F1 in Indy
25 September 2000
USGP #6 Schumacher Plays To The Crowd • Bernie - Brief But Bored • Indy TV Station Withdraws Coverage • Historic F1 Cars Thursday NASCAR Winston Cup driver JEFF BURTON told foreign journalists that American fans liked to see emotion in their drivers. Well, the fans at Indianapolis Motor Speedway got a big dose of it Saturday afternoon, after F1 Qualifying Saturday afternoon. MICHAEL SCHUMACHER was walking up the pit lane to the Media Center for the obligatory Post-Qualifying media conference. He was completely surrounded by a phalanx of photographers shooting his every move. Schumacher was clearly enjoying the moment, the crowd, the adulation, the Ferrari frenzy. He jumped up on the wall and raised his arms, and the crowd went wild. As Schumacher walked down the pit lane, it was like an audible wave following him all the way, with the cheers moving throughout the grandstand. The seating area opposite the Ferrari Garages were filled with Ferrari fans, flags and the like. Friday the FIA accredited media were granted a session with BERNIE ECCLESTONE, TONY GEORGE, and MAX MOSLEY. For the most part,, whether it's so reported as such or not, the conference didn't impress the media all that much. Several times I heard the expression 'Good Cop, Bad Cop.' Ecclestone had an attitude and came into the conference saying he had nothing to say. The photos in the papers and elsewhere showed a very Bored Bernie. He rudely refused to answer National Speed Sport News Editor Emeritus CHRIS ECONOMAKI's questions on the F1 purse. Where Bernie was the master of brevity, Mosley was loquacious, with the result being the same. Ecclestone refused to answer any question on his financial situation or the current flap in England over Ecclestone's 1997 political donation to Prime Minister TONY BLAIR. The English papers have been full of stories on the situation and are having a field day, with many folks calling for the resignation of Chancellor of the Exchequer GORDON BROWN. It all harks back to the alleged one million pound donation by Ecclestone to the Labour Party. The story came out this past week, as part of a new book. Blair is denying the allegations. The Saturday Indianapolis Star carried a story on one of the local TV stations withdrawing its coverage of the event due to what it viewed as an abridgement of its First Amendment rights. JACQUES NATZ, News Director for WTHR, Channel 13, the local NBC station, refused to sign the Formula One Management license agreement. He didn't want the station to be tied down to showing the FOM-produced two-minute highlight video without editing, nor to surrender its own video footage within a week after the race. The local TV stations are used to being provided IMS footage of the Indy 500 and the Brickyard 400, which they can edit for their own usage. Unless something can be worked out, Channel 13 will buy "feed' from CNN. The other local TV stations would not or could not comment on the license agreement. STEVE EARLE, the American FIA Steward for the USGP, is having an easy, enjoyable weekend. He and the other two FIA Stewards, BRIAN BROPHY of Ireland and ROGER PERT of Canada, have had little or nothing to do, which is fine with Earle