F1GP Blues
(Perennial
optimism, new rubber and a tight grid could see a
change in the pecking order in 1997)
They all said it last
year and they all said it the year before that.
"The car feels good, it is quick through the
corners, there is a lot less underwater." Or,
"with our two drivers I feel we have a winning
combination." Or, "Overall the car is an
evolution of last years model but there have been
some significant improvements that we hope will give
the car a 1or 2 second advantage" etc. etc.
The single most
constant thing about Formula 1 is its undying
optimism. Some teams of course, have the luxury of
hereditary optimism and don’t need to remind
themselves as to how good they will be in the
upcoming season(and I think we all know who we are
talking about here), but the majority need the morale
‘ups’ that this enforced confidence
supplies them with. The business of running a Grand
Prix would seem to have greater rewards than winning
a race or the Championship. The acquisition of
Sponsorship money and corporate entertaining, the
gainful employment of 50 of 100 skilled people, the
thrill of the chase, or just the glory of Formula 1,
what is it that keeps the managers coming back year
after embarrassing year, pointless and underfunded?
It must be different things to different people. Eddie
Jordan, Frank Williams Eric Broadley
and Ron Dennis are died in the wool racers.
They have to be immersed in Formula 1 to exist, they
live through their passion and no matter how
uncompetitive their team, embarrassment is not in
their vocabulary, just improvement, evolution etc. Flavio
Briatore was a reluctant latecomer to his team
and has publicly expressed more of a business
interest than a passion for his sport and Alain
Prost and Jackie Stewart
are actively involved figureheads to pull in the
corporate loot. But that’s OK. For whatever
purpose you are holding a Formula 1 team together,
the ultimate goal has to be a win or for some, a
point and, as the new term begins at Melbourne
next weekend for the first Grand Prix of the season,
the optimism will be at a demented level, the self
hype will be at boiling point and no one will allow
themselves even the remotest thought that their car
is going to fall by the wayside or, not get at least
one point or, for some, where reality and fantasy
start to blend towards the practical, a podium
finish.
The holiday projects
and the notes and times have all been compared and
assessed. The boys are in their new classes and the
red light is waiting, like the school bell, to signal
the commencement of their lessons.
Winter testing at both
Estoril and Barcelona have thrown up
widely differing performance figures. The top running
teams have been constantly pushed by the midfielders
and the also-rans from last year are showing a form
that, if only on paper, gives hope that the lower
half of the grid will see as much action as the
front.
The consensus of
opinion remains the same as last year in as much that
Williams will, if not walk it, have to exert
the minimal amount of excercise to keep off the
closing pack. However Benetton seem to be on
the trail once again after a cheerless year and Gerhard
Berger(blindingly quick in testing) rather than
team mate Jean Alesi, seems to be the current
favourite for the pat on the head and the extra
digestive biscuits.
Michael Schumacher,
despite having sandbagged to a degree at the
beginning of the ’96 season with his
recalcitrant Ferrari managed to claim 3
victories, one in front of a home crowd at Monza and
likewise, nothing seems to have changed this year.
Whilst the press talk about reliability problems and
instability and the fact that the old spec engine
will have to be put into service for the first three
races of ’97, Eddie Irvine whips round
the Team’s Maranello test track in record
breaking time. Reliable or not, Schumacher will make
the car look great and he will win Grands Prix this
year that is for sure.
The Frentzen
and Villeneuve pairing over at Williams will
be interesting with Jacques, moving his game up a
notch to put Heinz Harald firmly where he,
Villeneuve, thinks he should belong. If the German
remains marginally faster than the Ferraris, then he
could be seeing a lot of his old nemesis, Schumacher,
in his mirrors.
A newly dressed McLaren is all
gung-ho this season with both David Coulthard
and Mika Hakkinen putting in impressive
testing times. This was another team that ‘Could
do better’ last year, but didn’t and
despite some good performances, remained a
disappointment. Optimism here, seems to take the form
of auto kinesis and with the money that sponsors West
Tobacco and Mercedes have put into
development of the car and it image, it should roll
along under its own steam.
