Race Day : March 9th 1997
The Weary and the
Wary.
The season
finally gets under way. Somehow the old form of 1996
seems to be continued into this new season. Chris
Richardson reports.
 Psycho
games in Melbourne
Friday (March 7th
1997) They can’t put it off any longer, the
day of reckoning is at hand. With yesterday’s
free practice, there was still time to make excuses,
still time to pretend that they weren’t trying
to set a fast time and there was still just the
slimmest possibility of avoiding the dreaded
exclusion zone of the ‘club-no-one
wants-to-be-in’, the ‘hundred and seven
percenter’s’.
With Bridgestone
shipping in excess of 2000 tyres for its five
contracted teams and Goodyear 1800 for their
seven, the choice of rubber is quite bewildering.
Goodyear tyres are now given names such as
‘Optional’ and ‘Prime’ compounds
rather than code numbers as before, to quote their
press release, "In view of the new competitive
tyre-supply environment." If the race is wet,
the drivers have three specifications from which to
choose. Bridgestone shod teams will be expected to do
well as winter testing has produced some spectacular
results. Arrows driver and current World
Champion Damon Hill who spent the best part of
six months developing the tyres, unwittingly lit the
fires of curiosity by turning in some pretty quick
times. Now, with four other teams at the lower end of
the grid similarly shod and gaining all the benefit
of Arrows research without have to spend a copper,
the competition will inevitably be split three ways
between drivers teams and tyres.
So, with tyre
controversy providing suitable camouflage for the
real speed of the collective grid and the
psychological games teams are wont to play on each
other’ Friday practice closed in a cloak and
dagger atmosphere. The fastest of the Bridgestone
cars was Olivier Panis in the renamed Prost
holding 12th place and with the exception of the two Tyrells,
all behind had Japanese rubber.
Adversity could turn
out to be Hill’s best friend this year. Fresh
rumours of bursts of anger and contract ripping
followed the story of the ‘Arrows that lost its
wing’. Not content with giving the Champ one of
the most miserable testing periods in Formula One
history, with gearbox problems, water leaks expiring
engines and inclement weather, adversity stripped the
last vestiges of self-respect from his disillusioned
frame when his front wing dropped off in what could
have been an extremely dangerous accident. The rumour
continued apace, with Martin Brundle recently
appointed director at Arrows, having to take over and
bed the new car in as Hill took an early flight to
surf away his anger on the beaches of Southern Oz. No
stranger is Hill to these feelings however, ask Frank
Williams about it. Hill now pushing his car to
13th on the grid was probably fueled by his anger and
against all informed media pundits’
expectations, has set an initial time that gives
credit to his driving abilities.
With Mika Hakkinen
the slowest of the two Mclaren drivers only 4
tenths of a second in front and the Ferrari of
Eddie Irvine less than half a second in front
of the Finn, the chances of a point for Hill, do not
look as remote as they did less than a week ago. Schumacher
the wily sandbagger, might just have been caught out,
by setting the fastest time of the day. Maybe
thinking that the Williams pair of Heinz-Harald
Frentzen and Jacques Villeneuve would show
their stride a little more forcefully than they did,
he may have been a touch heavy handed with the
throttle. How much the German has left under his foot
and whether the Williams FW19’s were running
under a leash, will shortly be revealed.
Traditionally teams
concern themselves with set up, downforce adjustment
, choice of tyres and pit stop configurations at free
practice and the grid is fairly meaningless, but as
it’s the first day of term, the guys that moved
up a grade are being closely scrutinised by the new
boys and are loth to give any of their secrets away.
Who knows therefore, if the relatively poor showing
of the Stewart Ford is just ‘setting
up’ or, was Hill running ‘D’ compound
tyres and just enough fuel for two laps? Did Williams
run on full tanks today and, have Ferrari found a few
more miles per hour with their re modified
turning-vanes? Will the Lola’s qualify
not only for this race but any of the races until
they get their new engine? Could the sight of Sospiri
sitting on the pit wall during the race be as regular
an occurrence as the billowing smoke from the Yamaha
of Hill’s or Diniz’ Arrows?
Here, conjecture
becomes fantasy and the green light is just about to
go on at the exit to the pit lane. Fridays times were
just a taster and imminently, the truth will out. No
more secrets now. The teams are collectively naked,
the cloaks are off , the daggers are out and an
audience of millions around the world are waiting in
earnest to see who has the biggest balls.
