Every sport has its curious idioms. In GAA for example, the quirk by which, even though they may be getting hockeyed all over s pitch, a corner forward will nearly always be the first to be hauled ashore. If a horse runs a bad race or two, either the jockey gets dropped or the animal gets relocated to the premises of another trainer. As if the previous practitioner of the craft didn’t know what they were doing.
Right, so I can hear you listing the number of horses who did hit new heights when transferred to the care of the likes of Willie Mullins or Paul Nicholls or Gordon Elliott or Dan Skelton. But the fact is that practitioners could be given a pig and still manage to train it to win the Champion Hurdle quicker than Babe could round up sheep!
Switch to darts and, if you have even a scintilla of knowledge about the scene in the tungsten throwing arena, you will know that Peter Wright tinkers with his equipment more often than most folk change their underwear!
So you’d have to wonder why, exactly, in a sport where the human participants therein have less to do with success being attained than in any other discipline on the planet, it’s still the drivers of the appended machinery who end up carrying can when it malfunctions in a major manner.
Reference is of course being made to Motorsport, and in particular, facets thereof with the word Formula in its title. Even as a relatively recent convert to fare in the fast lane and behind the chequered flag, it amazes me that, even though the automobiles all but drive themselves, if something goes backside about face with operations, it will be the mere mortals behind the extractable wheel that will end up carrying the can.
Just ask Alex Dunne. In a sporting arena where Irish connections and/or success were limited to the likes of David Kennedy and Eddie Jordan and Eddie Irvine. Though ironically, Dunboyne’s Niall Quinn had also given ‘making it’ in the fast lane a right go but the honest to God answer is I’m not sure how that turned out for him.
However, high profile Irish success in motorsport may be closer now than at any time in the past. Or at least that’s how it appeared to be until hugely disappointing news came to light during the week.
Again, in the interest of fairness, I will admit that my knowledge of Alex Dunne’s career is scant at best. Other than, that is, to have noted the significant impression the young Irishman had already made in Formula Two.
Which, for a bit of context, would be akin to a club player running into a vein of form and pushing hard to get a call up to inter county level.
However, in an as yet unexplained bombshell, last midweek, McLaren announced that they and the young driver had gone their separate ways by mutual consent. Well they were hardly to say anything else, now were they?
The big question, which in all probability will never be answered – publicly at least – is why? The only insight this corner could offer is that, for whatever reason when something goes wrong once the lights go out, it’s generally the soul in the cockpit who ends up carrying the can.
Hence how you end up with talented drivers like Daniel Ricciardo and Mick Schumacher end up getting kicked to touch while posh boys with rich daddys get to zoom around the world achieving nothing.
What makes Dunne’s defenestrartion all the more difficult to fathom is that he was doing so well in the F2 drivers’ standings.
To such an extent that you’d imagine he’s unlikely to be in the pit lane for too long. Indeed, even as news of him being cut loose was breaking, there was talk of Red Bull being interested in acquiring his services. They could be just the lads to give his career wings!
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