Notes and Anectodes from the Italian Grand Prix Paddock

  Turning the Bitter into Sweet

The controversy around holding the United States Grand Prix was very much the talking point of everyone in the F1 Paddock. In truth, many among the drivers and teams would have released a sigh of relief if the event was to be cancelled, and for a variety of reasons which to a large part have nothing to do with safety and more to do with logistics.

There is a way, however, for the US Grand Prix organisers to turn this event into one that will sweep the drivers, sponsors and fans off their feet with enthusiasm to participate in what can be an unforgettable event - and enthusiasm, it must be said, is lacking among the fans no less if not more than among the players: IMS have yet to sell many tickets to the race, and after the past week's tragedy there's little chance ticket sales will increase (not to mention those fans already booked who already cancelled their travel arrangements). That too can change.

IMS, along with the FOA, should declare that for every ticket sold to the US GP, $10 will go to charity in aid of the New York and Washington survivors. Considering last year the event sold 250,000 tickets, all at an average of $100, this will ensure a hefty sum of 2.5 million dollars for charity, and will give the fans reason to come in their thousands, buying the remainder of the tickets unsold (and there's plenty of them).

Such an initiative will also give charity-loving Michael Schumacher a reason to lead the rest of the drivers on a massive promotional tour, building up to the Grand Prix (David Letterman would gladly give the floor, for one), and it will provide the teams - who desperately want to show their support (even if partly for marketing reason) - a way to do just that. Not to mention the healthy positive exposure Formula One will gain in the USA, where this international sport is almost unknown.

Call it 'F1 for the USA'; Tony George, are you writing this down?

  Dazed and Confused

When Ferrari elected to run their cars in Monza without sponsorship logos and a unique black nose, in respect for the victims of the terrorist attack in the United States last week, some cynics in and out of the paddock suggested this was merely a publicity stunt. That's a very unfair and rather inaccurate assessment of Ferrari's state of mind.

First, it should be said that Ferrari are probably the last team to need any kind of stunt to gain publicity. SRi, an independent consulting firm, ran a study at the end of 2000 which revealed Ferrari had a share of 30% among all F1 teams in the TV coverage throughout the season. In comparison, McLaren had almost 25% of the coverage with the rest of the teams scraping for a single-digit percentage cut.

Experts say Ferrari's exposure share has only increased this year. With a Ferrari car always on the podium throughout the year and no one single team rivalling the Italian giant, the focus was very much on the Scuderia and its World Champion star. If anything, Ferrari - primarily Michael Schumacher - found out this weekend that there is such a thing as too much publicity.

Michael Schumacher would have loved to be anonymous this weekend. He would have loved it if someone else among the drivers was the Big Star whose opinion is sought out by every single one of the 500-odd journalists that command the paddock. He would have loved it if some other celebrity would have showed up to steal his limelight. He would have loved it so much, that he was rather relieved not to finish on the podium and in the press conference, for a change. Because Schumacher really didn't know how to relate to the horrific attack on New York and Washington last week.

The Formula One fraternity has never been on-protocol for dealing with world affairs. You walk into the F1 paddock, and you may as well be on Mars - the events around the globe remain outside the electronic gates. Damon Hill once tried to convince his fellow members to hold a moment's silence for Princess Diana, when she was killed some four years ago. The non-British members of the field simply looked at him funny and snubbed the idea altogether. And, in almost every hospitality motorhome across the paddock, MTV is the choice channel between sessions. You'd sip a glass of wine and socialise with the other guests, while watching Jennifer Lopez jiggle her thighs on the big screens.

Not this weekend. Sky News and CNN were the dominant channels and there was no escaping continuous conversations about the biggest terrorist attack in history. Sure, some teams' sponsors were affected - namely Sun Microsystems (McLaren) and HSBC and AT&T (Jaguar), who had offices in the World Trade Center - but to a large part, Formula One would have had little if nothing to do with this, had it not happened just two and a half weeks before the USA Grand Prix, and had it not been of such magnitude that no man alive could remain ignorant and unfazed by it.

Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo was looking forward to this year's event, not only because it was the first time his team would march into Monza with the World Championship title (last year they won the title after the event, or as di Montezemolo himself told the handful of journalists he met prior to the Grand Prix this year: "every year I meet you and say, 'this year we will finally make it.' I was looking forward to our annual dinner with you to say to you, 'This year we already made it!'"). Di Montezemolo was also looking forward to this year's event because he had planned to use the publicity around the Grand Prix to promote the new Maserati Spyder car the company launched just last week.

