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The 2014 Gobshite Award

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As soon as it became clear that Ferrari might not win anything on track, there was a fair chance they would make a bid for the 2014 Gobshite Award as a last resort. Sure enough, knowing the cameras were running, Luca di Montezemolo gave us a theatrical exit from the Bahrain Grand Prix before it had finished. It may have been a pathetic example of leadership for his beleaguered troops on a day when the red cars were struggling into ninth and tenth places but, frankly, he'll have to do better than that to win this award. Which, for all I know, is why he was asked to stand down a few months later. I'm mean, we're talking prestige here.

This was a classic entry for an idea borrowed from the late Hugh Leonard, a renowned Irish playwright with a wicked sense of humour. Leonard used a column in a Dublin newspaper to distribute his annual awards based on the assessment that "a Gobshite is a jackass, often harmless but always hopeless".

It's a clause you might feel should be written into the qualification required to become a leading F1 team principal. Or a member of the F1 Strategy Group. Or, indeed, the person who selected members of the aforementioned group in the first place and then decided, when decisions had been made, not to inform, never mind involve, the less fortunate at the back of the grid.

I guess the F1 hierarchy is continuing to take lessons from bank executives who rip off the rest of the world and present themselves with handsome bonuses for apparently being so clever. When predictable outrage follows, the surprise registered by these manipulators of money is akin to the shock demonstrated by F1's leaders when anyone with the merest understanding of our sport rubbished the idiotic concept of double points.

The destiny of the Gobshite Team Award was never in doubt from the moment Toto Wolff, speaking as a Strategy Group representative on Sky F1, actually managed to look perplexed when confronted by the negative reaction of those who pay through the nose for circuit admission and, if they have any money left, the nice motor cars produced by his employer.

We had the usual spirited submissions from Eddie Jordan and Bernie Ecclestone, the commercial rights holder taking a leaf out of EJ's book by talking nonsense on television. The difference is that Jordan actually gets paid for blarney that, buried somewhere within, contains a grain of sense - if only EJ could find it by the time he reaches the end of his garbled thoughts.

Mr. E's daft quotes about young people and their place in F1 society may have been more worrying but they were not considered a match for last year's comical entry when he impersonated Charlie Chaplin grappling with a revolving door outside one of the courtrooms he had been frequenting.

Speaking of being shown the exit, Tony Fernandes has actually departed the F1 scene but the wreckage left in his wake provides sad evidence of his candidacy. We now know he began his submission as long ago as August 2010. That was when he convened an emotional press conference in Singapore to tell the world how much Team Lotus meant to him. This was, he explained, the first step in reviving that great name with a team which, in the summer of 2014, reached the point of collapse.

How it got to this state and what happened next has been the subject of much legal wrangling. I don't know the full facts - I'm not sure who does, given the conflicting press releases - but it would seem to boil down to the amount of debt and whose responsibility this had become. One side said the new owners were supposed to take care of it. Meanwhile, the unfortunate incumbents painted a picture akin to finding IOUs stuffed into every drawer they opened. Either way, Mr. Fernandes showed particularly insensitive timing by being associated with a new Rolls Royce, even if it was paid for by legitimate means.

This was not the first F1 team to have gone bust on the back of an egotist wearing a headset and either looking to be loved or prepared to use F1 as a personal cash cow. Even giving Mr. Fernandes - a decent man according to some - the benefit of the doubt, it's reasonable to ask if the collapse of Caterham could not have been handled in a more professional and equitable manner, one that did not leave the employees - never mind Caterham's suppliers - battered by personal hardship and stressful legal argument. All told, this is a sad entry and not really in the spirit of a Gobshite.

On that note, step forward Christian Horner, this year's outright winner who clearly has a fine sense of humour while making several entries, most of which were rather limp and therefore perfect. The toys regularly thrown from pram of a sore loser reached a futile nadir in Abu Dhabi. Fearing this award along with everything else was slipping from his grasp, the man referred to - rather cruelly I thought - on Twitter as @christianhorniwell seemed to be suggesting a return to whatever it was that had made Red Bull successful for what, on this evidence, has been a few seasons too many.

For a foretaste of next year's winners and losers, I'll be back with 'Old Mo's Almanac' next month. In the meantime, thanks very much for your company in 2014 and safe motoring into the New Year.

Maurice Hamilton writes for ESPN F1.

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