Can I race it?...

Dario Franchitti, the unnoticed sports personality

 

It's a crying shame Dario's achievements have been ignored by the media again. In part, you would have hoped they might have accidentally read a paragraph or two about what Dario has achieved in the United States whilst rushing together pieces on the disastrous Las Vegas IndyCar season finale, but they probably didn't want to accidentally talk too much about a series which they in fact know nothing about.

It's a remarkable irony that Britain is one of the most engaged countries when it comes to engineering skills and its involvement in running the top motorsport teams in a variety of different disciplines, whilst simultaneously having one of the most unengaged national media on the same subject.

This follows on from the weekend's announcement that Sky Sports has formed an entire channel just for its newly acquired coverage of Formula 1 next year, and early signs are that won't include anything else but Formula 1. Sky is certainly not blind to the fact that there are other motorsports. It airs the IndyCar Series live, it tried its hardest to get the UK interested in NASCAR two years ago, it runs highlights in the same week of the event of the British Rally Championship and has other wrap-up programmes too, yet it still felt it needs to treat Formula 1 fans separately from other general motorsport fans.

This is driven from the fact that unfortunately other motorsports do not get a look in from the UK's national media. IndyCar popped up after the Las Vegas race for what was solely coverage of Dan Wheldon's tragic death in the event, which was a matter of mention only for the respectable media, or a savage witch hunt by the usual hideous 'newspapers'. The only other notable appearance of IndyCar racing in the newspapers recently was for the previous year's Indianapolis 500, which was of course just to highlight Mike Conway's season ending accident, barely mentioning Dario Franchitti's second win in the event.

It's no wonder there's a general perception in the UK that IndyCar is just a dangerous sport, with no other insight beyond that from your average Joe.

The only other sport that had a reasonable profile in the UK is the FIA World Rally Championship. Rallying is a popular sport at a national level in the UK, but the '90s and early '00s heydey of British rally drivers Colin McRae and Richard Burns is long gone, and with Sébastien Loeb's eight year domination, and the sport migrating further and further down the EPG, it's been disappearing from the public consciousness at about the same rate.

So sadly, it isn't any surprise to see no representation from motorsport in this year's BBC Sports Personality of the Year, with the shortlist drawn up by the national media's nominations.

The Sun, which actually sponsors Chevrolet touring car drivers Jason Plato and Rob Huff didn't even nominate their men. Of course if they had, the cynical view would be it could have been a deceitful attempt to get sportsmen wearing their logos in the shortlist, whereas in fact the truth is they're probably the only newspaper really aware of Plato and Huff's achievements - and in all reality, if three time World Touring Car Champion Andy Priaulx can't get nominated, what chance did they have?

Jenson Button, a good year in a bad car just missed out by one vote on making the shortlist, whilst Dario Franchitti got one nod from Scottish newspaper The Herald, the same amount of nominations as Lewis Hamilton, who most certainly just had his worst year in the Championship.

People can get really mad about the absence of women in the shortlist if they want, but I think it's more than just that. The exclusion of true British sports heroes highlights the poor system that is being used to select the shortlist for this 'prestigious' award, relying on a body which are assumed to be qualified to produce an acceptable shortlist, when it seems quite likely that they are in fact not.

 

Why 2012 is already a more important year than 2011

The 2011 motorsport calendar is already a waste of time. There's not a lot really going to happen, and we may as well skip straight on to 2012.

Okay, I'm probably overdoing it a bit, but with so many 'transition years' for championships planned in 2011 in terms of technical regulations and competition, everything to really look forward to starts in 2012.

First, Formula One has delivered what apparently was the greatest championship in years (funnily enough, I preferred 2009, with the established order very much ruffled up) - there's not a lot happening. The F-Duct gets swapped back for KERS, we get a new aerodynamic system to grumble over in terms of the deliberately moving wings (as opposed to the already moving front wings Ferrari and Red Bull Racing are believed to have had earlier in the year)...and that's pretty much it.

In Indycar, the championship potters on to its sixth straight year of running as a spec series with Dallara chassis and Honda engines, with no one able to beat the dominant pairing of Chip Ganassi Racing and Penske Racing. That's unlikely to see much change in 2011, especially with the closest squad, Andretti Autosport, losing their most capable driver Tony Kanaan in sponsorship wrangles.

In DTM, the series will enter its third year with the development of the car frozen, with the Audi A4 DTM (R14) car again battling against Mercedes-Benz C-Klasse DTM machines whilst we wait for new regulations in 2012 and for BMW to join the fray.

In WTCC, we're currently set for an even thinner year than 2010, with BMW pulling its works team and only Volvo committing as a new manufacturer with just a single car evaluation entry. Unfortunately the Volvo car doesn't have a prayer against the third year Chevrolet Cruze LT and its new 1.6 litre turbo engine.

For 2012, all three of the above will get fixed (in theory).

Indycar will see a new chassis, albeit still a Dallara, but with teams able to change their own aerodynamic packages, with Chevrolet and Lotus already indicating they'll do just that (that's Lotus as in the car company, not the Mike Gascoyne/Tony Fernandes Formula 1 team).

Indycar will also have a battle of engine manufacturers for the first time since 2005, with Chevrolet coming in to take on Honda with engines developed by Ilmor (who built the Mercedes-Benz engine back in the CART days).

This will certainly change things as Penske have signed on with the Chevrolet engine from year one, so their performance will most likely dip if Chevrolet don't get the engine perfect straight-away (which is fairly likely). No matter what happens, it'll be interesting to see, and who follows suit in developing their own aero and running the Chevy.

In 2012, the DTM also has new technical regulations, with a lower cost car for Audi and Mercedes, and the third of the premium three German brands, BMW, joining in as well after leaving the WTCC and Formula 1 in recent years.

The WTCC has its new engine coming in for 2011, but its all the new manufacturers in 2012 that the series is waiting for in order to put on a show. Championship promoter Marcello Lotti has made a lot of noise of interested parties, but none have made any formal commitment as yet.

The BTCC will probably start to see more new cars built in 2012 as well, as teams will start to switch from the S2000 cars to get ready for the 'all NGTC' regulations to be in force in 2013. At present, most of the teams will just run the new engine specification in 2011 to get things started, and to be able to benefit from the drop in cost of the S2000 engine.

So, 2012 is going to be a fascinating year for international motorsport, in particular Indycar, which is looking good to make a full recovery from a painful decade of open wheel racing in the US. 2011 is just an in-between year for many, where we keep guessing and asking about 2012!