SCHUMACHER MAKES IT TWO ON THE TROT
Local hero 21 year old Fernando Alonso made sure that the
5 times Champion had to fight to score a first win for the
new Ferrari F2003, but in the end he could do nothing to
prevent Schumacher from becoming the first man to win
two races this year. Behind them, main title rivals, McLaren
had a disastrous time. Raikkonen ended up collateral
damage of Jaguar’s dysfunctional launch control while
Coulthard was run off the road twice - first by Trulli, then
by Button.
Amid the endless wrangling about traction control, launch
control, commercial rights and, quite possibly, maximum motor
home dimensions (Ron Dennis beware....) something quite
interesting was announced last weekend. Mercedes, the engine
builder which has upped its game considerably this year, has
announced that, subject to the introduction of a one-engine-per-
race rule being introduced next year, they may be willing to sell
engines to customer teams for around £10 million - about half
of what Sauber and Jordan are rumoured to be paying for their
power plants at present. Sauber, in particular have seemed
interested in this proposal, and rumours were circulating that the
Swiss team might finally ditch its long standing, but expensive
deal with Ferrari. If a couple of other engine manufacturers
were to follow suit (and there have been rumours that Renault
might be willing to consider such a move) then we might finally
see the independent teams back on a stable footing.
Ferrari engines still seemed pretty useful things to have though,
particularly the ones to be found in the latest F2003. Michael
Schumacher was comfortably quickest in qualifying, and had
also topped the timing sheets in the usually more representative
first qualifying session when everyone (should) be running on
low fuel. Juan Pablo Montoya and Ron Dennis were amongst
those who affected to be underwhelmed by the pace of the new
F2003, which was only a few tenths quicker than the flying
Renaults of Trulli and Alonso, but it should be remembered that
the F2002 didn’t exactly look the class of the field at its opening
race either, and in the races after that it was very rarely, if ever, headed.
Behind the two Ferraris, the Renaults of Trulli, and especially,
Alonso really were flying. Comfortably quicker than the
McLarens and Williams, Alonso nearly displaced Barrichello
from the front row while Trulli was a few tenths further back in
fourth. Jenson Button was fifth in qualifying, but given that the
BAR had hardly been particularly quick in practice, and that
Button had appeared to make two mistakes on his quick lap, it
seemed safe to assume that the car was running light. Panis was
sixth for the Toyota, which, regardless of how light the car
might have been running, was progress of a sorts, given that
they had run ultra-light at Imola and still only just scraped onto
the top half of the grid. David Coulthard split the Williams duo,
who were never comfortable with their cars, which they said,
were behaving completely differently from how they had all
through winter testing. The big loser of the afternoon was
championship leader, Kimi Raikkonen, who lost his McLaren on
the run up to Campsa and was forced to start from the back of
the grid, behind the by now fairly obligatory pair of Minardis.
They looked further from the pace than ever - not helped by a
wind tunnel which has been out of action for months, and a
suspension system designed around the softer Michelin tyres’
characteristics. In their private battle, Justin Wilson finally got
one over veteran Jos Verstappen but it was quite clear that they
were in a different race from everyone else - Formula 3000 and
a half, perhaps. It was a good day for the two British rookies,
one way or another, with Ralph Firman looking much more
assured in the Jordan than he has in the one-lap qualifying thus
far and lining up fifteenth, ahead of his team mate Fisichella,
who appeared to suffer when a last minute failure on his race car
left him running a spare which was set up for Firman.
There seemed little doubt that Ferrari would run away into the
distance on race day if given half an opportunity. The odd
pundit wondered whether Renault’s spectacular launch control
system might enable Fernando Alonso or Jarno Trulli to have a
few glory laps at the beginning of the race, but few doubted that
the afternoon would be a private battle between Barrichello and
Schumacher - if of course they were to be allowed to race in the
first place. If there was a consoling factor, it was that
Raikkonen was bound to entertain on his run up from the back
of the grid.
