An easy nut to
crack for Villeneuve
Qualifying for
the Brazilian GP threw up some surprising
performances - quite a few of which were
disappointing in the extreme... Chris Richardson
reports.
As fickle as Formula 1
is, it now seems traditional that Williams
should always make the running. They did of course,
make the running as expected, with Champion elect Jacques
Villeneuve never losing Pole position from his
first flying lap of the qualifying session at Interlagos.
The fickle factor involved the rest of the track,
with regular midfielders making up a good part of the
front end of the grid. Heinz Harald Frentzen
proved to be the big disappointment, being well and
truly upstaged by his team mate and it was
disconcerting to see his early sector times regularly
disintegrate as he reeled off a series of rather
unspectacular laps.
With a track
temperature of 29 degrees and rising, the Bridgestone
brigade made the early running, all having chosen the
softer compound tyres for both qualifying and race.
The benchmark was set inevitably by Villeneuve with a
1.16.68. It has also become a familiar sight to see Michael
Schumacher fighting a Ferrari that just
wants to tango. It was no mean feat to get the big
red jitterbug onto the front row with a final time of
1.16.59, albeit over half a second down on the
Williams.
With the Benettons
of Gerhard Berger and Jean Alesi
burning harder Goodyear rubber, both looked
agitated. Berger’s eagerness for good times was
the cause of several ‘wobbly’ moments and
the smoke coming from Alesi’s tyres signalled
the Sicillian’s on-going struggle with his own
eagerness. He was hard pushed to qualify higher than
sixth.
Olivier Panis,
given a new sense of self respect since his fortunate
win in Monaco last year, did a brilliant job in
putting his Prost Mugen-Honda onto the third
row with an early fast time of 1.16.75, that he was
not to beat. For a while it looked as though he might
be on the second row but a slowly improving Mika
Hakkinen in the West McLaren Mercedes
shunted him down a slot. Coulthard, race
winner in Melbourne, was conspicuous by his absence
from the front of the pack. Suffering from set up
problems, he was struggling to make headway, and
finished up a thoroughly miserable 10th.
World Champion Damon
Hill of course, knows all about winning and the
rapid fall from the victor’s podium, to
non-starter. It was therefore gratifying to see that
a lot of the problems that plagued the TWR Arrows
team in Melbourne, seemed to have been ironed out.
Whilst suffering the same worrying throttle problem -
that put him out on the warm up lap in Australia,
during the first timed session on Friday -
Hill’s qualifying went almost without a hitch.
The hitch being, that he just wasn’t fast
enough. However, it was the mark of a true champion
that his smooth and economical driving, so
reminiscent of ‘Professeur’ Alain
Prost - his old mentor at Williams - brought a truly
uncompetitive car from 17th to 9th finishing the
session a mere 8 hundredths of a second behind
the man that took over his seat at Williams,
Frentzen. This must have given him some dour
satisfaction and whilst the proximity of the two cars
may be only a temporary thing it proves that there
could be life in the Arrows A18. As Hill said,
"I think we’ve shown we’ve got what it
takes. There is more to come and we are working all
the time to improve things. We have a lot of things
in the pipeline a new engine and aerodynamic
improvements. We are working with Bridgestone to
adapt the tyres to do what we need them to do."
His chances of holding on to Frentzen in the race are
fairly slim, but that didn’t seem important to
him. "We want to get to the finish," he
grinned, "That’ll be a real
achievement!"
Eddie Irvine in
the second Ferrari languished at the back in 14th
position to the rejoicing of Villeneuve with whom he
had a first corner altercation at Melbourne. Asked
about the importance of his start, Villeneuve
replied, "Eddie is pretty far behind so we
should be OK tomorrow".
As far as Villeneuve
is away from Irvine, the luckless Johnny Herbert, another
victim of Irvine’s impetuosity is, as
dangerously close. Right beside him in fact. Herbert
will no doubt feel his hackles rise as the red lights
go out and wait for the inevitable bang. In the game
reserves of Formula One Saubers and Ferraris
are uneasy companions at the watering hole, despite
sharing the same engine.
Both Giancarlo
Fisichella and team mate Ralf Schumacher
had an interesting session, finishing ahead of
Frentzen on 1.16.9 and behind Hill with 1.17.17,
respectively. Fisichella managed to stuff his car
into the tyre wall a minute and a half from the end
of practice causing a red flag to be shown. "I
was going too much speed." Giancarlo said
eloquently, which is probably what team boss Eddie
Jordan will be, faced with the costs of replacing
the Jordan Peugeot’s front suspension and
wings. The Jordans should be finishing higher up the
field and it looks doubtful that the relationship
with Peugeot will proceed into 1998 if things
continue in this manner. Ironically the red flag
interrupted the fastest lap that Ralf Schumacher had
done all session, "I was on a quick lap and when
we hit the red flag it destroyed my lap."
