The
Can-Am sports car race at Road Atlanta in July 1971 was not a good race
for Formula One World Champion Jackie Stewart. The Can-Am series paid
good money, more than F1, so Stewart flew across the ocean regularly to
hustle a fat Lola sports car around North American circuits.
A
flat tire and a struggle to re-start the car after the pit stop dropped
him to 21st, three laps down. Stewart went back out. The brakes started
to fade and the right front wheel wore a big hole in the top of the
fender, showering him with tire and bodywork debris. He came back into
the pits, went back out and set the race's fastest lap time - 1.3
seconds better than he'd done in qualifying and 0.3 seconds quicker than
pole. The car finally broke for good. When asked why he was driving so
hard when there was absolutely no hope of a win, a podium or even
points, Stewart said:
"Ooch! Ye must never let y'self fall into the habit o' drivin' at anythin' less than yer maximum!"
The
saying is that consistency wins championships. Like many other things
in life, that saying is partly true. It obscures a deeper truth. What
really wins championships is speed. At the end of the day, to seize a
championship requires the racer to finish higher up the order than the
other riders, race after race. Slower riders do not win races. They are
gifted wins when faster riders falter. Occasionally it happens often
enough in a short enough period of time that a championship goes to a
slower rider. That is one of the joys of watching motorsport.
But
more often than not, speed gives you a better chance of finishing
higher. Speed keeps you out of trouble, prevents you from fighting with
mid-packers as you try to get to the front after starting from the third
row. Speed puts you ahead of your competitors on the track. All other
things being equal, the faster rider/bike combination wins the race more
often. And even though all other things never are equal, pure speed
gives you more of a chance to take the win rather than inherit the win.
As a competitor, you don't prepare to inherit wins. You prepare to beat
the others. Yes, most of us would rather be lucky than good. But you
can't control luck. You can control speed.
Talent
makes you fast. Experience keeps you fast. There's a reason that riders
are slower when they come back from the off-season for the first tests
of the new year. They're not less talented. They're further from the
last time they experienced riding on the edge. They're not as used to
the sensation of losing the front tire under braking, for example. In
the first practice session, it seems to happen in a millisecond.
By
mid-season, when the rider has saved the front-end washout dozens of
times, the experience is familiar. The feedback from the bike telling
you that it is about to happen is recognizable. Time stretches, and the
transition from full grip to slide seems to take longer. The panic
reaction is gone. There's more brain power to decode the messages from
the tire, suspension and bike, and the messages are clearer because the
rider has heard and felt them before.
To
be on top, a rider has to be the best at interpreting those messages,
and understanding the new ones that come from changes to tires,
suspension, engine, brakes and chassis. And the ability to understand
the language of those messages is developed and maintained like any
other ability - through practice and experience.
It has been mostly a pleasure to watch Marc Marquez dance off with the MotoGP championship lead in 2016. He's won when he could,
finished on the podium when he couldn't, and taken what points were on
offer when the podium was out of reach. His new-found maturity has met
with widespread praise.
But
looking at Stewart's comment, there's a reason for a bit of concern to
creep in. Backing off even slightly means less time spent on the edge. It means less
time with the bike speaking the language of imminent loss of traction,
the fine line between slip and grip as the power pours through the rear
wheel.
It
is admirable to pace your way to a championship. But a racer does so at
the risk of forgetting how to live on the edge. And the less the racer
lives in that environment, the fewer experiences on the edge the racer
has, the more unfamiliar territory it is and the harder it is to survive
there. A lap of 1:27 is flying for a lightweight bike at the big track
at Willow Springs. I once heard a rider say, "It's been a while since
I've run a 1:27 here." To the best of my knowledge, that rider never did
again. I've heard racers say, "At the height of my powers ..." What
that phrase means is that they've lost the direction to the edge, and
even if they got there, they wouldn't be able to understand the language
spoken there.
That
is why it is important to reflect on Marquez' race at Silverstone 2016
before it disappears into the mists of history. The setup on his Honda
was poor, and the bike has been a handful all year. On top of that,
Marquez chose the wrong front tire. The machine was a disaster from the
moment the lights went out. The smart thing to do would have been to
cruise around and gather points.
Marquez took a different approach.
The
two-time MotoGP champion saved countless front-end slides on his elbow.
He battled frantically with Valentino Rossi and Cal Crutchlow and
Andrea Iannone, ran off the track, came back onto the track, forced his
way past Rossi again and
then nicked Crutchlow at nearly 200 miles an hour, sending himself off
the track once more before re-joining the race and passing his teammate
on the last lap for fourth.
It
was absolute madness. It was every corner on the edge of disaster. It
was exactly what a rider with a 53-point lead in the championship chase
should not be doing.
But
Marquez and Stewart know that there are worse things in racing than
crashing, losing a race or even a championship. At all costs, the racer
must maintain a residence on the edge of madness and make it home. And
it was glorious to watch Marquez re-stake his claim to that place where
mere mortals - including some World Champions - never can go.
