Fórum Defesa Brasil

The importance of timing

While the Russian Grand Prix at Sochi has only just had its maiden outing, as a concept this race is older than I am.

When looking through his archives in the run-up to the Russian race, Keith Sutton came across a letter written by F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone to Leonid Brezhnev, then the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

As a slice of motorsport history, the letter - far more pleading than one would associate with Ecclestone as we know him today - piqued my interest. But the letter was also intriguing from a personal perspective, as at the grand old age of two I moved to the USSR, where my father was tasked with covering the Cold War and attempts at international rapprochement made first by Brezhnev and then by his successor, Mikhail Gorbachev.

The Moscow of my childhood was characterised by KGB surveillance (as journalists my family was assigned a 'maid' and a chauffeur, both of whom were tasked with reporting back to the government on our behaviour inside the state-allocated apartment and our movements outside it), of extreme poverty, and of shortages in everything from food to medicine to electricity and heating.

My mother developed the habit of joining any queue she saw forming in the street, as there would be food of some sort for sale at the other end of it, assuming supplies hadn't run out by the time she got to the front. When we flew back to the UK to visit family, return journeys saw us arrive with one suitcase packed with rice, pasta, and lentils, while another contained the condoms, pornography, and toilet paper that were more valuable than cash when it came to bribing the locals to come and fix clogged toilets and faulty fuse boxes.

From my experience of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s, there was no worse fit for the country than Formula One.


Bernie Ecclestone's letter to Leonid Brezhnev from 1982

Ecclestone attempted to sell the concept of a race to Brezhnev by highlighting the international brands that would travel beyond the Iron Curtain: "Ferrari, Renault, Alfa Romeo, Talbot, Lotus, etc." This as a pitch to a nation that viewed such luxuries as the weaknesses of the capitalist west, a country that confiscated the Barbie doll my grandmother had brought me as a Christmas gift on the grounds that both Barbie and non-Orthodox Christmas were symbols of capitalist decadence aimed at undermining the socialist values of the CCCP.

Another selling point Ecclestone tries in the letter, dated 21 June 1982, is the existence of three grands prix in that well-known Soviet ally, the United States of America. While the Cold War foes were engaged in ongoing arms and space races, it is unlikely that Brezhnev would have been swayed by the prospect of adding a car race to the list.

As it happens, Russia has long if distant tradition of motorsport, even if awareness of their link with the sport was hardly high profile in the west. In 1898, the Kubok Obschestva Velosipednoy Ezdy, a grand prix motor race, was held on snowy October roads along a 41-kilometre course. Russian Grands Prix were held in St Petersburg in 1913 and 1914, and attracted both local and foreign racers, although the outbreak of the First World War brought the event to a halt, marking the beginning of a century-long hiatus from grand prix racing in the country.

Fifty years later, the 1960s saw the Soviet Union develop its own touring car series, which was first known as A-1600 before being relaunched as Tourism-1600 (also known as Supertourism) in 1995. Nearly 20 years after Ecclestone made his initial overtures to Brezhnev, the late 1990s saw the introduction of the Russian Formula Three Championship and the Russian Formula 1600 Championship, while the short-lived Formula RUS was expressly designed to help young Russian racers make the move from karts to single-seaters.

And now we have the Russian Grand Prix at Sochi, which has so far seen two local boys - if the word local can be applied to a country as vast as this one - take to the track, while F1's first Russian racer Vitaly Petrov performed expert commentator duties for Russia 2 TV.

Bernie Ecclestone's big mistake in his initial approach to the Russian Grand Prix was one of timing. The then Soviet Union had no need for Formula One, with an image that was firmly fixed in the minds of the majority of the world's television audiences. These days, however, Russia is a changed and changing nation, and one keen to join forces with the most-watched sport in the world to sell itself as a forward-looking nation interested in technology, glamour, and sport.

Bourne escreveu:Teve na Hungria. E seria uma grande propaganda no ocidente, assim como as olimpíadas.

Se lembro bem a URSS chegou a patrocinar uma equipe no fim dos anos 1980.