Instead, Ferrari put on a subdued show. Di Montezemolo noted that the United States is Ferrari's largest market (Italy is only the fourth largest, by the way) and so the team is very much connected to the American public. In fact, there may well be more Tifosi in the United States than anywhere else, and when the Tifosi are aching, di Montezemolo listens; his team's changed-livery gesture was not a hollow one.

Schumacher, on the other hand, showed his age this weekend, as did Mika Hakkinen. It was a clear distinction between the Young & Free (Montoya, Button or Raikkonen) and the Old & Parented. When asked about the US tragedy, Hakkinen said: "I just want to go back home and hug my son," and that's pretty much what Michael Schumacher felt. In contrast, the young drivers were much more efficient in brushing off the effects of the attack. That's not to say they weren't horrified, but it affected their concentration significantly less than it has affected the elders. Such is life, though: it's only natural that the brash and sassy will overcome emotions faster and more efficiently than the veterans.

A fellow journalist who knows Schumacher for many many years now, and is in fact one of the closest people in the paddock to him and Corinna, told me during the weekend that she has never seen the German so distracted, and that for the first time she could recall, he simply didn't want to race. That is a complete novelty when it comes to Schumacher, who loves the sport and loves driving. Hakkinen, who felt the same, could take solace in the fact that in just two races' time, he will be free to do whatever he wants and free to spend as much time as he wants with his family. Thus, she said, if Schumacher retires before his contract expires at the end of 2004, the seeds for that decision will have been sown this weekend - the weekend where the father overcame the driver in him.

  Breaking the Break

The off-season is going to be very very long this year - over two months with no sound of an F1 engine, if you exclude the Toyota testing that will continue until mid-November.

Just how lengthy the testing ban is going to be, has sunk in on some of the team chiefs somewhat belatedly. Last year, after a season that saw 17 races taking place exactly every two weeks, the chiefs were so tired, they would have voted for a year off if offered. Instead, they enthusiastically supported a break in August as well as a prolonged testing ban in the off-season, carried on from the traditional November ban to December as well.

But now, with just one month to go before the end of the season, these same team chiefs have had second thoughts. The idea to reverse the December Ban resolution has been discussed for the past couple of months, not least because many feel January and February may not be enough to develop and try out new improvements. Thus, the team chiefs headed to Monza with the mind to cancel the December break.

To overturn such an agreement, all teams would have had to agree unanimously. But the decision was rejected, because of Ferrari.

Jean Todt, Ferrari's sporting director, told Atlas F1 his team would support cancelling the December ban as of next year, "but not this year. It's too late to change it now," the Frenchman said. Too late? For what? Well, as it turns out, Ferrari, just like many other teams, have already made plans for the extended break. The drivers are assigned to personal vacations and sponsorship promotional work (Montoya tells me he doesn't have a single week off during that period - that's how busy he's going to be with sponsorship promotions!), mechanics and other on-track staff have already made arrangements with their families. In short, Ferrari at least have already programmed their organisation for that kind of "off-work" mode.

Obviously, the team can afford to maintain this mode. The cars next year will bear no significant technical changes, which means development on the 2002 challenger can be a continuation of this year's car, certainly in Ferrari's case, where the F2001 has been by far the best and most consistent car. And, in fact, in preparations for the lengthy ban, Ferrari have been working - according to designer Rory Byrne himself - on the 2002 car since March this year, no less!

And so, the testing ban for this year will continue as planned. Get used to 9½ weeks of utter boredom...

  Eddie Sucks

Every morning, on my way to the track from the hotel at Erba, my companion and I would pass by an advertisement banner for a vacuum cleaner. It features Eddie Irvine (and it must be quite recent, as the Ulsterman is shown with his blonde hair), and the words "Pole Position" (not knowing Italian, I've no idea what the rest of the banner says). It would be a great way to start the day: always with a chuckle.

Irvine hasn't been even remotely close to the front row of the grid for some time now. Obviously, that has more to do with his equipment than with his own ability but one fact has everything to do with driver performance: the qualifying equation between teammates. And, for the past five races in a row, Pedro de la Rosa has outqualified Eddie Irvine.

