| ATLAS F1 Volume 6, Issue 44 |  Email to Friend  Printable Version |
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The 2000 Version | ||
| by Karl Ludvigsen, England | |||
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After a year of regularly sharing his views on the F1 circus with the Atlas F1 readers, award winning writer Karl Ludvigsen looks back at the season's highlights, while settling the account of his own predictions and judgements throughout the year
Incompetence is not a word that could be used about the 2000 BMW-Williams effort, the subject of my first column. They started their year with an incredible podium finish for Ralf Schumacher and showed that this was no fluke with two more podiums for Ralf at Spa and Monza. BMW did well to resist appeals to launch its new V-10 engine earlier, bringing it to the starting line when it had a good chance of finishing. But finishing third the first time out! It was almost too good a beginning to the season - in the sense that it greatly raised expectations both inside and outside BMW.
Later in the year I had high praise for Sir Frank Williams and his dedicated outfit. He and Patrick Head have long constituted the class act of Formula One, both racers to the core. And for 2000 they produced what I think is by far the prettiest car in the field. It's not easy to see beyond the paint schemes, but under those stripes and logos the BMW WilliamsF1 FW22 - to give it its full name - is one gorgeous automobile. Slim, trim and shapely in a way that we haven't often seen. Nice job!
"I think what we've done this year are the quickest and biggest steps I've ever seen in any engine program," said BMW's Gerhard Berger. "I think it's realistic to think in terms of taking a win next year perhaps," he added, "but you cannot rely on these things just happening. But we don't intend not to win in a championship with this program - that is the purpose of it. Whether that will be in two years, three, four, you cannot say. Motor racing cannot be predicted in this way."
The latest-generation BMW engine ran in a WilliamsF1 chassis for the first time in a Magny-Cours test late in October, with test driver Bruno Junquiera at the wheel. "It was just to see that it basically worked and fitted into the car," Berger said. "But it looks good. We'll see." We will indeed.
The season's results suggest that Bruno Junquiera has been a good tester, as has Jorg Muller, who's been putting kilometers on BMW's engines. But is Junquiera good enough to move BMW-Williams into the very top rank? This season has highlighted the importance of the "third driver", as McLaren likes to call him. In selecting Alex Wurz for that slot in 2001, McLaren has confirmed that its season with Olivier Panis demonstrated the value of having a tester who is and has been a racer at the very top of the game. Such a person simply has a much clearer idea of how a car should be designed and developed to have a chance of winning.
When I wrote about test drivers after Hungary I speculated that in 2001 Ricardo Zonta might go to McLaren in that position and Wurz to Ferrari. I made the latter suggestion because I feel that Luca Badoer is not the richly experienced driver that Ferrari needs in that slot. That Wurz went to McLaren instead suggests that my proposal was a good one! And Zonta will be testing for Jordan, which in my opinion will greatly raise their game.
And who will be testing for Jaguar? Tomas Scheckter! Jaguar just don't get it, do they? There was a time when you used your test-driver slot to nurture new talent; witness the careers of Messrs. D. Hill, D. Coulthard and J.-P. Montoya (although the last is still to be verified). But at the top of Formula One those days are long gone. The tester is now as important a contributor to the success of a team as its principal chauffeurs. The post is not kindergarten or indeed even high school. Only the MBAs of racing should apply. The lack of an experienced senior tester will significantly cripple the Jaguar effort.
As if Jaguar needed any help! Sincere and capable though Bobby Rahal is, I'm sure the Formula One veterans will run rings 'round him. I had the same concern about Neil Ressler early in 2000 and little happened to prove me wrong. With Jaguar stumbling, its already-overworked design group has been decimated by rival teams. Lacking a wind tunnel of its own, Jaguar has been sending two models to the Swift tunnel in California on a five-week cycle. After a 20-hour session in the tunnel nothing can happen for three weeks. And now Jaguar wants to put its new Grand Prix factory in the full gaze of the press and public outside the gates of Silverstone, a bouncing F1 tyre away from Jordan! No, I'm afraid they just don't get it.
After the fifth Grand Prix at Barcelona, I picked the Ferrari F1-2000 as the car of the year, the one that would win both championships. It was semi-close, but they did it. Thanks, Ferrari! And believe me it was the car, not the driver. As past seasons have shown, not even Michael Schumacher can win in a car that isn't up to the job. Nor was the Ferrari specially tailored to Michael, as Rubens Barrichello demonstrated with eight podium finishes plus a dramatic win in Germany. It may not be painted silver and it may not have Adrian Newey behind it, but nevertheless the 2000-season Ferrari was and is one outstanding automobile.
Brickbats came hurtling through my computer when I was mean to Jean Alesi after he and Nick Heidfeld tangled in Austria and wiped out the complete Prost team. I have a lot of sympathy for the fans of the feisty French-Sicilian, but during the rest of the season he continued to flaunt his incompetence in a comprehensive way. In contrast, Jacques Villeneuve showed what he's made of with some stellar drives that got better and better with a little help from Honda and an improved BAR. I look to them to upset a lot of people in 2001 - and even more people if they find someone to take charge of the team.
Plenty has already been written about the phenomenal debut season of young Jenson Button. He has been a fast learner and a very pleasant character with it. Will he shine as brightly next year with Benetton-Renault? I have my doubts. Speaking of pleasant characters, I hope Heinz-Harald Frentzen can bounce back from one of the most dispiriting seasons in recent memory. With eight mechanical failures there's not a lot a fellow can do to show his stuff. And I quite liked the cut of Jos Verstappen's jib. If he's given a car that he can just drive instead of having to overdrive, he should get better results than his two points-placings of 2000 - fourth in Italy and fifth in Canada.
At the top of the table in 2000 we had the two best drivers of the day, Messrs. Schumacher and Hakkinen. There wasn't a lot to choose between them. Both showed during the season that they are men of heart as well as mind. This is something that drivers don't necessarily want to reveal! They want to seem overpoweringly and impenetrably awesome to their rivals - as indeed these two must be regarded by the rest of the field. Hugely skilled and determined as they both are, it will take a lot to beat them. I don't see anyone rivaling Hakkinen and Schumacher for the championship in 2001.
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| Karl Ludvigsen | © 2000 Kaizar.Com, Incorporated. |
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