And now for something completely different. I have started work on a piece of Formula One fiction, detailing my entry to the sport and subsequent adventures. As I’m actually using a computer game to ‘drive’ my career, I have no idea what the major story will be. So far I’ve had two seasons with Tyrell and one with Benetton having started in 1996 but just to spice things up a bit, teams are allowed three drivers. It’ll be some time before this is finished as I don’t get to ‘race’ that often and the early seasons copy need some serious work. Here’s a taster from today’s conclusion to the 1998 season:
At the start there is contact up ahead and we seem to file through the opening chicane in slow motion. Trulli’s Prost comes from nowhere to jump a few of us but as things settle down on the opening lap I pass the Jordans of Ralf Schumacher and de la Rosa and then muscle past Montoya at the hairpin after the long back straight.
It is Villeneuve’s Williams that was hit and as he pits for repairs I move up to eighth and use my superior speed to surge past Trulli on the back straight to jump up to seventh with Zonta’s McLaren now in my sights. I am hopeful that Trulli can hold up the Jordans and allow me to build a gap ahead.
He doesn’t hold them up for long and I don’t really get much of a sight of Zonta. For the remainder of the race I have to manage my car and manage the gap to Hill behind me. On a couple of occasions he gets close enough to have a look but each time I am able to pull away. It feels as if I have had to attack every apex and drive every lap like a qualifying lap but I am delighted with a fifth place to end the year with.
I’ve also defined the framework for a project that will probably be completed first – my biography/analysis of a cricketer you might have heard of called Sachin Tendulkar. Here’s a teaser of some of the introduction text, which is about as far as I have got so far:
Whereas Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman and Kumble all decided that enough was enough, Tendulkar carried on despite opportunities being presented to him to make the perfect exit. He could have walked away having helped India reach the number one Test side in the world. He could have said his farewells after Mumbai Indians won the Champions League. Even when India won the World Cup in 2011, and then when he went on to reach the magical 100th international century, he vowed to continue churning out the runs for his country.
And he was true to his word. Even if no selection panel on earth would dare drop him, he was still good enough to demand inclusion, still good enough to extend his records far beyond the reach of anyone still playing.