http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/69917

I'm sure they'll keep a one minute silence or so. It's a big tragedy in Spain, the government declared a 3-day mourning in the country.

Massa also wore a black arm band last year after the Brazilian plane crash.

It's a reasonable call, can't see why anyone should be unhappy with that.

On a side note, what actually happens when they declare a 3 day period of mourning?

Just posted this on another forum:



Interesting comments from Alonso.

I recall Schumacher tried to do something similar after 9/11 in Monza 2001, where he wanted all the drivers, in a mark of respect to not overtake into turns one and two. Several drivers, IIRC disagreed.

I remember that as well, but it really was a ridiculous suggestion. A minutes silence is a fairly universal way of paying respects.

Seems a perfectly reasonable request from Alonso given that this weekend's race is being held in Spain.

The Schumacher idea was indeed a stupid one.

A minute silence seems respectful enough, and I think it will go down well with the crowd too, who will appreciate the thought. Perhaps it might be better on the Saturday so if falls within the three days mourning?

I understand it's the largest loss of life in a plane crash in Europe since Lockerbie, and I think a tribute is fitting.

Why, did he have pole position? Maybe he should have asked not to overtake at all in the whole race!

153 people dead, but DCu*t remains a one trick pony. Mummy still find it impressive?

Come on, the only person who thought it was a good idea was MS. It was comically bad.

At the time?

I remember much more posts about a (quote)small(unquote), gutless, puke-inducing driver with no consideration for victims than I do remember laughs and shitz...

Without meaning to detract from the tragedy of so many people being killed in such an horrific way....

351 people were killed by a tropical storm in Burma a week before the Turkish Grand Prix this year....not a blink.

87,000 people were killed on the May 12th in an Earthquake. No one spared them a thought at Monaco 10 days later. Thats like the Madrid plane crash every day, for 18 months.

42 people were killed in bomb blasts in Algeria yesterday, and 54 today in a bomb blast in Pakistan. Where is their minutes silence?

And today, tomorrow, on qualifying day, on race day, next monday, tuesday...infact every single day, 8000 people are killed by AIDS in Africa.

Not saying that a moments silence isn't the right thing to do given that we have a Grand Prix in Spain so soon after an horrific accident like that - but it does need a little bit of context.

Doug

dreadful incident at barajas.
makes us remind the tenerife klm/pamam in 77.

an disgraceful tragedy RIP, great alonso btw

You always get idiots who are going to make things into JV or MS issues.

i didn´t die today. but possible you would not mourn me if i did.

tragedy is relative.
this one is in spain, a close country to me, and of major significance.

obviously we have relative feelings for different events.

why disregard one´s feelings because of another s grief?

I daresay if 87,000 had died in Spain, then there would be a minutes silence for that. I don't think anybody's suggesting there would be a minutes silence if the crash hadn't happened to have ocurred in the same country as the next F1 race.

I get your point, but, equally, think you're being a little disengenuous. Perhaps you would also criticise F1 fans for their 'disproportionate' response to Senna's death given the number of people who had died in bizarre gardening-related accidents around the world that same year?

The "context" that you seek is that the plane crash was:

1- The biggest (loss of life in a plane crash) in Europe since Lockerbie
2- In Spain
3- Within a few days of the next GP in the same country.

Agreed, but I think it's the local nature of the crash and race that make this one different. If the Malaysian GP had been the week after the tsunami doubtless there would have been a silence as well.

That'd be me, alright.

But that was not the point I was trying to make. Time passes, people change and memories get fogged.
(Heck, Quebec wouldn't be part of Canada if everyone who remembers voting 'yes' to separation in 1980 actually did.)

As for the subject at hand, my sympathies are with the families of the victims. While many other sad events pepper our yearly tribulations, the fact the tragedy is local to the weekend race event gives a lot of pertinence to a small tribute.

Silly suggestion, another example of Schumacher's yen for race fixing.

I can't see anyone objecting to Alonso's request.

