It used to get my goat if an incident was misrepresented because a commentator had a pre concieved view of someone or a team. James Allen used to really annoy me when during boring races in the early 2000's he would trot out the line, 'Schumacher has another mistake free, clockwork pitstop... gone are the days of botched Ferrari pit stops in the pre Brawn era, spaghetti lunches etc, etc.' I used to shout at the telly. I am pretty diffident when it comes to Ferrari, but I hate inaccurate reporting. Especially when it is laced with British smugness. The facts are that from 83 onwards when everyone joined the Brabham pitstop band wagon Ferrari were among the best. I think Johansson had the fastest tyre pitstop in a race of around 5.8 seconds. In fact in the pre Brawn era I remember Williams having their problems at Estoril 91 and Mansell himself causing the Ferrari pitstop problem in Esoril in 1990. In fact the only big Ferrari cock up in the pits I remember was in Brawns's time when Irvine's wheel went missing. (I had a theory that was intentional to stop Irvine being Champion!) Overall do you get my point on annoying stereo types or I am talking nonsense?

Murray Walker used to describe anyone who hailed from a certain South American nation as a "Brilliant Brazilian", even if the said driver was clearly a long way below the stellar ability of Senna and Fittipaldi. But then we could probabaly fill this thread with Murrayisms ....or am I being Murrayist in saying so?

To be fair to Murray back in the 80's someone like Gugelmin coud finish right behind front runner Prost in 3rd place at the 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix and quite rightly get the brilliant Brazilian tag only for time to prove he was a bit of an overated plodder. I think Murrary's enthusiasm let him get away with a lot. The modern James Allen tried to portay a modern effiency, that makes his smugness over wrongly criticising the pre Schumacher Ferrari team annoying. In fact for an Englishman I never understood his bias towards the Schumacher/Ferrari set up.

Another good example of stereo typing was poor Andrea de Cearis. At Monaco in1989 he was running superbly in the top 6 from the start more or less, only for Piquet to take him out at the old station hairpin in one of the worst lapped back marker manoevres you will ever see. The biter bit many of you will cry. Yes but an incident is an incident and deserves to be treated on it's merits. Well Murray and James completely called it wrong, gave Piquet no criticism at all. If it had been the other way round they would have gone on about it for a very long time!

Isn't it only annoying stereotyping if you don't agree with it?

Yes I remember this too - ironic as James was normally very quick to criticise Piquet when ever the opportunity arose!

I find some stereotyping a bit irritating ( for example, Murray and James rarely giving de Cesaris any credit), but some can be very funny (most of Barry Foley's Catchpole cartoons in Autosport).

One incident interests me and I think I referred to it in the Montjuich thread. Both Autosport and Motoring News, both of which I liked enormously, blamed Vittorio Brambilla for triggering the first corner accident at the Spanish GP in 1975. Various websites mention it too. Apparently VB's March pushed Andretti who, in turn, knocked Lauda into Ferrari team mate Regazzoni. In those days, of course, the Spanish race wasn't shown on British television so there was no reason over here to question the reports. But looking at footage on Youtube,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ3owDxquIU

it is clear that VB is nowhere near Andretti - the March wasn't involved at all as far as I can make out, being tucked in behind James Hunt whose Hesketh is directly behind Andretti. I assume that Mario just misjudged his braking, wiping out his past employer's team in the process – or did he even get a little nudge from James?.

It seems as if someone, somewhere fed the incorrect story to the journalists who, perpetuating VB's 'wildman' image, added another, this time unfair, chapter to his colourful reputation. This particular piece of stereotyping seemed to benefit the English speaking contingent at the expense of ‘Johnny Foreigner’. I wonder if any of the journos (Alan Henry? Pete Lyons? I'll have to check) remember where the Brambilla story came from.

And Patrese for all the wrong reasons.

Well you can be just against stereo typing. I am guilty of being a bit enigmatic and hate being put in a box! (I am claustrophobic) Seriously I am a BIT OF A FACTS MAN AND HATE IT WHEN 'STEREO TYPING GETS IN THE WAY OF REALITY.

Interesting. I have watched the clip and take your point, and the whole johnny foreigner theme hit a lot of the italians with Murray and James' comments over the years. Martin Brundle who I loved as an F1 driver, was under strict instructions from Ken Tyrrell not to jump off the racing line for the leaders, so was always quite hard to lap. Fair enough. But Murray and James would always give johnny foreigner a good verbal mauling for blocking but gloss over Martin's indiscretions.

