) and as I recall Michael Schumacher could do no wrong in the eyes of the officials when he was at Ferrari. But, basically, it seems like people are either big fans of Ferrari or big enemies of McLaren or vice versa. Nobody is a bigger critic of racing telecasts than yours truly but I think those guys have some good chemistry in the SPEED booth and they do a good job of keeping things entertaining when they’re thousands of miles away watching a screen like you and I.

Q: A Norris McDonald article this week quotes Marty Roth saying that the IRL pitched him an offer of running Indy, “a bunch of ovals”, and Toronto, something which ‘ol Mad Dog barked and scoffed at because it wasn’t conducive to investors and “how to run a race team.” Who does he think he’s kidding? Granted, he qualified in the top 10 a handful of times on the pedal-fest mile and a half ovals but that was purely due to some creative engineering by Larry Curry. Toronto will need way more than Marty to get any crowd next year. Why won’t he admit he is woefully out of his depth in RACE conditions, when it is obvious to everyone and their dog that he is?

My only hope that the IRL isn’t discriminating on Marty for his woes but also Milka Duno, who, while she made some minor improvements on the ovals, still appeared a no-hoper on her supposed strength, the road and street courses. If Roth was serious about IndyCar, he would have known his place and moved into just ownership. I could have seen Roth Racing as sort of this “Team Canada” concept where Marty would run young Canadian drivers since, although PT and Tag are the best current Canucks out there, they’re both getting a little long in the tooth.

Tony DiZinno, Milwaukee, WI

RM: I think it was obvious the IRL welcomed Mad Dog into Indy cars because it needed entries (ditto for Duno) and now they don’t need him anymore. Of course he was out of his depth in a go-kart but the fact he qualified in the Top 10 a couple times on those “challenging” ovals just further diluted his mind and inflated his ego. He really thought he was a race driver. It would have been perfect to see him just own a team with Canadian drivers (a nice farewell tour for PT and then go fetch Andrew Ranger) but Mad Dog didn’t see it that way. So now he’s sitting by the phone waiting on Penske to call in case Castroneves goes to jail.

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Robin Miller

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