At the moment I’m referring specifically to this Autoblog article, where the President of Ferrari states that the new teams in F1 should leave F1 and drop down to the lower-rung GP2 series (which is often considered a “feeder” series for drivers looking to get into the top-tier Formula 1).

A little bit of back story here… this past year, the FIA allowed a few new teams to enter Formula 1. Basically 3 new teams – which is a lot to jump into something like this. There was also supposed to be a USF1 team, but that just never came to be.

These new teams have been at the forefront of a LOT of debate this season in F1 as they struggle to get up to speed with the rest of the field. Thing is, it takes LOTS of money and LOTS of time to get on the same level as some of these teams who have been doing this for longer than many of the people involved have been alive. You don’t just climb in the ring with the top level teams and throw a knockout in the first round. Just won’t happen. So needless to say, these new teams are figuratively and literally not up to speed with the rest of the field. They’re doing well with what they’re working with and have made tons of progress – but still far off the pace.

This guy at Ferrari, Luca di Montezemolo, now seems to think that these teams should just pack it in and move down a step to the GP2 Series. Why? Because one of the slower drivers “prevented” one of his driver’s from gaining position during a recent race. You know what “Luca” … it’s called TRAFFIC. It is in all forms of racing. If your guy couldn’t make it around the slower car and lost a position – tough titties. That’s the whole point of the sport!

Fuck that guy.

The real motive behind this garbage? To get a 3rd Ferrari car into the F1 series (and presumably a 3rd car for some of the other teams).

Seriously though. This is stupid. Just compare to any of the sports car racing series… Grand-Am, ALMS, etc. They race multiple classes on the track at the same time – with WAY more cars than F1. Hell in ONE class there are more cars than the entire F1 field – but they do it with TWO classes (or sometimes more) on course at the same time – sometimes totally 50 to 60 or even 70 cars. If you think your superstar driver has traffic problems now, try putting him in one of those races.

They say that if you try hard enough, you can have or be anything… I disagree. Not that someone should not be optimistic about things – because there are a lot of things people could do if they were to try. It’s just that the list is not infinite. Like I could never be a member of British Parliament. And if you try to say that I could be, you’re either lying to yourself (and me) or you’re an idiot. I could also never be a race car driver. At least not without a lot of help.

If you have been reading my site at all, you’ll know that driving/racing is a big part of my life. But I “race” around cones… in a parking lot… with my regular car. And while this is tons of fun as it is, it’s still hard to call it racing – especially when I explain it to people who don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s kind of like saying you’re a Chef – but you assemble cheeseburgers at McDonald’s. Just not quite the same thing. I’d love to be an actual race car driver – and I’m not even being picky here, I don’t need to shoot for Formula 1 or anything, I’d just like to drive an actual race car. Professionally. Continental Tire, Rolex, ALMS, World Challenge, any of this would be ideal.

I like to think I do well at autox… and that I have some skill. I would also like to think some of this would translate into driving on an actual track and that I wouldn’t be awful. Sure, there’s a LOT (even a “lot” is an understatement here, I realize that) that I would have to learn and would like to learn (hell, there’s a ton I still need to learn about autox)… but I would like to believe I have a tiny amount of talent and wouldn’t make a total ass of myself.

But how do I even get to that point? I don’t even have the budget I’d like to be able to prep for autox like I want to… let alone to build and field a race car in any sort of series. I also don’t have a racing/karting background like many of the drivers out there (note: I’m leaving NASCAR out of this b/c it would be a very cold day in hell for that to really be where I ended up). I’m just a regular guy who likes driving and would like to race for real. But what kind of chances do I have? None that I know of.

How about driving schools? Sure that would be awesome, but chalk it up as another thing I don’t have the $$ for. So is it just that I don’t have enough $$? Do only rich people race? Do you have to be rich, in order to get into racing to become more rich? Is that the only way? And yes, I realize that getting into racing to become rich isn’t how it works – that’s not why I want to do it – I’m just illustrating a point.

A couple years ago VW started their Jetta TDI Cup series and at one point I actually thought “hey, I could try to get in on that…” but then you need to front like $20k for the car and stuff. Not to mention go on the road with the series for all of the races. There is just no way… where do I get that money? How do I pay my bills on the road? Do they pay you to race in this series even if you don’t win? The questions go on and on…

Point is… unless someone can point out something obvious to me that I’m missing, I see no way for me to ever follow that dream… not at this rate anyway. Is it so much to ask?