23 March 1998 |
No 5 |
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Great Team Tactics,Shame About The Fans.
By Roger Horton
So the FIA is to outlaw the use of team tactics to fix the order in which cars will finish in a race. The race stewards will in future be informed that "any act prejudicial to the interest of any competition" should be penalized "severely"
Hmm,now we all know what "severely" as defined by the FIA means. In case you have forgotten,Schumacher was punished "severely" for driving into Villeneuve in Jerez. I can just see the cold sweat forming on Ron Dennis's brow as he contemplates the "draconian" penalties that awaits him should his cars finish first and second again in Brazil, and the stewards decide to call him up to "have a chat".
Seriously I do have some sympathy for the FIA in all this. As an F1 purist I didn't see much wrong with what happened in Australia,but as a fan I felt badly let down,and herein lies the dilemma for all concerned with Formula One.
The FIA are clearly between a rock and a hard place on this issue. All F1 insiders are fully aware that the ruling will be impossible to police, if the teams just use some common sense when wishing to run the drivers to team instructions.
David Coulthards post race assertion that he was not there to entertain,but to get points, was hard to fault from where he was sitting. This can have been little comfort though, to the many fans who may have dragged themselves from their slumber in the middle of the night, in the expectation of watching a motor RACE.
It hasn't helped F1's cause that their single seat rivals from across the pond in America served up a cracking race to kick off their season.
All things considered it was a public relations disaster for Formula One,and coming on the back of Jerez 97 it was the last thing we needed.
There has been a lot written in the past two weeks about team orders,but much of it is wide of the mark. There is nothing unusual in the aknowledged number two driver deferring to the number one,as Irvine deferred to Schumacher in Japan last year. Phil Hill and Lorenzo Bandini did the same for their Ferrari team mates Mike Hawthorn and John Surtees respectively in years gone by. But that was at the end of the season with the Drivers Championship on the line,not at the first race and between two drivers supposedly equal in the team.
Obviously this was really a "corporate" decision and a damn good one for the likes of Mclaren and Mercedes.Again this has all happened before. Perhaps we should at least congratulate them that they "raced" to the first corner,and didn't settle the race by the toss of a coin, as happened at the 1967 American GP at Watkins Glen.
Ford were desperate for a win on home soil,and so didn't want their two Ford engined cars, driven by Graham Hill and Jim Clark to battle against each other. Given the cars reliability record to date this was a wise move.They could be pretty sure they would win provided they finished. So the night prior to the race they tossed a coin to decide which of their drivers would win and Hill called correctly. In the "race" he suffered a mechanical problem and so Clark drove on by and took the checkered flag and everyone was happy!
So what's the difference with Australia?
Well thirty odd years and a changed world.
F1 is now a major world sport and many who watch are not fans as such,but just want to be entertained. It is these people after all that the major sponsors who pay the teams bills are trying to reach by their involvement in F1.
Too many more races like Australia and they may start switching off,and the message might even reach Mclaren!
One thing I have always admired about Frank Williams is his independence,and his decisions to let his drivers race for themselves as well as for the team. Sure he tried team orders many years ago with Alan Jones and Carlos Reutemann,but in general he has been content to provide his drivers with equal equipment, and then let them get on with it.
Only once in mid season can I recall did he intervene,when Patrick Head "had a word" with Ricardo Patrese on the grid whilst waiting for the restart of the 1992 French GP. The William drivers, Patrese and Mansell, were running first and second. Patrese was ahead and the Englishmen was looking slightly desperate in his attempts to get past. But Mansell was clearly the dominant driver of the two and in a class on his own in that year.
Patrese duly eased up on the pit straight on the first lap of the restarted race and Renault got their desired result.
Frank's policy may have cost him a world drivers title in 1986,allowing Prost to steal the title away from the feuding Mansell and Piquet. But what a season we had,and in the end, surely F1 was the winner!
Despite all the happenings in Australia I still thought the best quote from the weekend came from Jan Magnussen."I was going into turn 5 on lap two when Ralf Schumacher cut across my front and we crashed". Well you can never expect drivers involved in any sort of collision to see it the same way, but such nonesense as this is hardly likely to have endeared him to Jackie Stewart,who, with such major reliability worries as he currently has, needs some responsible driving from his drivers.
Then again perhaps Magnussen figured that he wasn't going to be in the race for very long and he had better make an impression while he could!
So what can we expect in Brazil?
Well the one sure thing is a much more subtle approach from Mclaren should their drivers be as dominant as they were in Australia and should Coulthard find himself in the lead don't look for any heroics from Hakkinen!
All the teams should have benefited from their run in Australia and the time they have had to test since. The team that appears to have made the biggest improvement is Jordan. Hills impressive 1.21.52 time at Barcelona was clearly a step forward,but as always in F1 the other teams performances are a moving target, and who knows how much the other teams,especially Mclaren, have moved on.
Schumachers wheel throwing antics in Australia was perhaps more than just his frustration at his engine failure,but the realization that unless Ferrari can find some speed very quickly his great dream of bringing the drivers title to Ferrari is over,and perhaps not just in 98, but forever.
Should he decide that the Mclaren team are set for a period of dominance, I would expect he may look elsewhere for 99 and beyond. Really he has only two choices. Join them,or link up with Williams as they start their association with BMW. One thing is for sure though,if Schumacher does come on the driver market, several supposedly number one drivers had better be keeping their own options open!
The Williams team will have been badly shaken by what happened in Australia.It is not in Frank Williams nature to dwell on his defeats. But the typically direct post race comments from Patrick Head are not designed to boost ego's and they wont.
Clearly they were beaten at their own technology game and that will hurt. I certainly wont write them off yet,but the team and their World Champion driver are under real pressure.
It would appear to me that a wet race is about the only thing that can stop the Mclarens,although I would love to be proved wrong.
But after three races on the trot where most of the post race discussion has been mostly about the negative aspects of the "on track" action,lets hope for a cracking good race.
We all need it!
Talk to Roger |
Roger Horton |
Singapore |
Send your comments to Roger at - rmhorton@pacific.net.sg |
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