IT’S ALL A BLUR FOR F1 DADS

[TheStig]

FOR many fathers the definitive moment in family life is the day they are out-sprinted, beaten at chess or find their finest efforts as a bowler being hit into the next street by their own child.


In the case of former Formula One drivers Martin Brundle and Jonathan Palmer, that moment came in a 155mph blur as their teenage sons outpaced them for the first time in a straight head-to-head in a private test. After years of listening, Alex Brundle and Jolyon Palmer have bragging rights at home.


Now the battle transfers to Formula Palmer Audi as Brundle and Palmer junior go up against each other in an eight-round series which starts this weekend at Donington Park.


“There are no freebies, I gave it all I could but they know the cars a bit better. It’s fine, I can take it, I’m pleased for Alex,” said Brundle with a smile after his offspring won the four-man shoot-out at Bedford Autodrome, home of FPA.


Palmer senior, who owns the autodrome, half of Britain’s major tracks and the FPA series, was just as relaxed having come in behind his son with the two Brundles at the front by a fraction of a second.

The 17-year-olds are in their second seasons of FPA open-wheel racing but are under no illusions that simply because their fathers have 242 grands prix between them, they will make it to F1.


Both find the idea of a different, safer career too ludicrous to consider. “When you sit in a Benetton car made out of a cardboard box watching your dad racing on television, what else are you going to do?” said Alex, who was two when his father was a team-mate of Michael Schumacher.


“My first words were mechanic or something like that. My family is steeped in it from grandparents. It’s like taking over the family business.”


Jolyon’s father had finished his F1 career by then and embarked on becoming Britain’s Mr Motorsport, but surrounded by cars, he was destined to follow the tyre tracks.


Brundle is now ITV’s award-winning commentator but Alex laughs when talk of getting advice comes round. “Dad struggles to impart the info to me,” he said. “We’re not on the same wavelength at all. I know he is a top commentator, he’s told me many times, and he can talk a good race. But sometimes you have to make your own mistakes.”


The dangers are obvious. Brundle and Palmer had some spectacular crashes in the Eighties and Nineties and watching their sons makes them twitchy.


“I get more nervous watching him than I did for myself,” said Brundle, “but I’m more worried he has a road licence when he heads out into an uncontrolled environment.


“I asked him if he understood the risks. He came back with the slightly shocking response, ‘I’d rather die than end up in a wheelchair’.


“Alex has already had some horrible accidents but he just gets back in and thrashes it.”


Palmer added: “You ask yourself if this is a reasonable risk for a parent to expose them to. Yes. Are we pushing them? No, they want to.”


Jolyon had a life-threatening accident last year, racing quad bikes in woods. He hit a tree and a consultant said that if it had not been for the air ambulance and had the trauma surgeon not been on duty, he would have died.


He lost six units of blood, ruptured an artery, smashed his liver to pieces and was on a ventilator for three days. “I lost 12 kilos but I was back racing after a month off,” said Jolyon.

 By Bob McKenzie
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/41052

TheStig