The
new teams of Lola and Stewart Racing
and the rebadged teams of TWR Arrows and Prost
will all be mixing it towards the back of the pack
all with aspirations of getting points. Damon Hill
trying desperately to justify his decision to go with
TWR and covering up for his disastrous testing
programme said recently " The car is great,
it’s just a little on the slow side, which
obviously gives us the greatest potential to improve
over any of the other teams". With the now
infamous unreliability of the Yamaha engine,
Hill may be wishing that he had taken the Jordan
offer, as he will probably be seeing a great deal of
the rear end of that car in the coming races. It is
unfortunate that the reigning World Champion has to
suffer the Ignominy of a car that seems to have
jettisoned all the promise it had at it’s
unveiling and that his talents should be squandered
in trying to develop a car, already with a terminal
disease, that for this year at least will be totally
uncompetitive.
Two ex world champions
both have points to prove. Of the two Prost (nee Ligier)
will be the one to watch. Driver Olivier Panis
put in some stupifyingly fast testing laps to
confound even the top teams. With Bridgestone’s
official announcement that team Prost will be the
fifth team that they will be supplying this year, the
car, powered by the Mugen Honda promises to be
extremely competitive. Stewart Racing has yet to
perform and despite new recruit Jan
Magnussen and old hand Rubens Barrichello pushing
the Tartan Army forward, it will be an added bonus if
they end up in the points.
Lola will be running
an old spec Ford Zetec V8 for the first
half of the season and even qualifying could be a
problem. Sponsors, however are not unduly concerned
as judging by Lola’s reputation and past history
a championship is but a matter of time. It just
depends on how much.
Eddie Jordan, changing
tack when Hill wouldn’t bite, is trying out the
raw talents of Ralf Schumacher and Giancarlo
Fisichella. Whist quick in testing, neither has
the experience of Formula 1 racing. We may see some
improvement by midseason when Jordan could be looking
at podium finishes.
Probably following
closely in the Jordan slipstream will be both Tyrell
and Sauber. Both teams have come up with tidy
if conventional packages. The Tyrell driver-duo of Mika
Salo and Jos Verstappen look good on
paper, yet despite the renewed litany of position,
points and podium, Ken Tyrell has been out in
the cold for a long time. This could however, be a
better year for them. Sauber will be a slightly
different proposition. Having two times winner Johnny
Herbert to boost the teams credibility and ex
Ferrari tester Nicola Larini to exploit last
year’s Petronas/Ferrari engine, should
put the team in some point scoring situations. With
Ferrari rumoured to be using the same ’96 spec
engine at least for the first two races, it will be
interesting to see if the Sauber chassis is any match
for the Big Red.
Finally, a team with
little hope, but a great deal of aspiration and
managed by the biggest anorak of them all is Minardi.
Giancarlo Minardi has a vision and a passion
for his sport like no other, yet always fighting
finances, has rarely been within a mile of the
podium. This could change with the take over by a
consortium including Flavio Briatore (rapidly
becoming the Rupert Murdoch of Formula 1) and ex
driver Alessandro Nannini. The Hart
engine that powers the car is reliable if a tad
workmanlike. Using Bridgestones could conceivably get
the team a point or two in damp conditions, but
whether drivers Jarno Trulli and Ukyo
Katayama have the mettle remains to be seen.
The new circuit at Albert
Park in Melbourne will be used only for the
second time in its current configuration although
Australian ‘Grands Prix’ of sorts have been
held there spasmodically since 1928. It is a longer
than average lap utilising fast flowing corners and
slow tight bends, a mix that all drivers had to learn
from scratch last year. Expect lap times to be
dramatically quicker this year. The recent
despoliation of part of the track by alleged
conservation protesters remains a mild threat for
race day, but the ‘bonhomie’ and sheer
exuberance of the occasion should overcome any
tension that may be present.
So as the lights go
out on Albert Park, the lights in Britain and other
parts of the world go on as a bleary eyed audience
take to their TV’s in the small hours of Sunday
morning. In that split second of spinning Goodyears
and Bridgestones, the Bullshit will be left behind on
the grid with the dissipating fumes of high octane
fuel. The testing configurations, the light fuel
loads, the sticky tyres and wing adjustments will
count for nothing. Each man will be driving for
himself and his own piece of personal glory. Glory
however, will come to only one driver this weekend.
Look for the blues and the reds rather than the
yellows and whites.
Chris Richardson
