Finding the Chicago Bears of F1

Football is over. Baseball is almost here. Basketball, entering its far more interesting post-All Star stretch, is finally going to get interesting.

But there are sports beyond America's big three, so why not dream bigger? Why not consider the possibility of becoming interested in something...new? Could another form of disappointment exist?

At least, that's where Patrick's head is at as the Super Bowl heads into the rear view mirror and the biggest discourse amongst Chicago Bears fans is whether to pay a bunch of billionaires to build a stadium.

Which they should not do, by the way. Even though they probably will.

Patrick: I was fortunate enough to be extremely busy this past Sunday, which meant I had no time to process that it was the first time in many months without any football on TV. I like basketball, I often love baseball, but god damnit, football is the one that gets me out of bed. I’ve got the Olympics on in the background like white noise, but it’s mostly that: pleasant background chatter. Perhaps it’s time to try something new. To be daring. Rob, I think it’s time to get into F1.

My friend, who is very F1-pilled, pointed out that I’d muttered about this idea a few times, and he pointed out that the new season of Netflix’s Drive to Survive season is kicking off at the end of the month. I am not going to watch seven seasons of Drive to Survive, so you can stop right there. But look, I did watch the incredibly mediocre F1 movie from Apple, aka the poor man’s Top Gun: Maverick, and at least came away interested in learning more about the drama of it all. 

When I got into football, I downloaded a bunch of podcasts, signed up for fantasy football—I tried to find various avenues into the sport beyond a generational fandom to the Chicago Bears.

Drive to Survive, at least, seems like the easiest and no nonsense way to lock in before the new F1 season starts in early March. But I’m also considering a podcast to join me on my regular outdoors runs as the weather starts to warm up. I ask: Who is the most Chicago-coded F1 team? If I’m to start rooting for a single driver/team, who can I pick without being an asshole?

Help me, Rob.

Rob: If we had forums, this prompt is a "discussion locked after 1052 pages" kind of thing. I do this shit for a living with Shift+F1 but Patrick asking me to find him the Bears of F1? Suddenly there's real pressure! This is my chance to convert you!

I woke up thinking about this and spent my entire shower arguing with myself about my answer, because there were three teams that immediately sprang to mind, but I realized two have better NFL analogues. We'll get to those in a minute.

The Chicago Bears of F1: Williams

Williams was a family operation that was a predominant power in an earlier era of F1. One of the absolute best sports documentaries I've ever seen is simply Williams, and what starts as a straightforward team history ends up being a painfully intimate portrait of a family that apparently never talked about their issues until a film crew came asking questions! It's very clear that the whole operation started as Frank Williams' obsession and turned into a burdensome legacy for his wife, and then his children. The team spent the 2000s and 2010s sliding into embarrassing irrelevance as the Williams family's finances fell behind the investment required to compete in the sport. The team has one of the highest trophy counts in F1, but for about five years its cars were reliably near last place. The second or third season of Drive to Survive shows the lead designer and owner flying commercial, with car parts strapped into the seats next to them because they weren't able to finish their car in time for the start of testing.

So you basically have all this stale prestige from the equivalent of the George Halas era, and a grim decline. But the team sold to an investment group a few years ago and they hired a Ben Johnson-like figure, James Vowles. He was regarded as one of the strategic geniuses behind an incredible championship run at the Mercedes team. He's got a goofy charisma: he's an awkward nerd but genuine and unguarded in a way most team principals (basically coach and GM) are not. He's savvy about it, too. The Williams Youtube presence is the best in F1, a mix of good self-analysis, oddly cinematic behind-the-scenes films, and a video podcast starring their drivers called Team Torque.

Team Torque is in a golden age right now because Williams also has the two most personable drivers on the grid. Alex Albon is a lot like Vowles: awkward and a bit strange, obsessed with his pets, but kind of hilarious. Carlos Sainz is newer to the team, a well-regarded driver who was treated like a secondary driver rather than a team leader at. He's become a bit of a hearththrob and leans into it in a self-deprecating way, flirting shamelessly with Albon in every episode of Team Torque. But in between the grabassing and tangents they will also give you some of the most honest, reflective talk about the state of racing that you hear from any drivers.

Williams is still an organization that has years of organizational rot to dig out. The people working there might be great but 20 years of operating on a shoestring left them pretty dysfunctional, and there are some signs that after a great season last year, they've stumbled badly with the huge overhaul to car design required for this season. But what could be more Bears? They might be about to plunge into mediocrity after a false dawn, or they might be carrying on with a rebuilding that's finally under the right leadership. With Williams you only get heartbreak and disappointment or heartwarming underdog success.

Now I told you there were two other teams I considered for my answer but I realized there are better parallels.

The Dallas Cowboys of F1: Ferrari.