The day before the race at Monza Zanardi had just been involved in a horrific accident at EuroSpeedway in Germany. The no overtaking was more a reaction to that then 9/11. But Schumacher was not himself that weekend and I guess it all just got a bit much for him.

To give Schumacher's suggestion a bit more context: Wiki article

"The pre-race build-up was notable for the fact that Michael Schumacher attempted to organise a pact that would see the drivers treat the first lap [not just the first 2 corners] as if it were taking place behind the safety car. The plan failed, with Jacques Villeneuve and Benetton's Flavio Briatore refusing to accept the pact. Schumacher had been keen to avoid any accidents at the start, due to a combination of the effects of the September 11, 2001 attacks earlier that week; the death of a marshal in a pile-up at the beginning of the previous year's race; and the horrific accident in the previous day's ChampCar race in Germany, in which former F1 driver Alex Zanardi was critically injured, leading to the amputation of both legs."
(my emphises)

Sure, it wasn't a great suggestion in hindsight, but more understandable in context, espec given the previous year's fatality at Monza.

Schumi cares

He does, but he completely mismanaged the situation. If he wasn't comfortable, he should have pulled out.

Right, Zanardi's massive accident and the fatal accident the year before were the reasons for Schumacher's (admittedly silly) suggestion. It had little to do with the United States.

It was a good suggestion yes considering what happened a year ago at Monza, maybe he didnt bring it well but at least he tried to organize something.

Well said that man.

A minutes silence before the start would be right, fitting, and respectful...but...there is a wider picture and the honest fact is most people couldn't give a dam about 3rd world death.

Well said.

I agree with what you're saying, but if you look at it that way, all you'd ever have is silence. How should we distinguish who should get a moment's silence and who shouldn't? I don't know the answer to that. Is it the race organizers, individual drivers, etc.? Should sporting events have such practices(ie. some suggest an all or nothing mentality). Anyway, I'm just throwing ideas out there. I feel not just for the Spanish victims and their families but for anyone affected by the examples djellison has given.

Racing Comments

I really don't know. The right way to go about it is to have a quiet word with race-organisers however.

Doug

This is what is called gesture politics and mass psychological stimulation. It serves no purpose what-so-ever except to elevate the status of the proposer and of course nobody in his right mind would object. It is like the way politicians come up with daft terms like "solving the broken society", inclusiveness and other political correctness mumbo jumbo. Of course the crash is a horrible tragedy, but if mr Alonso and co. really want to help the victims he should lead this mates in donating a fraction of the millions which he and others earn to the widows, widowers and children of the deceased. That is more meaningful than a minute silence in my opinion.

Goodness, there seems to be sensible comments on a difficult subject. What a surprising thing to find (on tiniternet genereally, not this forum specifically)

If they had a minutes silence for that idiot Diana woman dying, then they'd better have one for this, especially as both are on Spanish soil.

The Diana thing was something the teams/drivers did on their own, I think.

it would be pretty cool if some of the cars sported black bands, like the ferrari's did at monza....

id also consider having a bit of car set aside to tribute or raise awareness of issues, if i ran a team.

Why have some of you got your knickers in a twist about this minutes silence?

They're not stopping the cars in the middle of the race and getting out of their cars to do it, if it happens at all it's going to be in the pitlane before practice probably.

It's a 'nice' gesture given the circumstances and far from being the smallest thing the drivers could do it's actually probably the biggest thing they can do relating to this.

And what they did?

Supposedly something Damon Hill requested although I don't know how true that is. (Never seen him as much of a big Royalist).

They held a minutes silence in the pitlane. There's footage of it on the FIA review video from that season. How disinterested most of the drivers look...

Why would they have had a minutes silence for Diana and ignore other more significant events? Pretty screwed up priorities. They can't honour every tragic event but considering that this crash happened in Spain shortly before the Spanish GP, having a small tribute is appropriate. However, black armbands or anything like that is too much, except for Alonso if he chooses to do so.

You are right of course, but friends and family to me or friends and family to people I know could very well have been on that plane, and such accidents will always have a bigger impact on our hearts, I think. I'm not saying it's right, but I think that's how the human mind works.

