Rory's Rambling
An Occasional Column from the Antipodes	by Rory Gordon, Australia

IT'S MY TURN! Regular readers of Atlas may have noticed a few changes over the last few issues of this esteemed journal. You may have even noticed that I no longer carry the title "Managing Editor". Some might say that I've been demoted. Indeed, this, and other changes to Atlas, might have caused me to pound the streets at night, wearing out my shoe soles and pondering Atlas, the world, the universe and the meaning of it all. Sorry to disillusion you, but I need at least eight hours sleep a day ... in addition to eight hours every night ... and I just haven't got the time for street-pounding. I won't bore you with all the whys-and-wherefores of the changes, but I will bore you instead with some of my thoughts. Well, to be honest, I'm going to bore you with a single one of my thoughts. I've been with Atlas now longer than anyone other than our illustrious boss, Paul Kaizar. I suppose you could say that I thought, if not believed, that it was my right to be the second-in- command, as it were, of Atlas. And what was the basis for this belief? Quite simply that I had been with Atlas longer than anyone else. To put it another way, it was my turn. The fact that I may not have been fulfilling the role and duties of the position was completely beside the point - I had the seniority and it was my right. Anyway, to change the subject completely, I was delighted to see that Mark Webber and co-driver Bernd Schneider recently won the FIA GT race at Suzuka in their Mercedes. Australia, for its size, has a remarkable and glorious history in many sports, including F1. For example, I seem to remember reading somewhere that Australia has won many more Olympic medals, per head of population, than any other country. Then in F1, Sir Jack Brabham and Alan Jones have both been World Champions. But both of those were, to say the least, a few years ago. Where are today's young Australian drivers? For a start there is Webber. Webber has been working his way up through the ranks over the years, supported by his parents and sponsors, mainly in Britain in the highly competitive F3 and FFord series. Now he's continuing his "training" with the Mercedes team. Much the same path as Michael Schumacher, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Karl Wendlinger, some people have noted. Currently, Craig Lowndes is Australia's other main short-term F1 hope. A revelation in the Australian Touring Car Championship series, Lowndes hooked up with the Holden Dealer Team which is run by Tom Walkinshaw. In due course, Lowndes got a Walkinshaw-sponsored run in F3000, but didn't do too well, for a variety of reasons, and returned to Australia. Of the two, I have to say that Webber is my personal favourite to get an F1 seat and now, with the backing of Mercedes, he may well get that chance. He's bright, he's chirpy, he's good with both sponsors and the fans, and he seems to be a good driver. On the other hand, I don't like Lowndes. I don't know why, there's just something about him. I don't doubt his driving ability - even ten years ago (he's only in his 20s now), he would have had more driving ability than I'll ever have - but there's something about his personality that doesn't sit well with me. Besides all that, Lowndes seems to have been helped all the way, while Webber has had to graft and work his way to the top. Let's face it, it's Webber's turn first! Meanwhile, the Silly Season is in full swing in F1. With some of the prime seats, McLaren and Ferrari for example, fully booked for 1999, the discussions seem to be centred mainly around Williams and BAR (even though I already have my doubts about the competitiveness of both teams for next year). There have been all sorts of mutterings about who is going to go where. This driver from one team to another, another driver leaving but maybe staying, another driver staying but maybe leaving, that driver from another series. As usual, there'll be a couple of surprises about which some people will say that they knew about it all along. Frankly, I haven't got the faintest idea and, while it's all part and parcel of the fascinating F1 circus, I prefer to wait until March 1999 to see what really happens and leave all the speculation well alone. If you trawl around the newsgroups and the bulletin boards, you'll inevitably find a host of messages stating that one driver is better than another, followed sooner or later by the equally inevitable "flame war". Quite often, you'll hear someone say that so-and-so could be the next World Champion, if only he could get into the right seat. After all, they say, hasn't he been around long enough, done his time with a lesser team, shown his mettle, and isn't he now worthy of a top seat? Isn't it his turn? No. There shouldn't be any such thing as somebody's "turn". Seniority shouldn't come into it at all. Why on earth should I be appointed to a post simply because I have been with the organisation longer than the other possible candidates? Why on earth should Webber get an F1 drive before Lowndes simply because Webber has spent more time in Britain in lower series? And, if you were the manager of a top F1 team, why on earth should you employ a driver simply because the driver had done his time with a lesser team? In all those cases, you have to work to show your talent, and demonstrate that your talent is what is needed at that team at that moment. And it's not just a matter of showing your talent in the particular area that the team may be looking for at that time, you have to be able to show you have skills in other areas as well. So, please, let's not have any discussion about some driver or another "deserving" a better seat. If he has the skills, he'll get it ... if he doesn't, he won't. But that's just me.

Rory Gordon	© 1998 Atlas Formula One Journal.
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