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ITV stop blaming JT!
By LindaC
August 6 2005
The Fans View series continues with this addition from Totally Toyota member LindaC. Linda expresses her frustration here over the way British F1 broadcaster ITV talk of Jarno Trulli.
Trulli fans are fed up with the constant sniping about Jarno's race pace. The ITV commentators in particular are guilty of this and often imply that it is JARNO who is slow, rather than the car, without taking mechanical and tyre problems into account. Before the Hungarian race, we know that the TF105 hasn't has great race pace lately for whatever reason, and Ralf and Jarno have been driving a similar pace when in clean air. All the talk of 'road blocks', 'mobile chicanes' etc....why don't other drivers in slower cars get accused of that? Or does it only count when they are in the top 6 on the grid? Why wasn't Michael Schumacher accused of that in Hungary, for instance?

This is an accusation that has haunted Jarno since his Jordan days, when, just like this year, he often qualified a car way above where it deserved to be....so it wasn't surprising that it usually slipped back in the races. The EJ11, in particular, was a complete dog, and Jarno did incredible things with it in qualifying. Then it usually let him down in the race...the things that went wrong with it and the difficulties Jarno had with it 'eating' its rear tyres are well documented. But this is where this unfortunate reputation originated.

The TF105 is a much better car than that, but usually Ralf has qualified it where the team expected it to be, and Jarno has got that extra bit out of it. We know it's not as quick as the McLaren and usually the Renault, so why do ITV etc always expect it to keep up with them?

We thought Jarno had finally won over the media last year with Renault, (when he was beating Alonso) and the beginning of this year with the Toyota podiums, before McLaren had got their act together. But the media, especially ITV, have extremely short memories, and it seems a driver is only as good as his last race! Indeed, Mark Blundell has been complimentary in the past and was praising Jarno in Malaysia and Bahrain, yet suddenly this Sunday he's "never been quick in the races." Oh...but now he's 4th and "both Toyota drivers have done a sterling job" in the race. How does that work? THAT'S the kind of thing we are complaining about! Martin Brundle is as bad. They are always making allowances for why Jenson didn't do any better in the race....why can't they look more deeply into why Jarno's car is not working well? They ARE supposed to know more about F1 than us, but sometimes they don't appear to! We know that other media people and real F1 experts like team personnel and ex-drivers don't feel that way about Jarno because they voted him as third best driver of the first half of the season in F1 Racing...so where do ITV get off on this? They need to take a good look at themselves and the job they are doing.

And as for Jim Rosenthal, he only knows as much about F1 as everyone else tells him! he might have picked up a few things by now but he was first and foremost a football presenter who has moved onto other sports also as anchor man....he doesn't have to know anything about it, as long as someone feeds him the questions to ask the 'experts'.
 
Linda Camper

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