I'd like to quote my Chinese friend:

"May the dead rest in peace. May the ones who lived be strong"

A very fine gesture from Alonso and (hopefully) the rest of the drivers with a minute of silence before the race to honor the victims.

I cannot begin to express how angry this sort of comment makes me.

What gives you the right to judge someone's genuine affection for his countrymen and his sincerity when using his influences to do something that WILL mean something to his country, for his country?

Perhaps you could take the time and money (on internet) you spent criticising and being crudely cynical about a man's intentions amidst what is clearly his own national grief, and instead spend it on donating online to a charity for those 'widows, widowers and children of the deceased' if you care so much.

And if I should ever hear anyone from Alonso's spokespeople or his own mouth that he put his hand in his pocket and dished out some of his own money for any cause, then I would never accept that as geniune and sincere - than if I never knew for certain whether he ever did donate or not.

I think he did what he could and should have in his power and position; and in front of some 8-10 million spanish viewers, and 110,000 spectators no doubt full of Spaniards, I think most people will understand, feel and appreciate exactly how meaningful it is to have a minute's silence to remember a tragedy has occured not so far away - and that it allows people to feel comforted that they can enjoy other parts of life without feeling they are in any way being disrespectful by enjoying something relatively trivial like sport.

Perhaps you underestimate just how powerful a mass (and we're talking potentially millions of people in spain including valencia) minute of silence can be to remember a tragedy...its usually much more etched in memory than leaving a bunch of flowers somewhere or something.

As for the post which highlighted that massive tragedies were not equally remembered; and while I understand the sentiment, and in fact the harsh reality that third-world and natural distasters in such areas are less often given such sentiment at events like this...someone else was right in saying that tragedy is all relative, and right now we are entering a huge sporting event for the Spaniards (being a new track, second race in Spain, after a great spanish sporting year etc), in Spain, only days after a tragedy that is affecting the whole nation of Spain. Whatever else happens elsewhere, this particular situation begs no debate at all.

Gosh...imagine the barrage of criticism Alonso would have gotten from both within and globally if he hadn't made a gesture!! I guess sincerity can never really win when it comes to people playing judge, jury and executioner.

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. But I prefer what he did.

A quiet word with the race organizers as someone above suggested would exactly have opened the door to trash Alonso for doing nothing. There is also a problem with that particular suggestion. I could be taken to mean that the race organizers who are Spanish as well, don't care about the plane crash, so Alonso had to remind them to do something. Which wouldn't be good either.

My personal take is this: F1 drivers are heroes for some people. And for those people Alonso gave a good example.

Contrast that for example with the IOC (Beijing 2008 Olympics) who wanted to bar Spanish athletes from wearing a black ribbon, and having lowered the Spanish flag to half-mast in the Olympic village, to show their respects. In the end it appears the IOC had second thoughts about it.

Bottomline is that people should be allowed to pay their respects in any fitting way, and if F1 as an entity or just the drivers do so: Fine. If not, fine too.

Someone told me once: Grief, and grief well. That's what it is all about, with observing a minute of silence. For some it might be unnecessary, for others it is necessary. For whomever it is necessary, they will be thankful if the rest allows them do so.

i think you gotta try and do what is right, and in this case i think alonso did the right thing

Yeah, pretty much nails it.

Exactly. 10/10 post.

I understand your point but I don't think you are right. The last part of the quoted line is the context. It doesn't strike me as any different to holding a minutes silence at Silverstone in 2005 for the victims of the London bombings. The race is in the same country a very short time from the tragedy.

I see a difference actually. One is an accident, one is violence.

Indeed, but both qualify for a minutes silence given the venue in my book. Those that have lost loved ones have lost them whatever the cause.

I've been reading this forum for some time now and it never stops surprising me how far people here will go to bash their hated drivers.

This is one of the two comments that have really shocked me about the plane crash. The other one was on an American forum where someone said the Spanish people deserved that tragedy because some weird reason I just forgot now.