watka wrote:Excluding the (potential) favouritism towards di Resta, give me examples of Coulthard's bias please?
He did have some really very silly moments defending di Resta last year when he had that error-prone patch, which even as someone who quite liked/defended di Resta I just found ridiculous. I also cannot recall any particular critique of Grosjean that good_Ralf points out, and I'd be interested to see what he had to say and when.
The bias is sometimes blatant, sometimes not, so I'll link comparative articles for perspective. And for the record before the usual uproar/conflict,
this is not even slightly approaching an anti-Red Bull post, and would be relevant irrespective of the teams or drivers he had connections to,
my issue is with Coulthard's legitimacy as a correspondent. It has absolutely nothing to do with the events considered, this concerns the contrasting ways in which the issues are framed by different journalists. I use these examples not because of my own personal feelings towards them, but because they are quite clear cut illustrations of the times Coulthard's opinions have very clearly differed from those of his peers. I also predominantly use text examples as it would be something of a herculean effort to sift through every minute of the BBC coverage for the last few years of F1.
Suzuka 2013Do I think that Red Bull would deliberately compromise Mark's strategy to allow Sebastian to win? No, I don't.
The question marks over the strategy are a nice news story for those who want to stir the pot
You can always argue it any way you want to suit the defence, but Mark is a bit heavier and sometimes hasn't been able to get the weight distribution just so. Seb just makes the tyres last longer. Those are the facts.
This is quite a clear accusation that anyone who questions the strategy are merely trying to 'stir the pot' (also linking Benson directly here).
Compare this to Ted Kravitz's analysis;The question mark is the second stop...the first stint he had to pit because his tyres were going off, but look at this second stint here...it was only a 13 lap stint [reads lap times] so they were going pretty well, and he was fairly well pulling away or keeping the gap to Sebastian Vettel, so that's the question mark that I've got, it's the second stop. Did he really really need to make that second stop? Or could he, as he said to Natalie, have carried on.
The analysis there of the lap times does suggest he was called in a little early for that second stop.
Also compare Gary Anderson's analysis, who was the technical analyist for the BBC at the time, and presumably have talked to Coulthard at some point after the race;The early stop, they said, was because he had "run out of tyres", as Red Bull team principal Christian Horner put it.
But in my view Webber was not really struggling performance-wise at that point.
OK, he had lost 0.4 seconds to leader Romain Grosjean's Lotus on lap 10, but his lap time was basically the same as he had done on lap eight, which does not suggest his tyres had gone.
The problem for Webber was that he only did 14 laps on his next set of tyres. Red Bull committed to a three-stop strategy before they had explored how far that second set of tyres would go. Webber could have run competitively quite a few laps longer than that.
It's unfortunate - and unusual - that they picked to do the worst strategy with the lead car. That's strange because normally the lead car gets the priority - if there's a better choice, the lead car would get it.
He openly questions the strategy here, but he also goes on to say;
Whatever the ins and outs of the strategy, Vettel's performance was what you expect of a soon-to-be four-time world champion.
He drives the car well, he does the job he needs to, he doesn't make mistakes, he's on the limit all the time. We almost have to stop talking about Vettel and Red Bull because if he doesn't win, he's done a lesser job than he should.
With a bit of help from his team, he got past the two cars in front of him and won the race. Throughout his career he has proved he is able to win from behind or from the front.
This contrasts starkly with Coulthard. Anderson simply uses the information avaliable to him, but still admires Vettel's performance, whereas Coulthard openly attempts to discredit a fellow writer within his own organisation, and by proxy all those associated with the same argument.
Malaysia 2013He is actually marginally more balanced in this article, as there was very little recourse for defence as the move disobeyed a definitive instruction, but was also not technically illegal.
On the question of whether the authority of Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, is undermined by this incident between Sebastian and Mark, just remember that McLaren found that they could not manage Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton after one year, so Alonso left
i.e 'other drivers do it too'.
Rewind to Hockenheim in 2010, when Felipe Massa was given instructions to move over for Alonso, I came out then and said that this had always been part of the sport and that we had been lying to our fans by pretending that it did not happen
It is an entirely internal matter, just as it was when Ferrari gave team orders.
i.e 'noone complains when Ferrari does it.'
Team orders are allowed, and in this instance the order was given.
i.e nothing technically illegal done.
Fundamentally, this issue has been dealt with.
i.e 'everyone should just get over it.'
These are all perfectly legitimate points, I don't deny that for an instant (exluding the final one). However, it utterly lacks the balance I feel necessary if you consider Coulthard is supposedly a representative for those on the outside of the F1 world, such as ourselves.
Compare this to Brundle's interpretations at the time;You could add in Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna - all the great champions were selfish winning machines and they really didn't care too much about their reputations in that respect. I think there is a sporting line which you don't cross - it is honour amongst thieves in many respects, but then I didn't win three World Championships and Sebastian Vettel already has at 25-years-old.
"You have two very competitive drivers who do not want to yield - Mark moving towards the end of his career and wants some success, Vettel has three Championships in the bag and wants to blitz every record there is and his job is to win, not to be popular.
Exactly the same points Coulthard makes, even using the same example within the article. However this recognises lines of what is considered 'sporting' or not, whereas Coulthard merely focusses on the technical legality of the move, before shifting focus elsewhere. There's also a very nice summary by Kravitz embedded in the page too.
You can also compare
Brundle's 2012 summary with
Coulthard's. There are also just general articles that sounds like they have come directly for the Red Bull marketing department,
here,
here, and one even labelled as such
here. Also, if you check out the BBC build up to the season if it's still on iPlayer, when Red Bull were still predicted to have massive reliability issues, McNish goes on to point out that it's a joint issue between Newey's packaging, and engine issues, whereas Coulthard effectively goes on to blame all potential future reliability issues purely on Renault.
Now, there is nothing wrong with Coulthard having ties and connections with particular teams or drivers, in fact this is expected of a former driver. It's what gives Coulthard an edge over a more external figure in his role, and as we've seen with Brundle, having a former driver in a commentating role can add great depth of analysis, and excellent perspective that otherwise will not have been seen. I'm not comparing Coulthard to Brundle here, Brundle is clearly far more experienced and practically an institution at this point, and it would be unrealistic to expect Coulthard to match that level of reporting skill. But it could also be argued that Brundle perhaps also had roots that did not go as deep within the F1 world as Coulthard's; with the former having flitted between a variety of teams, and the latter having both a long history at Mclaren, and later helping to develop Red Bull while they were still a fledgling team (now hired as a consultant.) However the question is to how appropriate his remaining at a team after having been hired in the media side of the sport is.
My issue is that for those unable to afford Sky (and for the sake of argument stream it either), and also for those who simply don't have the time to follow F1 on a regular basis, and with the loss of Gary Anderson, independent analysis is no longer just necessary, but increasingly priceless. Coulthard is now one of precious few connections that many of the viewing public have to the ever closeted, complex and private F1 world. I consider those involved in the media, even a sport, to have a basic duty of responsibility to consider those who do not have the privilege of direct and personal connections to to those in positions of authority. And in my opinion when he endeavours to merely preserve and protect the reputations of whomever he is personally affiliated to within the sport, it is a blatant abuse of that trust, utterly shameless and desperately unprofessional.
F1 claim to fame - Offending Karun Chandhok 38 minutes into the Korean Grand Prix's FP1.
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I wont attempt to change anyones mind.