Schumacher found it pointless to rejoin the scrum
when the session blipped into life for the final 109
seconds, "...and then we didn’t have a new
set of tyres. We fucked up." Eloquent also, to
his global audience.
Jarno Trulli
put in a sterling performance in the Minardi Hart,
now gaining respect and credibility and against
fierce competition on the lower levels, finished
17th. The two Tyrells showing all the signs of
yet another season with all hopes abandoned, ended up
last and err,last, Mika Salo never managing a
lap before the aging Ford powerplant gave up the
ghost.
Last of the promising
pursuers was Rubens Barrichello this year
looking far happier in a smaller team that obviously
cares for him and doesn’t put him under so much
pressure. "I tried like hell on my last flying
lap and the car was on the limit," said the
smiling Brazilian, "but the time just
didn’t come. I was disappointed when I saw it.
But this is only our second race and its very
satisfying to me to be 11th. I want to finish the
race tomorrow. For me, that’s the biggest thing
this weekend. I think we can finish in the top
ten." Maybe Rubens was reading out his press
release from Australia but his enthusiasm for Stewart
Racing seems to know no bounds.
The mad scramble to
get past the chequered flag before the time ran out,
was futile. A water leak forced Villeneuve to drive
the spare car and he could not better his time.
Neither could Michael Schumacher who aborted his lap
after realising that his Ferrari again wanted to go
to the ‘Carnival’.
Both Berger and
Coulthard ran out of fuel on the final lap
illustrating the desperation of the teams to get as
good a time as possible whilst carrying the minimum
weight.
A mixed bag for the
Brazilian Grand Prix. The outcome merely delayed for
three weeks, has to be a top step for Villeneuve.
Where Frentzen fits into the picture, even Frank
Williams probably does not know. If
Ferrari’s mechanics burn the midnight oil and
sort out some of it’s handling problems, then
Schumacher senior will be a hard man to beat also.
However, throw in a little rain.........
Chris Richardson zoom@yeahright-no-sorry.com
What's with the
Britpack?
Damon Hill's
excuse for qualifying ninth is that he's driving a
relatively poor car - but the other Britons have
supposedly better equipment. Dave Coveney tries to
find a reason for the poor British performance.
OOOKAAAY! David
Coulthard did it! He finally won a race for McLaren
at Melbourne! Everyone in Britain was elated. So what
if Damon Hill was now relegated to embarrasing
formation lap retirements and back of grid
qualification - a new star was born at the first race
of the 1997 season. Our top driver now had to be the
square headed one from Scotland.
So tuning in to the
qualifying session of the Interlagos GP must have
seemed strange - where was the new hero? And how come
Hill was leading him? Oh dear. Oh deary me. More
worrying still was the fact Coulthard seemed unable
to do anything about it. From hero to zero. 12th
place on the grid. Not good enough if you want to
stand out as a future champion.
This wouldn't have
seemed so bad if Johnny Herbert had paid out on his
promising practice form. On Friday at one point he'd
been second only to Jaques Villeneuve in the
dominating Williams and at the end of the day a
fourth position looked comfortable. But instead of
scintillating form, his qualifying session was sad to
say the least. A final placing just behind Coulthard
in 13th was an unhappy end to Saturday's
driving.
And Lo! Who do we
find, nestled up with these two other Brits but a
third! Eddie Irvine - 12 places behind his team-mate
Michael Schumacher. It's as if, having tasted the
limelight in one form or other at Melbourne, these
guys had all decided that they couldn't hack it and
had to let the current World Champion come ahead of
them. All that and in a car that until yesterday had
looked like a very sad machine indeed. Damon Hill. 9th
position. Top Brit.
Tom Walkinshaw and
Damon Hill must be laughing their socks off. Messrs
Irvine, Coulthard, and Herbert have often been quick
to criticise the quiet Englishman. Too eager to point
out his flaws, in public, on British TV, and in the
press.
Although Hill stands
almost zero chance of retaining his title this year,
he already seems to be winning critical acclaim.
Driving the best machinery over four years had left
doubts over his true ability. The chance to prove
himself would come when he found himself in a poorer
team than Williams. He still has to prove the
Arrows-Yamaha in a race, but should he manage to beat
his compatriots in tomorrow's race then he'll have
shown that he can never be discounted from the GP
grid.
Dave Coveney dcoveney@yeahright-no-sorry.com