Felipe Nasr será piloto da Sauber em 2015

'TV Globo' confirma o acerto entre o brasileiro, vice-líder da GP2, com a escuderia para a próxima temporada

O automobilismo brasileiro terá mais um representante na Fórmula 1. Nesta quarta-feira, dia no qual as equipes iniciaram a preparação para o Grande Prêmio do Brasil, Felipe Nasr tratou de anunciar o acerto com a Sauber para a próxima temporada.


De acordo com a ‘TV Globo’, Nasr, que atuou como piloto de testes da Williams, de Felipe Massa, neste ano, ocupará uma das vagas de titular no time comandado por Monisha Kaltenborn. O segundo brasileiro confirmado no grid da F1 para 2015 terá como companheiro o sueco Marcus Ericsson, que acertou na última semana com o time.

“Estarei oficialmente participando da F1 com a equipe Sauber, é um sonho que acaba de se realizar. Se olhar o Felipe Massa, o Kimi Raikkonen também entraram na Fórmula 1 pela Sauber e tiveram a oportunidade de crescer”, disse o brasileiro, que acertou por duas temporadas com a equipe.

Neste ano, a Sauber contou com o alemão Adrian Sutil e o mexicano Esteban Gutierrez como titulares; e o desempenho da escuderia passou longe do esperado. Com somente duas corridas para encerrar o calendário, a equipe não somou sequer um ponto.

Agora 'promovido'. Felipe Nasr será o 31º brasileiro a guiar como titular de uma equipe da categoria máxima do automobilismo mundial. Aos 22 anos, o piloto nascido em Brasília terá a companhia do 'xará' Felipe Massa, assegurado ao lado de Valtteri Bottas para mais um ano na Williams.

O acerto com a Sauber significa a conclusão de um trabalho de desenvolvimento a longo prazo. Felipe Nasr conheceu o automobilismo ainda aos sete anos, quando começou a pilotar no kart, em Brasília. O talento consagrou o brasiliense a um nível nacional com o tricampeonato da categoria - 2004, 2006 e 2007.

Os resultados chamaram a atenção, e Nasr ingressou na Fórmula BMW das Américas em 2008, quando recebeu a chance de participar de duas corridas - subiu ao pódio em Interlagos. No ano seguinte veio a consagração na F-BMW, com o título na Europa, fruto de 14 pódios e cinco vitórias durante a disputa no Velho Continente.

Em 2010, Nasr subiu 'mais um degrau' rumo ao sonho da Fórmula 1 ao participar da Fórmula 3 britânica. Depois de um ano de 'reconhecimento' da categoria, o brasiliense se consagrou campeão com a Carlin em 2011, com 15 pódios e sete vitórias.

O título da Fórmula 3 significou mais um passo dado na carreira internacional. Nasr seria colocado à prova na GP2, considerada atualmente a categoria de 'acesso' ao mundo da F1. No primeiro ano, o brasileiro terminou a temporada em 10º. O rendimento subiu em 2013, quando finalizou a temporada na quarta colocação.

O bom desempenho chamou a atenção da Williams, que promoveu Nasr ao cargo de piloto de testes para esta temporada. O brasiliense, vice-líder na atual temporada da GP2 - resta apenas uma etapa, em Abu Dhabi -, mostrou um bom desempenho na equipe de Felipe Massa e chamou a atenção da Sauber, que tratou de assegurar a contratação do brasiliense para 2015.

Bourne escreveu:O Felipe Massa foi o último piloto brasileiro com grande planejamento de carreira. Chegou na Itália e arrebentou, conseguiu contrato com o Toodinho e Ferrari. E o cara era bom e agressivo, agravada a italianada e patrocinadores. Entrar em uma equipe média para boa que era sauber foi planejado e suportado pela ferrari.

O Di grassi e Piquet Jr. tinham potencial, mas aconteceram coisas que jogaram eles no limbo.

Talvez, o Nars siga caminho do Massa. Bater o sony Ericsson é fácil. O cara é ruim demais. A questão é pontuar e tentar fazer coisas bonitas.