Skip to main content

Time to Head off...


Patrick Head has finally called it a day and quietly departed from the Williams F1 team to pursue his lifelong ambition of being a pole dancer.

Well, one of those facts is correct, anyway.

Head has been in F1 longer that I've been unclear as to what the hell it is I am actually doing - and believe me, that's a bloody long time indeed.

The somewhat intimidating Head was engineering Robin to Frank Williams' making-the-deals Batman, and the pair of them have racked up brilliant championships with some of the greatest names in F1, including my favourite, Damon Hill.

But the team haven't won a race since that surly chap with a penchant for swearing, wild talent AND massive recklessness (not to mention a commendable ability to annoy the hell out of Schumi), Juan Pablo Montoya, was with the team in the mid 90's. Heading for 20 years later at an alarming rate, it's clear that the once great team have lost their way, and have been quietly putting new people in place to try and recapture their glory days.

Head was the man who oversaw the early careers of most of the top engineering guys now playing leading roles in F1, and a man to strike fear into the hearts of the drivers. Getting a bollocking from Patrick must have been like being shouted at by a truck - he was pretty likely to run you over for good measure too.

That he has left when the team is at its lowest ebb is a shame. I'm sure he would love to be there when they win their next race, but retirement age is upon him, and the youngsters are needed to bring fresh thinking and a return to the days when seeing a Williams-Renault meant you were looking at the race winner before the lights had even gone out.

I hope that day comes soon. Thanks Patrick - F1 won't be the same without you. Or those shades.

(CD tonight is some OTT rock from The Darkness - Permission To Land. *Rock hand gesture and pout*)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Making an exhibition of yourself

Now and again, it’s good to reaffirm that you’re a (relatively) normal human being. One excellent way of doing this is to go to a business exhibition. Despite what you might have surmised from reading my previous columns, I am employable, and even capable of acting like a regular person most of the time, even joining in the Monday morning conversation about the weather over the weekend, and why (insert name of footyballs manager here) should be fired immediately. The mug! True, there are times, often involving a caffeine deficiency, where it is like having the distilled essence of ten moody teenagers in the room, but I try and get that out of the way when people I genuinely like aren’t around to see it. As part of my ongoing experiment with what others call ‘working’, my ‘job’ involves me occasionally needing to go and see what some of my colleagues get up to outside the office, and what our competitors do to try and make sure that they do whatever my colleagues do better than ...

Suffering from natural obsolescence

You know you’re getting old when it dawns on you that you’re outliving technological breakthroughs. You know the sort of thing – something revolutionary, that heralds a seismic shift it the way the modern world operates. Clever, time-saving, breathtaking and life-changing (and featuring a circuit board). It’s the future, baby! Until it isn’t any more. I got to pondering this when we laughed heartily in the office about someone asking if our camcorder used “tape”. Tape? Get with the times, Daddy-o! If it ain’t digital then for-get-it! I then attempted to explain to an impossibly young colleague that video tape in a camcorder was indeed once a “thing”, requiring the carrying of something the size of a briefcase around on your shoulder, containing batteries normally reserved for a bus, and a start-up time from pressing ‘Record’ so lengthy, couples were already getting divorced by the time it was ready to record them saying “I do”. After explaining what tape was, I realised I’d ...

A fisful of change at the shops

A recent day out reminded me how much the retail experience has altered during my lifetime – and it’s not all good. I could stop typing this, and buy a fridge, in a matter of seconds. The shops are shut and it’s 9pm, but I could still place the order and arrange delivery. I haven’t got to wander round a white-goods retail emporium trying to work out which slightly different version of something that keeps my cider cold is better. It’ll be cheaper, too. But in amongst the convenience, endless choice and bargains, we’ve lost some of the personal, human, touches that used to make a trip to the shops something more than just a daily chore. Last weekend, we visited a local coastal town. Amongst the shops selling over-priced imported home accessories (who doesn’t need another roughly-hewn wooden heart, poorly painted and a bargain at £10?) was one that looked different. It’s window allowed you to see in, rather than being plastered with stick-on graphics and special offers calling ...