F1 fans have all watched rush. There’s precious little to watch in the sports film sector when you narrow it down further to formula 1. So every F1 fan, I presume, has watched the film on F1 legends James Hunt and Niki Lauda. If you haven’t go watch it. Well, after you’ve read my article and shared it. Yeah? I’ll go on and get to the point then.
There’s a scene in the film Rush where you finally see the seeds of Hunt-Lauda friendship after a reporter asks Lauda an insulting question asking him if his wife is going to leave him, now that he looks like he does. This is after Lauda returns from a life threatening injury that 99 out of 100 people would retire from (third degree burns and all). And 1 person out of 100 would return in the future and take it slow on his return. Lauda did something nobody in their wildest dreams would’ve predicted as he returned to the tracks in the same season and actually competed and only lost the title because he decided not to receive in the final race that was again in very risky conditions.
I digress, so back to the sleazy reporter who asked this question off Lauda. While Lauda choose not to get pulled into responding to a pointless question, James Hunt, true to name, hunted down the reporter and socked him for the question.
I am not a proponent of violence, but if Hunt were around today if he went looking for a reporter to beat down on today. F2 is the junior level of the F1 sports. And given how little importance lower level F1 driver seem to get from the media, F2 is expectedly mostly not given much importance by the media. But this weekend was different. As you can see in the picture there’s quite a turnout for a chat with an F2 driver. That’s because the driver is Mick Schumacher, about to make his debut in the F2 following which he will drive in the famous Ferrari in the first in-season testing.
While reporters asked him about his driving career and dreams and what F2 and driving for Ferrari means, one gentleman decided to ask Mick Schumacher this: “Who among Verstappen and Schumacher was better at skiing?”
Now let’s be fair and give this context, the Schmachers and Verstappens are friends and have spoken about going skiing together in the off season. Even Mick has spoken about his friendship with Max and their summer trips together. But YOU DO NOT ASK MICHAEL SCHUMACHER’S SON IF HE IS A BETTER SKIIER THAN ANOTHER PERSON”. That is media one-o-freakin-one.
I don’t know if Mick Schumacher is a great driver or if he even ever makes it to F1, but the fact that he did not go James Hunt on the reporter leads me to believe if not anything else, he’s got the temperament to make it in the F1 at the very least.
