Two races since my last post and two ‘qualifying one’ debacles. Just as
well it means nothing for Sundays.
Picture this; we are at Suzuka, there are three players still able to take
the drivers gong (unlikely, but its my hypothetical) and 2 teams able to get
the constructors. It’s Saturday afternoon and qualifying (the one that
counts) is half way through when the sky opens and we get a repeat of France’s
Friday. Then we have a most interesting race with the most meaningless
championship result in the history of F1, regardless of the outcome. The fact
that these two weather lotteries happened on Fridays is immaterial, they point
out the ludicrous shortcomings of the current system.
Ralf’s fan club must be ecstatic (all 6 of them); he’s won two in a row
and proven he’s taken his brother’s place as the world’s best driver.
Yep, except that on Friday afternoon in France Jos was the world’s best
driver. He must have been, he beat all those top gun’s in a car that has to
be recognised as the slowest in the field. Gee, Jos and Ralf must share top
honours then, or perhaps Jos really is ‘the boss’ because he did it in a
Minardi. Ralf has proven nothing other than that he has benefited from the
development of the car and tyre combination that was, in France, so much
better than anything else on the circuit. Ralf didn’t win in Germany a week
before, Kimi lost that race when his car died. The Williams BMW – Bibendum
combination is on a roll and Ralf is the one who has capitalised on that. Ralf
is good, they all are at that level, but he is not a Michael, or even a
Fernando or Kimi. To me, Montoya is the surprise, not Ralf. His performance of
late has dropped away to the point where he is very ordinary. He needs to come
to grips with the revised characteristics of the car and do it pretty damn
quickly.
Ferrari must be almost ready to put out a contract on Ron Dennis; their
current woes are after all mostly his fault. Ferrari still have the best
chassis/engine in the field but since Bridgestone lost McLaren and have to
work solely with Ferrari on tyre development (the other Bridgestone runners
don’t count) they are falling behind Michelin at an alarming rate. The
Ferrari isn’t the huge step in front of the pack it was last year but it
still sets the benchmark everywhere except for its round rubber bits. Michelin
are drawing valuable data from Williams, McLaren and Renault. Bridgestone are
paying the price for focusing on Ferrari at the expense of McLaren in the
past. The engineers at Bridgestone need to come up with some magic quickly but
all the rabbits seem to be in the pneumatic Frenchman’s hat at the moment. I
wonder how much of the Sauber’s poor showing this year is down to the
Bridgestone influence.
It is great to see Mark Weber performing as well as he is, what a pity it
took so long for him to get a drive at this level. Kimi and Fernando both
bought a huge amount of talent (plus some sponsorship dollars) with them at a
very young age. It took Mark a lot longer to hunt up the cash to get the
Minardi drive but the talent is not far off these future champions.
With the season now into its second half it is time to start asking who the
real racers are this year. My ranking would put Michael firmly on top, not
because he’s won the most races and leads the drivers championship, but
because he has done it on the Bridgestone tyres. His performance compared to
Rubens shows just how good he is at what he does. After him it gets a bit
harder. I would put Fernando Alonso just a nose in front of Kimi with Mark
Weber a very close 4th. Frankly, no one else rates so Daylight comes 5th. I
would be interested in reader’s assessments of who the top five drivers are
this year.
There has to be quite a few very worried drivers and managers watching the
revolution in the rally world at the moment. Team owners there are recognising
the decreasing influence of the driver on the car’s performance and megabuck
salaries are now seen as poor investments. With the likes of Kimi, Fernando
and Mark drawing appropriate paycheques for the work they do some of the
others (like Ralf, David and Jacques) must be getting nervous. Eddie Irvine
started the exodus, I’d suggest that by 2005 Michael will stand alone as a
super-salaried driver and the others will have been pensioned off or taken
significant pay cuts
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Reader's
comments:
Mate I thought they killed you off!
And since when do you give a rats about Sunday?
My top five for Saturday are Ralph{go figure), Michael, Kimi, Alonso and
Websky.
