Rory's Rambling
An Occasional Column from the Antipodes	by Rory Gordon, Australia

As I mentioned in a previous Ramble, in my younger days, I went to university where I majored in politics and history. In those days - and, probably, in these days - the first year of politics was taken up with a single course, Politics 1. This was, basically, an introductory course that took the students through a variety of political study, so that they could decide which stream to follow in later years - political theory, Australian politics, and international politics. Political theory bored the pants off me and, thinking about the number of students who attended the lectures, I wasn't the only one. Australian politics was a subject that most of us (it was an Australian university) already had some knowledge of and an opinion about, so those lectures were well attended. The attendance for the international politics semester varied, depending on the subject. Since I already had a good idea of what I wanted to do in those later years, international politics, I did just enough in that first year to allow me to move on. But, I must admit that there were parts of the Australian politics semester that, despite my early misgivings, had me fascinated. One of them in particular was voting systems. This may seem like a very dry and, perhaps, even boring subject to you. Regular readers of Atlas F1 may well have guessed that the same Rory who pens the Rambles is the same Rory who compiles the SuperStats - on one hand my brain is a mess (the Rambles), on the other hand my brain is highly structured (the SuperStats). Every now and then, I go for a trawl through such gossipy, chatty places as the Usenet group "rec.autos.sport.f1", the "F1 Talk" section on Compuserve's Motor Sports forum and, of course, the various sections on Atlas F1's own Bulletin Board. Quite often I get frustrated at what I read... every now and then, if I have the patience, I get some good ideas for future Rambles. In these sorts of places, there is one almost-guaranteed way to start one of those huge threads that go on and on and on and on. All you have to do is to say that, So-and-so is a better driver than Senna ever was; or that, Senna was a better driver than Someone-from-the-1960s. While there may follow some interesting debate, more usually this sort of message seems to lead to an insult war, with none of the participants willing to acknowledge that they might possibly be wrong. To be simplistic, it boils down to a popularity contest, with each person casting their vote. And that's that. What I see rarely is a decent - i.e. free of emotion and opinion - debate on the relative merits of each driver. Personally, I don't "like" Michael Schumacher... but I don't know him, so that's not a fair statement. However, I do think that Schumacher is probably (hedging my bets there!) the best current driver in F1. And this seems to be a fairly wide-spread opinion among F1 fans. But, does the fact that many people see Schumacher as being "the best" necessarily mean that he is the best? Does the fact that many people now see Jean Alesi, for example, as a "has-been" necessarily mean that he is one? Let's say we had a poll here in Atlas F1, asking who the best four current drivers in F1 are. One way to decide the result would be to count up the number of times that each particular driver was rated as the best, and then declare that the driver with the most votes was the best. Hang on. What if Driver A got 40% of those votes, Driver B 30%, Driver C 20% and Driver D 10%? Simplistically, Driver A is the best. (This is where the connection to my university courses comes in.) Look at the figures a little deeper, and what comes out is that 60% - a majority - of the voters do NOT think that Driver A is the best driver. They may disagree as to who is actually the best driver, but they do agree that Driver A is NOT the best. Similarly, it worries me when I see committees like the F1 Technical Commission - or whatever it's called this week - making decisions on the future directions of F1, based partly on their knowledge (opinion?) of what is "best" for F1. Worst of all, it really worries me when Max Mosley or Bernie Ecclestone make a solo decision on the future of F1, especially when they mention the word "fans" in the same breath. I know only too well that what I think needs to be done to "improve" F1 is very different to what virtually any other person thinks needs to be done. I suppose that what I'm trying to say is that there are times when the majority - however you might define that term - are not right. There are times when the knowledgeable majority are not right. And there are times when the minority, even if that minority is a single person, is right. And, equally, the opposite applies. There are times when the majority are right. There are times when the knowledgeable majority are right. And there are times when the minority, even if that minority is a single person, is wrong. But, to get back onto one of my favourite hobby-horses, can someone please tell me, when was the last time the fans of F1 were asked what they would like to see implemented in F1? F1 is supposed to be entertainment. The fans - that's us - are the customers. When was the last time YOU got asked how F1 could improve their "customer service"? Come to think of it ... do you really ever expect to be asked? But that's just me.

Rory Gordon	© 1999 Kaizar.Com, Incorporated.
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