Jumping Jacques
Flash waltzes to Pole for Australian Grand Prix
(Saturday March 8th
1997) The questions that have been asked all
winter have been answered in the hour of qualifying
at The Albert Park Circuit today. Everybody of
course got most of them right. Williams
fastest by a country mile? Of course they were. McLarens
and Ferraris in the scrum? Of course they
were, Arrows way out of contention? Of course
they were. Heinz Harald Frentzen playing
second fiddle to King Jacques? Of course he is and Jean
Alesi fails to deliver, right again. The big
question that most of us got wrong however was the
Tyre question. Bridgestone remained firmly at
the back of the grid with only Olivier Panis again
making a brief showing of speed to end up in 9th
place.
With the front runners
mostly on soft compounds with the exception of Schumacher
and the Bridgestone brigade running hard, it seemed a
pretty even match and judging from the extremely poor
performances of the second half of the grid, probably
made no significant contribution to overall lap
times.
With a rising track
temperature in excess of 30C the cars trickled out
one by one, Villeneuve setting the early pace, mildly
harried by the two McLarens looking splendid in their
new livery. Damon Hill managed an early lap
before the Arrows gremlins struck again forcing him
to sit in the spare car looking out at the pit wall
whilst mechanics feverishly worked on a water leak.
This was in addition to the problems he had in the
warm up session in the morning when he only managed a
lap before being towed in. The red blur that passed
his line of vision was Schumacher struggling with an
unwieldy Ferrari, fighting it every inch of the way,
yet almost throwing it across the line to make the
upper side of the second row. The Williams pit saw
Villeneuve sitting quietly in his car and Heinz
Harald Frentzen totally demoralised by
Villeneuve’s blistering opening salvo, over
driving the car in desperate retaliation and aborting
his run, locking his brakes when he came dangerously
close to Rosset’s struggling Lola.
The Benetton of Gerhard
Berger failed to make any impression on the
promising times of yesterday, showing a severe drop
in performance. Despite new parts added to the front
wing and extra downforce applied to the rear wings on
both cars, he failed to rise above tenth slot by the
end of the session.
Diniz eventually made
it out onto the track with 25 minutes left having
also sat in the spare Arrows for a while and, with a
singularly unspectacular performance failed to
qualify for the race, as indeed it looked as though
Hill might not either as, on his first proper run and
on cold tyres, twitched around the circuit over six
second down on the leader. A second and final run
with only two laps remaining of his twelve, put him
just 4 tenths inside the 107% cut off time. There was
a visible sense of relief on his face as he said with
the greatest of understatement, " I am a touch
disappointed but we are in the race." To be
happy to qualify second to last, must be a hard pill
to swallow for the current World Champion who won
this race last year.
The session was
stopped with 2 and a half minutes to go when Nicola
Larini hit a wall leaving debris on the track
and a mad rush ensued when 20 cars streamed from the
pits to grab a last lap as the session restarted. A
tussle for position outside the pits between
Villeneuve and his team mate proved that sparks will
indeed fly between these two in races to come and an
inspired last lap from Frentzen brought him up from a
miserable seventh to sit rather uncomfortably
alongside the Canadian on the front row.
Villeneuves time of
1.29.369 was almost a second faster than
Frentzen’s and another second quicker than the
third place of Michael Schumacher. Had Villeneuve
gone faster in his final lap, and it looked like he
would have done had he not hit traffic, then Hill
would definitely have been pushed into the 107% club
and taken an early plane home. These are not good
times for Damon and unless his team can sort
themselves out, this reporter fears that he could
become best friends with the Lola drivers-who
both failed to qualify-in the 107% club canteen for a
great deal of the season. Rubens Barichello
finished an excellent 11th behind Berger and in front
of Ralph Schumacher’s Jordan showing
a fine turn of speed in his first outing in the Stewart
Ford. The Jordans falling further down the grid
than both Eddie Jordan and the Peugeot
bosses would probably like.
With the expected
trouncing of the field by the Williams in the most
emphatic manner, the expected opinions, regarding the
most actively contested field for years, look like
being way off the mark. Whilst it is early days yet,
the front runners, Williams, Ferrari and McLaren seem
set to dominate the season and the fighting for the
remaining points looks set to be a rather scrappy
affair.
The race could of
course be different but when Villeneuve, blowing away
the smoke screens of secrecy from the Williams pit
door says "We could have gone quicker at the
end", you know that he will give no quarter and
he already has the Championship sewn up. This will
indeed be sad for Formula one if the level of
competition remains as it was today.
Chris Richardson
Race Practice 
Race Preview
Race Qualifying
1997 Championship Contents 
Formula 1 Contents
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