If there’s one person in Formula 1 who sums up everything wrong with people they claim to hate, and social media in 2016, it’s Carmen Jorda. She’s basically F1’s version of a Katie Hopkins at this point, but without the general… being an asshole thing.
Someday, people learnt that if you don’t want to support someone… you ignore them. That’s the one thing that harms what they’re trying to do. But every time she comes up on an F1 hard camera, or says something in an interview, or a fellow driver cracks jokes about her, we all take the bait – Just like when Katie Hopkins tries to be “edgy and controversial”. Renault see this value in her, because we keep her relevant, in the same way that reacting angrily to people deliberately being controversial for the sake of it, keeps them relevant in the eyes of the public.
It’s why Sky keep giving her time. It’s why F1 always get a camera on her in the paddock. It’s why even my peers on Downforce publish pointless articles on her, without failing to realize… You’re part of the problem. Now, before you call me out for doing the same here… I don’t really care. Jorda is an accidental hate figure because she got a job she was under-qualified for on paper. But we all know she didn’t get that job on paper, so why are we so mad? It’s really not all that different from some of the deliberate hate figures we have out there these days, like a Katie Hopkins, a Clay Travis, an Ann Coulter, a Donald Trump, etc.
So, when Richie Stanaway and Marcus Sorensen threw the shade at Carmen a fortnight ago, I laughed. Because they took the bait to make themselves feel better about their own superior talent, for a job where talent wasn’t a requirement. Hence, the following Drebrief script:
“God damn it racing drivers, you just can’t help yourselves can you? I thought we were over this Carmen Jorda shit by now, you know? But no, you gotta keep poking her with a stick, so now, I have to make this video script on the fly. Sorry [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_tooltip title=”It’ll be up here on the site on Sunday too. It’s a gem. ” placement=”top” trigger=”hover” class=”” id=””]IndyCar[/fusion_tooltip] fans, your video is in another castle.
So, Marcus Sorensen and Richie Stanaway have taken it upon themselves to bash Carmen Jorda on the Internet, because that’s the cool thing to do, Sorensen claiming that he was 12 seconds a lap faster in the simulator, and Stanaway throwing shade on Twitter because of her… less than stellar GP3 record. And I sit here typing here to myself saying: “Why?”
Like, we know Jorda’s slow. We know she isn’t very good. This is hardly new information, we all went down this road last year as it is, so why Sorensen and especially Stanaway feel the need to rub her nose in it further baffles my mind.
Carmen Jorda is the biggest face amongst a much larger issue in Formula 1, and that’s the ethics of driver recruitment. As I said in last week’s episode, of course, in a perfect world, we would judge purely on talent, but unfortunately, that’s just never been the way in F1. We just started pouring one out over Pastor’s departure last week, while at the same time, couldn’t wait to slap the pay driver tag on him at the same time.
The entire career of Robin Frijins to this day has mostly revolved about how close he’s gotten to F1 without actually making it in, with Caterham as a test driver, and then Sauber hoarding him alongside Simona De Silvestro and [/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_tooltip title=”Amazing how Sergei is now a far better potential F1 prospect now, compared to when he was actually WITH Sauber 3 years ago.” placement=”top” trigger=”hover” class=”” id=””]Sergei Sirotkin [/fusion_tooltip]. Shocker, they hired three drivers at the same time. It’s even gotten to a point where we pick and choose between pay drivers we like, such as Kevin Magnussen getting back to F1 despite being almost as well sponsored as Jolyon Palmer who got a significant amount of backlash as Grosjean’s replacement.
Anyone with half a brain cell knows that Carmen, being the instant conversation starter she is, twinned with her modelling looks, is a natural fit for a job as a Lotus development driver, where you don’t really have anything too important to do, and yet, people still care about you. Again, just like I said last week, look at how overlooked Adderly Fong has become since he joined at near the exact same time Carmen did. Do we still talk about [/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_tooltip title=”Incase you didn’t know, he’s a Colombian GT Driver. I suspect he gave the Make-A-Wish Foundation a call.” placement=”top” trigger=”hover” class=”” id=””]Steven Goldstein [/fusion_tooltip], who signed up with Force India with the same job last year? Yeah, didn’t think so.
The fact we all talk about Carmen, given her relative ability, a year on, speaks more about us as a masochistic community, than her and whether she’s “worthy” of a job where ability, just isn’t as important as we all want it to be.
In a Formula 1 landscape where teams have to spend £100m a year to be competitive, can you blame them for taking all the sponsor money they can get? It’s exactly why [/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_tooltip title=”And to be fair, Pastor wasn’t even all that bad. Just a victim of his own finding and the judgemental nature of the Internet.” placement=”top” trigger=”hover” class=”” id=””]Pastor[/fusion_tooltip] got 2 years longer than he probably deserved, despite him being another whipping boy we manifested ourselves. This is a classic example of us the fans, as well as Richie Stanaway, pointing his frustrations in the wrong areas, and using Jorda as the easy target we’ve made her into. Newsflash Richie, bashing her for her job, doesn’t make yours any better. If anything, it’s just a classless stunt to enhance your ego.
And don’t get me wrong, I totally understand Richie’s frustration. It’s not a fair system. But as long as F1 remains the pinnacle, the arms race, the spending war it’s become, it never will be a fair game. It’s the nature of judging quality, when your most valuable asset is what the bottom line of the balance sheet reads. But throwing shade at Carmen Jorda for it is taking the easy way out when we should be asking more prominent questions in regards to F1, how it shares revenue, and how F1 teams so often struggle to make ends meet.
I’m not saying Carmen deserves to be there. Quite the opposite, I don’t know what hiring the bottom ranked driver in GP3 does to enhance your team’s “development”, but remember, said Lotus team had Bailiffs seizing their gear just 6 months ago.
So, next time you see an F1 team hire a driver that wasn’t your first choice, ask yourself this: “Can you stomach the hardly new concept of pay drivers, or have no team at all?”
Don’t hate the player folks, hate the game.”
Now, I know a fair few people pointed out an old episode of Dre TV, where I talked about Jorda… And these same people didn’t watch my video properly. I wasn’t dismissing Jorda because of her ability, it was more of my frustration against the system, and how the sport should be doing more to promote worthy talent. I don’t bash Jorda, because I know exactly what she is. And you do too… So why you so mad Richie?
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