Except, he never got the chance. Pizzonia’s Jaguar failed to get
off the line for the second race in succession and while Justin
Wilson just managed to avoid it, Raikkonen scarcely had a
chance and hit the stricken cat at full pelt 0 making a mess of the
pit straight and forcing a safety car period. Ahead, Coulthard
was scarcely having a better time, after being punted out by
Trulli, and he was left limping back to the pits for a new nose
and tyres. The two Ferraris did indeed face a strong challenge
off the line from Alonso, but succeeded in keeping the Spaniard
boxed in and scraped round the opening complex in one-two
formation, albeit rather messily. The big startline winner was,
you guessed it, Justin Wilson who somehow contrived to drag
his Minardi up into ninth place - a place where it had absolutely
no business being. From thereon in he would enjoy himself by
holding half the field up behind him at Minardi pace until the
first round of pitstops.
Up at the front, Michael Schumacher steadily edged away from
his Ferrari team mate, while Alonso made sure that Barrichello
couldn’t simply sit back and settle for second. Indeed, at the
first pit stops, where it turned out that the Ferraris were in fact
running much the same fuel load as Alonso’s Renault, Alonso
leapt ahead of Barrichello and into second place. The main
victim of the first pits stops was another title contender, David
Coulthard, who speared off the road by an overenthusiastic
Button, as the younger Brit came out of the pit. Coulthard was
out on the spot, completing a miserable weekend for the
McLaren squad. Button ended up with a broken front wing and
a flat tyre which effectively put him out of contention for the
afternoon. He would eventually struggle home ninth, two laps
down, just behind Ralph Firman, who was having his best run
yet in the Jordan and scored his first championship point in the
process.
In the lead battle, Alonso was showing himself more than
capable of getting his Renault up close to Schumacher’s Ferrari
- albeit with the Renault around ten miles an hour down in a
straight line, actually overtaking Schumacher was always going
to be an altogether tougher challenge. An opportunity appeared
to present itself when Michael emerged from his second stop
behind his younger brother Ralf, but in the event Michael was
able to get past the Williams within the space of two laps, while
Alonso, who couldn’t rely on the kind of power that either
Schumacher had at their disposal, took a while longer to get past
Ralf Schumacher.
Thereafter, Ralf seemed to go rapidly off the boil, although his
quick trip across the gravel did little to help his cause, and
perhaps played a part in allowing Montoya to pass him in the
same place that Michael Schumacher had earlier done. He
would end up fighting a desperately oversteering car home in
fifth, a lap down and just ahead of Cristiano Da Matta’s Toyota.
At the front, Alonso was able to put a little pressure on
Schumacher, and closed the gap to five seconds, but ultimately
could do nothing to prevent a second victory in a row for
Michael and Ferrari. Barrichello finished third, around twenty
seconds back, while a dispirited Montoya was nearly a minute
back in fourth. Mark Webber scored Jaguar’s first points for
seventh in an uneventful race for Jaguar, after losing a lot of
time behind Wilson’s fast starting Minardi in the early part of
the race.
It was not ultimately, the most exciting race of the season so far,
nor even particularly close. Despite Alonso’s spirited charge to
second, there was never any great doubt about the final result.
We were cheated of a final showdown between Alonso and
Schumacher by the interference of Ralf Schumacher’s Williams
(he was leading the race at the time, so the interference was
entirely legitimate). Neither did we get to see what Raikkonen
might have been able to do from the back of the grid in the
McLaren - one suspects he wouldn’t have spent several laps
queued up behind Wilson’s Minardi. But there was enough to
be positive about - enough to suggest this isn’t 2002 all over
again. The new Ferrari was the best car in the field, but the law
of diminishing returns has ensured that its advantage over the
rest of the field isn’t as great as that of the F2002 over last
year’s field. Renault have shown that they have a car that is
more than capable of taking the fight to the big three, indeed
here they completely eclipsed Williams. Toyota have finally
begun to show that they have a competitive machine with Da
Matta nearly taking fifth from Ralf Schumacher towards the end
of the race. Ferrari might well win in Austria, but one rather
doubts they will be able to orchestrate the kind of farce that they
pulled off last time. There's no need to worry yet. Grand Prix racing’s revival is still on track.
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