The two have been teammates for 11 races now, out of which de la Rosa outqualified Irvine a total of six times. Nevertheless, Irvine holds just a slight advantage over de la Rosa - 12.8 vs. 13.4 in average grid position, and 0.251 average qualifying differential between the two, in favour of Eddie. With two races to go, he may just slightly finish the season ahead of de la Rosa, but what kind of an achievement is that?

De la Rosa is a very impressive driver, on and off the track. He already proved his talent last year, and while many were worried by his off-form performance when he was thrown into the Jaguar car in Spain, replacing Luciano Burti who moved to Prost, he has since proven that phase to be only an adjustment period. Irvine, on the other hand, is having an opposite effect: while rookie Burti and unadjusted de la Rosa made Irvine look good at the first part of the season, by now he's beginning to look like a driver who's pretty much passed his sell-by date.

Bobby Rahal was fired, to a large extent, because he made an offer to Jordan to take Eddie Irvine away from him. Whether the offer was genuinely made in jest, as Rahal publicly stated, or was made in utter seriousness, one has to wonder if Rahal didn't have a point. And, not surprisingly, Niki Lauda - who stuck by Irvine and concocted Rahal's early departure - must now do his utmost best to defend Irvine's lack of form. And, while he might be praying deep down inside for Irvine to prove him right, outwardly Lauda is putting a relaxed pose to it.

"I'm happy if the drivers go quicker than slower," the Austrian told me. "Pedro is doing a good job at the moment, which is what I expect him to do. The same I expect from Eddie, but he had some problems this weekend so he couldn't do what he wanted to do. But Eddie is clever enough to work on himself, so don't worry."

I'm not worried, I tell Lauda, but maybe you should be. "No, I'm not worried," he replies with a smile. "Because Eddie will fight back. I'll make sure of it."

  Bernie's Bad Boy

Ever since F1 Magazine was launched at the Australian Grand Prix this year, the Bernie Ecclestone-owned magazine has been making headlines, and not always on its own covers.

The magazine has already been banned from one team's motorhome; this weekend at Monza, they could add another notch to the belt: Craig Pollock locked BAR's doors to any employee of the official F1 publication, "and not just for this weekend, but indefinitely," as he firmly tells me. The reason is Tom Rubython's "Paddock Patter" column in the latest issue of the magazine, released just days before the Italian Grand Prix.

Rubython, the publisher of F1 Magazine and EuroBusiness, dedicated his column this month to team chiefs - owners versus hired executives - and when they should step down from running their teams and make way for younger blood. Rubython's column suggests Ken Tyrrell stayed at his position as team chief too long and he ends his column by saying: "As a result of staying on too long Tyrrell had, in his later years, to suffer the indignity of the skeleton of his old team being run by a man who was not fit to tie Ken's shoelaces." Ouch!

Rubython isn't shy of controversy. Previously, he accused McLaren team chief Ron Dennis of suffering from lack of integrity and honesty, and in his cap as EuroBusiness editor, he once accused former Labour minister Geoffrey Robinson of secretly funding the family of Robert Maxwell with money that should have gone to Maxwell's creditors instead. On that occasion, Rubython said the article was an invitation to Robinson to sue.

Rubython seems to follow the school of thought that there is no such thing as bad publicity, as long as they spell your name right. Single-handedly, he's managed to make F1 Magazine a favourite topic of conversation around the paddock, and that is sure to propagate towards the fans and increase curiosity among those who have yet to try it out. It should be said, however, that Rubython can afford to take this aggressive approach: any other journalist in the Paddock that doesn't get paid by Ecclestone would doubtly get his press pass renewed for next season, if he was to write about the sport's chief players in Rubython's fashion.

Openly, F1 Magazine's employees around the paddock are backing up their publisher, using his head-on attacks on Pollock and Dennis as "the ultimate proof that we're not F1's Pravda, even though we're owned by Bernie," as one employee put it. Privately, however, some are wondering - off the record of course - why he has to make their work so difficult.

Ironically, many who joined the magazine initially had thought they were winning a Gold Pass directly into the core of every F1 team. A magazine owned by Ecclestone? Who would turn their interview request down? Now they are finding it impossible to get as much as a quote from the McLaren drivers ("sorry, I'd love to give you an interview but Ron forbids it," was David Coulthard's reply to a well esteemed writer from the magazine, who wanted to interview Coulthard in the past few weeks) and not even a cocktail invitation to the BAR party.

