Introducing Israel’s first Formula One driver

LUKE ALFRED

The Williams Group announced in Tel Aviv last week that Nissany, the son of Chanoch Nissany, will be joining it as a test driver with immediate effect. This means he will be third in the Williams pecking order, driving with the team on Fridays ahead of Formula One race weekends.

Nissany’s role as a test driver means that he is ideally-placed to become one of Williams’ two premier drivers in due course, a role for which he has been campaigning for years.

“This is a very exciting moment, not only for me, but also for everyone who has been with me along the way over the years. Formula One has a huge audience. I’m so pleased they’ll now get to know Israel through the motor racing track,” he said after the announcement.

Born in Israel but educated in France and Hungary, Nissany’s big break came last December when he was invited by Williams to participate in two days of testing on a track in Abu Dhabi. Here he made a sufficient impression for Williams to offer him a test-driver contract.

“Roy demonstrated his capabilities driving for ROKiT Williams Racing in the role as our official test driver post-season in Abu Dhabi,” said Claire Williams, the team’s deputy team principal. “We were extremely impressed with what he did in a short space of time.”

When Nissany’s new role was formally announced, he was joined at the top-table by Sylvan Adams, the president of the “Roy Nissany Formula One” management group. A billionaire who earned his money in Canadian real estate but now lives in Tel Aviv, Adams is the main driver – so to speak – behind the recent showcasing of Israel as an international cultural and sporting destination of choice.

He was instrumental in bringing the Argentina versus Uruguay football friendly (featuring Lionel Messi) to Israel last year, and was also behind Madonna’s performance in the country. A highly-competitive Masters cyclist in his own right, he is also co-owner of the Israel Start-Up Nation cycling team, which will compete in its first Tour de France event in six months’ time.

“This is another landmark moment for Israeli sport,” he said. “Hundreds of millions of motor racing enthusiasts across the world will get to see a different side of our country, what I call ‘normal’ Israel. Roy will do a fine job of representing Israel with dignity and pride. I can’t wait for the moment when we see the blue and white flag on a Formula One car.”

Fifteen years ago, Roy’s dad, Chanoch, drove a Cosworth-Minardi car at the 2005 Hungarian Grand Prix, his one and only Formula One start. Like his son at Williams, Chanoch was originally Minardi’s test driver, but it was announced before the Grand Prix that Chanoch would be given an opportunity to drive one of Minardi’s two cars on a familiar track in his home country.

Chanoch was painfully slow in his qualifying round, finishing nearly 13 seconds off qualifying leader Alexander Wurz, and nearly seven behind his fellow Minardi driver, Christijan Albers.

He complained that the car “had too much grip” as it went round the Hungaroring track outside of Budapest. A comically undistinguished few days were rounded off when Chanoch’s car spun off the track towards the end of a qualifying round.

He was unable to disengage the car’s steering wheel from the stem, and was hoisted off the track in a crane, never to be seen behind the wheel of a Formula One car again.

While reaction to Nissany’s slice of good luck at Williams has been greeted with an open mind by many within Israel and internationally, the Formula One cognoscenti and media are sceptical. They suggest that the apple never falls far from the tree, pointing out that his career, progressing as it has through go karts and the lower echelons of European racing, has indicated neither breath-taking speed nor phenomenal talent.

They also point to the role of Adams, a philanthropist whose self-confessed mandate is to burnish Israel’s international image through cultural and sporting events. The relationship between Adams and the Williams team might indeed be that of benefactor (or sponsor) to Williams. Then again, might Williams have been helpfully encouraged by Adams to give Nissany his Formula One opportunity?

Either way, the intimation that Nissany is a journeyman driver will be tested during the coming Formula One season as he awaits his opportunity. The calendar is 22 races long this year, the longest ever in Formula One history. It starts with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne in mid-March, and progresses to Bahrain, Vietnam, and China, before ending up via the European summer season in Abu Dhabi in late November.