F1 chief Ecclestone defends Singapore Grand Prix by calling Ferrari team “clowns”

By Les Tan

The Singapore Grand Prix rolled out of town last week but Singapore is – happily for the Singapore Tourism Board – still in the news.

Ferrari made an amateur error in the pit lane during the Singapore Grand Prix, letting Felipe Massa drive off with the fuel hose still attached while Kimi Räikkönen hit the wall with four laps to go.

The pit lane error and Lewis Hamilton’s third place finish meant Hamilton is now seven points ahead in the drivers’ championship, a significant lead given that there are only three races left in the calendar.

Earlier this week, Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo said, in reference to the Marina Bay circuit: “When you race on a track that would work better as a circus ring or something along those lines, anything can happen, because the real spectacle was supplied by the safety car,” he spouted off in an interview with Italy’s Gazzetta dello Sport.

Of course, most of us Singaporeans are offended.

But since none of us are going to go buy a Ferrari and then burn it down in protest, along comes Bernie Ecclestone, the F1 chief who made the night race a reality, with the perfect riposte: “If the Ferrari president is right about the Singapore Grand Prix being a circus, then we have to be grateful to him for providing the clowns.”

Ferrari are the only team who rely on technology to signal the driver while the other teams still go manual with a pit crew member holding a “lollipop” to signal whether the driver is cleared to drive off. It was case of technology failing at a critical time.

Continued Ecclestone: “If I wanted to be a smart-arse, I’d have devised a system so that the light goes green to release the driver at the same time as the coupling hose comes off the car. If it’s a matter of turning a switch, which I am led to believe is how it works, then why not stick with the “lollipop” man of old? Why do you want to have some other piece of technology that can go wrong? It’s over the top.”