My Sunday top 5 is Michael, Ralph, Kimbo, Juantastic and Mark Websky.
Do you think we will see a resurgence like the Williams Renault days, I
certainly am betting my savings on it.
Regards - The Cooky Monster - Australia.
ps good to see you again
Kill me off? Nah, I still owe the Editor a beer and he's so bloody
tight that he won't let me go till he collects. As for Sunday's, in the
absence of Real Racing on Saturday's - It's the only game left in town.
Interesting collection and surprising you put both the Williams
drivers in. Looked at from a seasons perspective rather than just the last
few races I wouldn't rate either of them (although JPM is a racer and Ralf
is pretty good in a perfect car).
Will we see an emerging Williams BMW? For this year its a real
possibility but next year I'm not so sure. McLaren have a pretty quick car
back in the shop and having spent a year on developing it I think they will
come out with all guns (OK, all Kimi's guns anyway) blazing next season. If
Bridgestone can get their act together (and that's a big ask with the lack
of development partners they have) then the Ferrari and Michael combination
has to be respected for a while yet.
Talking of those red car's - what happened to the one-eyed Tifosi from
last year? Have you bought yourself a blue and white jacket? - The Quali-Flyer
Remember this; we are at Suzuka only a few years ago in 1998 Michael
Shumacher's last chance to grab the championship from Mika Hakkinen were
dashed when his car stalled on the grid at the commencement of the warm up
lap, and he had to start the race at the rear of the grid, spoiling a head to
head battle right down to the wire.
A change in weather can also effect outcome the race as well, when the timing
of a downpour can give an advantage to some and disadvantage to others. We do
not live in a perfect world. and to quote from David Byrne from Rock Band
Talking Heads "Heaven, is a place were nothing ever happens". It is
the ups and downs that make it interesting in the first place and all
contenders by the law of odds, have an equal share of ups and downs over time
anyway.
I have been a supporter of this years qualifying rules, For me as a spectator,
and an Australian following the first Australian driver in F1 for sometime,
the drama of qualifying has certainly been heighten and I've found to be more
exciting, with drivers pulled out of comfort zones in a one lap dash.
However, the current rules are vulnerable to the ever changing circumstances
beyond the organisers control. i.e. wet weather that blows in during mid
session, or a drying track. I would propose an adjustment to the current
qualifying rules which meets the old rules somewhere in the middle.
1. Return Friday's qualifying session to the old rules as an open session to
determine the starting order for Saturday's one lap dash qualifying. This
would retain some of the tradition of F1 qualifying. It gives a controlled
measure of who is truly performing well at that point in the race meeting.
Also allow teams further opportunity to fine tune cars, and it reduces the
effect of the weather on the results.
2. Saturday's qualifying is conducted under the current rules except with
these changes. Allow refuelling and tyre changes and other minor "pitstop
style" setup adjustments, like front wing etc. However the cars would
generally remain parc ferme, which as has been the case. This will allow teams
to modify their race strategy if they have not qualified as planned, or if the
weather on race day is different to qualifying. Also allows cars to run
similar fuel loads for the qualifying session.
I believe that it does not matter which way you shake the milk bottle, the
cream will always rise to the top, as is currently been demonstrated when you
look championship table at this point. A perfect world is a boring world - Gary
M - Australia
Gary,
What you are proposing is pretty close to what the FIA had in their
first round proposal for this year. Admittedly you at least have a 'real'
qualifying session on the Friday.
France's Friday Farce showed just how little impact 'first qualifying'
had on the race grid, so your Friday session is almost as meaningless as
Max's. While ever they insist on the 'no refuelling' rule the teams will
just decide which lap they want to come in on, fuel up accordingly and send
the drivers out to get the best spot on the grid that fuel load will
deliver.
Racing incidents like the one you described happen. They are
relatively random (allowing for the level of professionalism of the teams)
and are quite different to a potential reversed grid created by idiotic
rules.
No, I'm sorry - lots of things were broken in F1, qualifying wasn't
one of them. Lets just scrap the whole exercise and go back to what works. -
The Quali-Flyer
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