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Has McLaren Won The Championship Already ?

Spa was almost a boring race. If it was not for the carnage during pre race testing and qualifying we would be wondering if the FIA have managed to achieve their objectives, ie to slow the cars down and make overtaking easier, making it safer and more interesting to watch.

Villeneuve’s 165mph crash was certainly one of the more spectacular I have ever seen and it is surprising and a credit to the modern F1 cars that he was not injured.

Again we nearly saw the two McLaren drivers take themselves out at the start of the race. I must confess that I believe that Coulthard had the right to the line and that Hakkinen was aggressively trying to make a gap where there was none.

I admire McLaren’s attitude from a moral point of view but must confess that I feel that they are applying it to the extreme. “No team orders” can work in the early part of the season, when the drivers should be allowed to race each other, and the rest of the field, for the drivers championship. But when one of the drivers is in a strong position to win the championship and the other has an extremely slim chance, I would have thought that team orders (or common sense) should prevail.

McLaren appeared to be carrying the largest wings in the field and must have had the most down force or aerodynamic grip. The fact that they could afford the drag and still be fast in a straight line is a clear indication that they still have a lot more power than anyone else. It also appeared as if they had better mechanical grip in the slower corners which clearly made them totally dominant. I can’t see them losing the upper hand for the rest of the season.

Ferrari on the other hand were very disappointing. It was hard to believe that they were leading the constructors championship at the start of the race. They were forced to compromise grip for straight line speed and the mechanical grip that helped win at Monaco was also absent.

I guess this is what you get when you build a whole team around one driver. I am not suggesting that the members of the team are not good in their own right, but they need Schumacher to get the optimum set up as the car was totally built around his driving style. Up until his crash it worked for them, but I can’t see it working for the rest of the season. It will take Schumacher at least one or two races to get back into the swing of things and then it may take him another race or two to get the set up working again. There are just not enough races left.

What will they do if Schumacher decides to retire? Will they be starting from scratch again? Can another driver fit into the team? Would another driver want to fit into the team?

The unflappable Frentzen drove another solid race in a car that is obviously working much better. Frentzen is very fast, but I can’t help but feel that he can go faster. I think it is this aspect of his driving style (careful and planned to the extreme) that did not fit well in the Williams camp where they look for flair and are prepared to wear some of the inconsistency that comes with it. But then Eddie Jordan may feel that he gets as much as he can handle from Damon Hill.

It appears as if Jordan have the power and the grip to at least beat Ferrari. Given time they may get into McLaren’s class but, again, I do not believe that there is enough time left this season.

Williams did very well, taking into account the Supertec motor. Ralf drove an exceptional race and Zanardi could have finished in the points if he did not run out of fuel and had to go back in for an unscheduled pit stop.

Sauber improved their performance but Stewart is just not realising the potential that they showed at the beginning of the season. I did not expect them to be closing on the McLarens by now but I did expect them to improve. Instead they seem to have gone backwards. They must have given up and decided to throw all efforts into next year’s Ford/Jaguar.

Villeneuve may have come 15th but this is the first race that he finished this season. Maybe the BAR is getting a little more robust, but then Zonta went out with a broken gearbox. Maybe they should set themselves the target of finishing both cars in the same race before the end of the season. Anything better than that would be asking too much.

Agree or disagree ?
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The Heretic