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How are you going to do it, David ?

In a recent press interview David Coulthard seemed confident that McLaren will be 1^st and 2^nd in Silverstone. I know he won this race last year, but that was after Schumacher went off in a crash that broke his leg, sidelining the German driver for almost all of the rest of the season.

The McLaren camp must be scratching their heads right now. The question foremost in their minds must be: "What does it take to beat the Schumacher/Ferrari combination?"

McLaren seem faster than Ferrari. As I said before, not by much but enough to win a race. At no stage did Hakkinen look threatened by Schumacher. Hakkinen posted the fastest lap of the race. Both McLaren cars did not seem to miss a beat (with the exception of a bizarre dead engine that cost Hakkinen 3 seconds) so their reliability problem looks as if it may be something of the past. Schumacher had a pathetic start – but that was still not enough!

Again Hakkinen drove a near perfect race and must have felt that he was controlling the race from the front and, again, Schumacher won with apparent ease.

It is good to be confident, David, but if I were you I would be worried. Ferrari may not have your speed, but they seem to outthink you on the track every time.

The San Marino race confirmed my fears that overtaking has become too difficult. On longer tracks like Brazil it may not be that apparent but on the shorter, more compact circuits overtaking appears to be totally eliminated. During the post race conference at San Marino David Coulthard was asked how much faster a car needs to be to be able to overtake. He guessed at 5 seconds, and I, for one, would not argue with him.

The cars are now far too dependant on aerodynamic grip (downforce created by the shape of the car and wings) to function in the turbulence created by the car in front. The only option is to move off the optimum line to get clear air and that would require much longer straight stretches, which in turn need to be broken up with chicanes to make them safer. Hence overtaking, unless the driver in front makes a mistake or cooperates, is going to be a rare sight.

If overtaking was possible I am sure that David Coulthard would have managed to stay in touch with the leaders and may even have been able to use the speed advantage he had to overtake Schumacher. Had that happened it would have been very difficult for Schumacher to win. Instead David was stuck behind Barrichello who was obviously holding him up.

I was looking forward to see what effect the ban on pit lane speed regulators would have as I believe that this was illegally used for traction control during the race (and rumours were that almost all teams did). If this is true, banning it may make overtaking easier.

I was wrong in assuming that the ban will apply from the San Marino race and it appears now that it will be Silverstone, so we will have to wait to see how this will affect race conditions. Anything that increases the opportunity for overtaking can only improve the season.

McLaren

Now that they have overcome their reliability problems (at least for one race) they are definitely the team to beat. They are marginally faster than Ferrari and need just a little luck to start winning races.

Hakkinen’s choice of a softer tyre compound paid off. Temperatures never got very high on the day (softer compounds do not last well on hot circuits) and he could rely on having a little more grip for the entire race. As I mentioned in a previous issue this is not a big advantage as the compounds are very close.

It is hard to work out exactly what happened but it appears that Hakkinen lost a lot of time on the lap that Schumacher went in for his last pit stop, which gave the top podium position to Schumacher.

This could have been the lap that he had the brief engine failure and I may be totally unfair in my assessment, but how many times has something similar happened? Hakkinen seems good at making ground when it does not matter, but rarely counters Michael’s dashes when it matters. Hakkinen responded by putting in several very fast laps in the last stages of the race, gaining lost ground, but what does that help on a track where it is obviously impossible to overtake? This was not the time to put in the fast laps.

Coulthard was unlucky at the start and spent most of the race behind Barrichello. His manoeuvre in the pits to get in front of Barrichello worked and after that he drove a fast and efficient race.

I have been known to criticise Coulthard in the past, but could not fault him in San Marino. He drove very well.

Ferrari

They still need a bit more speed. My guess is that McLaren have the most powerful motor and it shows.

Ferrari may be 29 points ahead in the constructors’ championship but they should not feel too comfortable. McLaren lost a lot of ground in the first two races of the season totally due to a lack of reliability, not speed. McLaren is fast and, with two cars finishing on the podium in San Marino, is now in a position to work on winning the season.

Michael Schumacher demonstrated again that he has the ability to deliver what it takes when the strategy calls for it. It may have been the only plan that would have worked under the circumstances but it was executed brilliantly, and he won.

Barrichello had a problem from the start. He qualified almost ½ a second slower than Schumacher and was pretty pedestrian during the entire race, dropping almost a lap behind Michael Schumacher.

