Let's talk about Ferrari. They're the only F1 team that could beat Mercedes out on the track, but they beat themselves with bad management on the pit wall, and in the Vettel cockpit where he found a new way to mess up every race.
Ferrari, sadly, is essentially Philip Morris Racing. They don't own it, but they pay most of the bills. The only thing keeping Ferrari from actually changing the team name is because, well, they are Ferrari. They're the only car company besides Porsche that actually has its own theme parks.
The team manager came from PM. That's right, his background is in getting people hooked for life on nicotine. Guy with the really cool sounding Italian name of Maurizio Arrivabene. Always looked as if he'd just eaten his mother. Scary mofo, though the team seemed to like him.
Gone. New guy is one Mattia Binotto, another great Italian name, and he actually has a background in racing tech.
Things have been weird at Ferrari for some time now. I doubt that anyone else noticed, but right now it says MISSION WINNOW in a typically self-conscious designer logo all over everything. Cars, team uniforms, everything. WTF? Who the fuck is MISSION WINNOW?
I couldn't take it any more, so I read up. It's a venture by Philip Morris to get around the ban on cigarette advertising in F1. Its stated mission boils down to finding ways to get people hooked on nicotine without having to (yuck) smoke tobacco. Its real mission is to get a big sign back on Ferrari F1 cars.
As an actor in a bad movie about F1 once said, phonetically because he didn't speak English, "I have come to see the absurdity of what we do."
_________________ Last one out of California, turn off the sunshine.
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