In contrast, F1 Racing - the primary, if not sole rival to F1 Magazine - is having a renaissance of some sort. Many agree that the heated war between the two publications have raised F1 Racing's game - the monthly periodical has improved articles and broader interviews as of late, but on top of that they suddenly find every new enemy Rubython makes is Matt Bishop's new friend. Ron Dennis, for example, gave F1 Racing a very revealing interview just a month ago, and you can be sure he did that just to spite F1 Magazine. Anyone wants to bet against a BAR-related feature in one of the upcoming F1 Racing issues?

Either way, the War of the Mags is good for the fans. Haymarket, F1 Racing's publisher, was a monopoly for such a long time, it seemed for a while they forgot to fill in the gaps between the advertisements with some articles. Now, they are sweating it out and good for us: both magazines have pros and cons, and there's a choice to make every month. Primarily, I must single out the investigative reporting that F1 Magazine has introduced to Formula One, followed by F1 Racing, both digging deep into current affairs and trying to unravel events as they truly happened. It makes for a nice change from the PR-oriented articles we've been fed with for such a long time.

While on the subject, one really has to ask aloud: how many more F1 Racing issues this year will bear a picture of Michael Schumacher on the cover, and does it have anything at all to do with the promotional postcard F1 Racing has inserted into its latest issue (with Michael Schumacher on the cover), offering a free Michael Schumacher hat to anyone who subscribes to the magazine right now...

  Setting the Record Straight

It is inevitebale, perhaps, that misquotes and words taken out of context will appear in the vast coverage of a Grand Prix weekend. However, to one who heard the original, some mistakes can be quite irritating, especially when the error gives a whole new - and sometimes scandalous - meaning to these quotes. For the sake of clarity, here are a few quotes I've run over which are inaccurate at best, twisted at worst.

  Barrichello claims he now enjoys equal treatment in Ferrari.
Rubens Barrichello's exact quote was: "When we would go to a normal weekend, before Michael won the Championship, you would go thinking that he would get the first treatment because he had the chance to win the Championship. Now the team is looking after my position and things are more focused on me. That's the only thing that is different. But we have equal treatment and we are allowed to race each other basically." For some reason, one of the reports added the word "now" to the last sentence, which made it look as though Barrichello is claiming he is only receiving equal treatment now. That is not what the Brazilian said (although he may think it...)

  Ralf said he won't race in the United States Grand Prix.
Ralf Schumacher never, not once, said he won't race in the US GP. While the German was critical of the race going on as planned, he never even as much as hinted to not participating in the race. Ralf may have believed the event should be cancelled but it was never an issue to do with himself being afraid for his personal safety, as some alluded. This is what Ralf told me on Friday morning, shortly after he told a German reporter that it was "a bad joke to continue with the race at Indy as if nothing happened":

"The situation is still very uncertain and nobody knows where it's going to come from and where it's gonna go, so naturally I'm a bit concerned and I'm not sure I would take people with me because that would only complicate things and in the USA at the moment they have much more important things to think about than our Formula One race."

Q: Do you think the event should be cancelled?

"That decision is up to the Americans and since they said they are happy to have the race, then we are going there."

Q: Did you consider not racing there yourself?

"Absolutely not. I am racing here as well, so why shouldn't I race in America?"

Before the skeptics among you brush aside Ralf's above comments as an attempt to undo the damage his previous comments made, bear this in mind: the damage wouldn't have existed if only young Schumacher had been quoted accurately to begin with...

  Luca di Montezemolo says Kimi is not good enough for his 'important Ferrari car'.
That was really one of the worst misquotes I came upon. Ferrari president, Luca di Montezemolo, was asked why Ferrari didn't make an offer to Kimi Raikkonen and instead 'allowed' McLaren to steal the young talent away from them. Di Montezemolo's reply was rather interesting:

"Ferrari is currently the World Champion," di Montezemolo told select few journalists in Maranello, on Tuesday evening. "For any driver to come to Ferrari means high expectations and high pressure, especially now that we are successful. I would never put a young driver in such a situation - it could break him." And, if there's any doubt what di Montezemolo thinks of Raikkonen, he went on to say the young Finn "has the potential to become World Champion, but he is still young and inexperienced." Could anyone argue with that?