After the race Barrichello admitted that he had difficulties in setting his car up for the track. I hope for his sake that it was because he could not come to terms with San Marino. If it is because he is not very good in setting up his car this could keep him off the pace for the rest of the season.

Barrichello showed how fast he can be in Australia. I hope he gets it together soon.

Jordan

Jordan was very disappointing. Frentzen retired on lap 4 and Trulli, who did manage to get classify, retired four laps before the end of the race. Both suffered the same gearbox problem.

Although the Jordan is not up to the leaders pace it is fast enough to finish in the points but to do that they first have to fix their reliability problems.

Jaguar

Irvine looked pretty fast. He seemed to have the pace to stay with the pack fighting for 5^th and 6^th. I was also encouraged to see that he did not spin off. He managed to finish in 7^th place, which is where he qualified.

Herbert qualified in 17^th place and would probably have finished there too if it was not that so many ahead of him retired or had problems. He finished 10^th.

Jaguar are still not showing the speed we saw when they raced as Stewart last year. Admittedly they finished two cars for the first time this season so we must assume that they are concentrating on reliability first.

I would not write them off yet. I suspect that they have the potential to go a lot faster and it should not be long before they do.

Williams

I was not surprised when both cars retired. We must expect the BMW motor to break down a lot this season. It is their first season after many years of not participating in F1 and I have never seen an engine manufacturer do well in their first year.

They are a lot faster than I expected this early in the season (Ralf Schumacher qualified in 5^th place) and are already showing more reliability than I expected.

Ralf had a very good start. He was just unlucky that there was no clear track ahead of him on the way to the first corner as he could have moved up to 2^nd or 3^rd where he would have stayed at least until the first pit stops.

Button, on the other hand, had a bad weekend. He spent very little time behind the wheel and when he did it was only to have another motor blow up. He qualified in 18^th place and only managed 5 laps before another engine blew.

Remarkable as their results in Brazil may have been. They still have a long way to go, but they will get there.

Benetton

A team that is falling back fast. They are unlikely to see a new engine for more than a year and are forced to struggle on with the dated Supertec.

I am sure that Renault are planning some improvements for the current engine but must clearly be putting their efforts into a new motor, so this season is not looking too good.

I also suspect that because they knew they would be down on power, Benetton had to forfeit downforce for straight-line speed during the design of their 2000 season car. This may mean that they could be competitive on the slower circuits like Monaco and Hungary, where a mechanical grip advantage would pay off.

It could also explain their success in Brazil where it is possible that the bumpy circuit would upset their cars less than the high downforce cars that rely on a stable platform to work optimally.

It is going to be a long road, but Renault have shown that they can do it when they powered Williams to success.

Prost

I guess they are getting better.

I have lost all confidence in this team. They were in a great position to apply the hard lessons that they learnt in the last two seasons to really make a difference this year. Instead they seem to be making all the mistakes, they were supposed to learn from, all over again. Where is the progress?

Sauber

Salo finishes in 6^th, Diniz in 8^th. Pretty good show for a team that uses Ferrari’s hand-me-down engines from last year.

Salo is looking impressive and Diniz did well too. Both looked as if they could go a lot faster but again we saw the lack of overtaking opportunity turn the race into a procession.

They may feature in the points until the other teams, with bigger budgets and newer engines, get better and that may take a while.

Arrows

They confuse me. They only seem to be fast in testing, when it does not matter. They obviously have potential but seem to be unable to make it work in anger.

Like Benetton they have a power disadvantage, but unlike Benetton they have no rosy future as I would be surprised if they even get to see the new Renault motors, let alone use them.

Arrows will have to find another engine if they do not want to land up at the back. They are a professional team that knows how to win, so I guess they do not need me to tell them what to do.

Minardi

What can I say?

BAR

Still not that fast so we must assume that Honda are feeding the go faster bits slowly to this team. But they are reliable and fast enough to stay in the points.

Villeneuve drove a brilliant race to come 5^th and would not have needed much more speed to threaten Barrichello in 4^th.

I am still expecting them to gradually get better over the season. I think it is unrealistic to expect them to get as fast, or faster, than the Ferraris or McLarens but I am sure that they have the potential to get there in 2001.

Agree or disagree ?
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The Heretic