"This particular piece of stereotyping seemed to benefit the English speaking contingent at the expense of ‘Johnny Foreigner’. I wonder if any of the journos (Alan Henry? Pete Lyons? I'll have to check) remember where the Brambilla story came from."

John Winfield,
You are perfectly right. Even though I've always enjoyed comments in English - they are so exotic and stylish to my French ears -, I'm often put aback by a dismissive tone that seems to be too frequent when it comes to such issues...
"Johnny Foreigner", I didn't know that one but it says much...

Seccotine,
Dismissive and a little chauvinistic sometimes but, on the other hand, there are lots of us on TNF who have a great affection for teams from mainland Europe: Matra, Ligier, Alfa, Martini, Minardi, the 'old' Ferrari etc. And drivers: Brambilla, Depailler, Ickx, Laffite, Regazzoni etc. The list is endless! I always liked French teams and drivers, particularly underdogs, so I got more pleasure from, say, JP Jarier nearly winning a Grand Prix, or Jacques Coulon having a good race in F2, than from Alain Prost winning race after race in a McLaren. Silly really and I suppose I'm guilty of stereotyping too: exotic french teams and drivers, Gauloises or Gitanes in abundance, stylish, charming but not too dominant. I'd love to see the French back in Formula One today.

Well, Chauvin was French, for a start!

Not to mention castigating Martini for baulking when most of the time it was god old Jonathan Palmer!

I think moving it on, from a british point of view, we were often fed the line that the foreign media was dreadfully bias when we were as bad anyone if not worse. I have watched some French and German coverage from the 70's and 80's and it seems quite balanced. I was unfortunate enough to watch a complete re run of Argentina1978. I wish the old stereo type of the foreign director rigidly following the home driver had been true. Not the case we had 90 minutes of a black and gold Lotus. I wish we hasd watched a good battle following Reutemann. In fact watching the whole season (nearly all on orf )saw the directors only fault being to rigidly follow the leader. Peterson was not followed at Anderstorp, nor Lauda at Osterreichring too any 'bias' degree. I don't think foreign media ever was worse than some of the Mansell mania we had.

Yeah, ok.
So you need a Johnny Foreigner today?...

John,
No worries : I'm well aware of all that. But as you raised a point, I just followed you.
It is good to know guys like Jacques Coulon are remembered in England.
Cheers!

...sans Jean Todt.

I didn't have time to write more, for which I apologise. The term 'Johnny Foreigner' is rarely heard today, and when it is, it is more a case of lampooning the type of person who might have used it in the past. 'Johnny Foreigner' is, after all, hardly offensive compared to any Anglo Saxon insult that might be used with true venom. I just do not believe that there is very much difference between European nations when it comes to predjudice, and it would be a mistake to assume that the constant, even tiring, references to the two World wars in the British media means a hatred for the Germans, a dislike of the French or a lack of respect for the Italians. Times have changed. That doesn't stop fans of all sports having favourites - in Rugby I always want the French to beat the Kiwis, the Scots to beat the French, the Welsh to beat the Scots and England to reign supreme. It just doesn't happen. There are many English racing fans who support foreign teams and drivers over home-grown talent.

Thanks for the perspective, Tony.
I can tell you we have a very different way to be dissmissive, less arrogant but pretty depressing. One of our fine writers wrote a book called "La France moisie" - "Rotten France"... that is what this is about. We had a guy on TV in charge of the international football matches. He could sound genuinely surrealistic at times, but he was also annoying... And about the foreigners, he was both inventive and repulsively hilarious, if I can say it that way. For instance, he once stated that the Argentinians often wear a beard.
?!
What he sayed about the Rumanians or the Greeks is more predictable.

We all like the opinionated journalists so we have something to moan about I suppose. But having said that I had had enough of James Allen when he left and I don't miss him. I was upset at the jokey comment about annoying stereotypes only being annoying if you don't agree with them as I as trying to make the point that accuracy is all important.
I must now eat humble pie as I had forgotten James Hunt gave Piquet a hard time and realised I never really gave it much thought as I didn't like Piquet. And when James Allen had a pop at the good old days of Ferrari it annoyed me as I hanker after those characterful years.