NTSF 097: Tour de France, F1 shenanigans, Euro track and field and more…

ODD RUMBLINGS IN FORMULA 1…

This past weekend Hockenheim hosted the German Grand Prix, an annual stop on the Formula 1 circuit that has seen a new champion emerge frequently on its course. We saw Ferrari right its ship, returning to the 1-2 place atop the podium that was so long familiar to it on the circuit. But was it a fairly-won fight? Fernando Alonso got the late pass on teammate Felipe Massa, leading many to feel that collusion led to Alonso — the two-time former champion who was higher in the points coming into the weekend — getting the victory. Massa, back to top form just in time to get another crack at the Hungarian Grand Prix next weekend, has been running strong at the front throughout the race. Only a wide line through a late turn allowed Alonso to get past him, and he clung tightly in the Spaniard’s draft all the way to the finish. The powers that be issued a $100,000 fine to the Ferrari team — but the positions were not reversed or penalized in any way despite the fact that it was clearly a case of team orders (which have been outlawed in F1 since 2002 after another infamous Ferrari incident between Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher).

This sight wouldn't last: Massa leads Alonso midway through the German Grand Prix before team orders relegated him to second...

After watching Red Bull sow similar dissention in its ranks at the British Grand Prix, when the latest version of the team’s front wing was removed from Mark Webber’s car and placed on Sebastian Vettel’s in qualifying due to standings position, this move seems to me like just another reason why McLaren is likely to walk away with the team prize this year and will probably see one of its two drivers take another world championship… with the second right behind on points. Defending champion Jenson Button was certainly much more prescient in joining the British outfit this season than I assumed. At the time I thought leaving Ross Brawn — the man who made Michael Schumacher who he was at Benetton and Ferrari and resurrected Button’s flagging career last season — was the worst decision Button could possibly make. Now it is obvious that it was genius; no alpha-male battles have emerged between him and compatriot (and former world champion) Lewis Hamilton, and while the team has not always proven to have the best setup for the track on any given week they’ve never failed to at least have the second-best setup. Consistency has been the buzzword, and fair play between the two sets of drivers and their crews. If things were nearly this harmonious at Red Bull and/or Ferrari, the Britons would be nowhere near such a lofty position in the standings at this point of the season.

But that’s hardly all right now. It seems that Bernie Ecclestone, czar of Formula 1, is now clamoring to reduce the number of teams in the top level of open-wheel racing. Disparaging over the fact that the new teams welcomed into the fold have failed to produce results this year, Ecclestone now says that he could envision a team or two folding before the 2010 season even ends. At the same time, the FIA is also looking at the possibility of expanding the grid to 26 cars. The sport can’t have it both ways — either they want Formula 1 to be representative of the elite of the elite, or they want to expand to encompass a broader representation of the global spectrum. It is a question of parity versus the chance of seeing a Cinderella emerge.

After all, without failures a team has no chance to develop into more. Take the case of Force India. Rechristened out of the ashes of the former Jordan team that had changed ownership several times throughout the middle of the decade, the Force India squad took to the circuit in 2008. They would go over a year and a half without a result. Then, in back to back races in Belgium and Italy, the Indian-sponsored outfit struck gold. First Giancarlo Fisichella landed on the podium in second, with teammate Adrian Sutil taking fourth the next week. It would allow them to end the season in 9th, out of the cellar with 13 points. This year the technological knowledge the team gained over its first two years learning the odds and ends of what worked and what didn’t has allowed the team to run more consistently. While they haven’t challenged the McLarens and Red Bulls and Ferraris of Formula 1, they have managed to insert themselves amongst the second-tier candidates for podium placings and a mid-level spot in the team race. (With 11 top-ten placings so far this year, the team is 6th with 47 points to date.)

And the sport needs more stories like that. When Brawn GP managed, mainly through the technological wizardry of one man (Ross Brawn and his BGP001 chassis), to take the driver and team titles last year, it was a blow to the dominant teams of the sport. These victories can still be won… but a team must manage to get its feet wet and fall a few times in the creek before it can navigate the waters successfully and really make a concerted effort to ford the river first…

THREE-WAY SHOWDOWN SET IN STOCKHOLM…

Love it or leave it, the 100m sprint will forever be the glory event of the casual sports fan. It is a distance most anyone can at least fathom trying to run for speed (say the same thing about, oh, 800m or a mile and watch the reaction you get from the average Joe) and it inevitably breeds some of the most dominant personalities to grace an athletics competition. The recent triumvirate of men at the apex of the event are finally going to square off, head to head to head, come August 6 in Stockholm at the next leg of the inaugural IAAF Diamond League season.

We'll get to see this scene once again in a week come Stockholm, when Asafa Powell, Tyson Gay and world-record holder Usain Bolt battle in the Diamond League 100m event...

Currently atop the standings after having competed in the League throughout the season, Jamaica’s Asafa Powell has been dominating the sprints throughout the season. But that is largely because we haven’t seen his compatriot, world-record holder Usain Bolt, in action for the most part this year. Simultaneously, Tyson Gay of the United States has been missing in action throughout large swaths of the Diamond League season at 100m and has yet to claim a single point at a meet yet this year (though he sits in a  distant second behind fellow American Walter Dix). So when the three, widely billed as the fastest trio alive at 100m, meet up against one another in Sweden next week it is going to be a must-see event. I wouldn’t be surprised if ESPN affords the race coverage a spot on its SportsCenter Top Ten list that evening with the tension it’s bound to generate. Now we just need to hope they’re all coming to Scandinavia in top form, ready to light the track ablaze underfoot.

But we’ve also got track action ongoing at this moment. Take the 100m event at the currently-running European Championships right now for example. Dwain Chambers, the current European and world champion at 60m, had come to Barcelona seeking the last step of his career redemption. Chambers, the British sprinter who was popped for performance enhancement after the BALCO case blew the lid on the prevalence of designer steroid THG in track and field and sat out two years for his indiscretion, has returned to the sport and tested cleanly back to the upper echelon of his profession. But the redemptive tale was not going to round out to fruition this time. Chambers came down the track with the lead, but with 30m left to go — 10m further than the distance where he’s enjoyed his most recent current successes — he started fading. It allowed 20-year-old French prodigy Christophe Lemaitre to sweep in for the victory. Chambers was also passed by fellow British runner Mark Lewis-Francis for silver and by Lemaitre’s countryman Martial Mbandjock for the bronze, relegated by his diminished closing speed right off the podium into fifth place in the end.

Zach is a writer and editor who covers a wide array of sports both traditional and non-traditional. Formerly the managing editor of Informative Sports before joining Sports Nickel, Zach has been covering events international and domestic for various publications since 2006. Find him @zbigalke on Twitter.

Zach Bigalke has written 268 posts for SportsNickel.com