While Michael Schumacher celebrated his 38th birthday in the
quiet of retirement this week, Formula One could look forward to a
new year with the focus on youth.
Spaniard Fernando Alonso, moving to McLaren after two titles
with Renault, is the youngest double world champion at the age of
25.
The arrival alongside him of Briton Lewis Hamilton, who turns 22
on Sunday, means former champions McLaren will have by far the
youngest line-up when the season opens with the Australian Grand
Prix in Melbourne on March 18.
Schumacher's Ferrari, now with Finland's Kimi Raikkonen (27) and
Brazilian Felipe Massa (25), have not started a campaign with two
such young drivers since New Zealander Chris Amon (then 24) paired
up with 23-year-old Belgian Jacky Ickx in 1968.
Formula One has lost a fistful of the over-30s who started last
year while embracing change and a bumper crop of hungry young
rookies for the post-Schumacher era that is about to unfold.
Gone with the extraordinarily successful German are Canada's
1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve, mercurial Colombian Juan
Pablo Montoya, Portuguese journeyman Tiago Monteiro and hapless
Japanese rookie Yuji Ide.
The empty places have been filled mostly by men still in their
20s, if not all from the same generation, Hamilton, Finland's
Heikki Kovalainen, Germany's Adrian Sutil, Briton Anthony Davidson
and Poland's Robert Kubica.
Yet despite the youth revolution, Ferrari and McLaren are in a
minority.
Assuming that Toro Rosso retain American Scott Speed and Italian
Vitantonio Liuzzi, a majority of the 11 teams will start the season
with, on average, an older line-up than in 2006.
That includes champions Renault, since Kovalainen is only three
months younger than the champion he replaces while 34-year-old
Italian Giancarlo Fisichella stays put.
Honda, Toyota and Williams, the first two with the same drivers
from last year and the latter bucking the trend by replacing
Australian Mark Webber with 33-year-old Austrian Alexander Wurz,
are all longer in the tooth.
Red Bull, the team owned by the Austrian energy drink company
with a big eye on the youth market, have the oldest pairing of all
with Briton David Coulthard remaining and Webber (30) replacing
23-year-old Austrian Christian Klien.
Veteran Coulthard
Coulthard, 35, is now the old man of Formula One, remarkable
considering Britain's last two champions Damon Hill and Nigel
Mansell were 36 and 39 respectively when they collected their
titles. Fifty years ago, the Scot would have been a comparative
youngster. Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio made his debut in 1950 aged
38 and won his fifth championship at 46.
Australian Jack Brabham was a champion at 40, France's Alain
Prost and American Mario Andretti at 38.
The average driver age this year is 27, compared to 28 in 2006.
All the signs are that the youth trend, fuelled by competitive
go-karting from the age of eight and the sheer physical demands of
driving a modern grand prix car, will continue
accelerating.?
Schumacher was the best riposte to ageism. Even at 37, the seven
times champion remained the man to beat. He had reached the summit
but, as he showed in his last thrilling race in Brazil, was far
from over the hill.
With Raikkonen and Alonso he formed a triumvirate apart from the
rest. It remains to be seen who, if anyone, will step up to join
the other two but none of the current over-30s would be on the
list.
McLaren boss Ron Dennis was dismissive of pretty much all of
them when asked last November whether there had been anybody
already in Formula One who had impressed him as much as
Hamilton.
"If you take out the recognised top three, one of whom retired,
we felt that in looking at the others...there was no one who really
shone," he told reporters.
Coulthard and Fisichella represent continuity and experience for
their teams but could be replaced by younger men come the end of
the year.
Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, now 34 and the driver who has been
around longest since making a precocious debut as a 20-year-old
with Jordan in 1993, can also take nothing for granted at
Honda.
"Formula One does need a new influx of young people," team boss
Nick Fry said last month. "(There are) a number of drivers in
Formula One who have been there a long time and I wouldn't
anticipate that a number of them are going to be there much
longer."
(China Daily January 5, 2007)