One team owner who has been making a pretty good fist of spotting new talents in recent years is Peter Sauber. The sober Swiss has taken over the mantle of the late Ken Tyrrell as one of the sport's leading talent-spotters. However, Karl Ludvigsen believes the signing of Felipe Massa could be the wrong way to go. He explains why

Drivers are so different, just in the way that you and I are different. They may seem like all-powerful automatons in the cars, encased in their colorful Nomex and Kevlar, but they are more different than they are alike. Niki Lauda put it well: "Like painters, we racing drivers have artistic inclinations - we are individualists. Our task is to have a free head, come to the race and do more than normal people can manage."

The artistic analogy is a good one. Like painters or sculptors, drivers will have strengths and weaknesses and bring sharply differing sets of skills to every situation. No wonder team owners face such a difficult task in matching drivers to the needs of their cars and teams.

One team owner who has been making a pretty good fist of this job in recent years is Peter Sauber. The sober Swiss has taken over the mantle of the late Ken Tyrrell as one of the sport's leading talent-spotters. Even with Sauber as the "best of the rest" team this doesn't always mean he's been able to hang on to his recruits; witness the defection of Kimi Raikkonen to McLaren, for which he was of course handsomely compensated. Nevertheless, he has been able to keep Nick Heidfeld, who has to be seen as better than the best of the rest of the drivers.

Of course we can't forget the role of David Robertson in placing Kimi with Sauber. The latter was frank in describing the way this came about: "I spoke with Button's manager, Robertson, about Jenson. Robertson said that he'd just signed for Benetton for 2001, but that he had a Finn who was a tick better! I didn't know Raikkonen at all. But Robertson is a good salesman, and he showed incredible self-confidence. This youngster was so good, he said, that he would only give him to me if I placed a car at his disposal for three test days - free of charge!"

After ten years of karting, it was Formula Renault that gave Kimi the chance to show how quick he was. That's where he was talent-spotted by Robertson. Sauber said that his own best chance to seize an upcoming talent had been Jarno Trulli, whom he had taken a fancy to in his Formula 3 days. Another Swiss team grabbed Trulli, however, and Sauber's chance was lost.

Each team chief has his own set of criteria for his drivers. "I'm not one who is ready to take risks," says Peter Sauber, "rather conservative." He found his 2001 drivers satisfactory, he said, "because there are very few drivers who come into contact with the shrubbery so seldom and yet deliver fast times." Understandably, with a budget half the size of BAR's, Sauber can't afford to have too many crashed cars. For that reason I'm a bit worried about his choice for 2002.

Felipe Massa is a driver who doesn't fit the Sauber mold. "My style is aggressive," he said to F1 Racing magazine. "I like to arrive and go. I don't want to come to the end of the race and feel I haven't tried. I would rather make some mistake than not try." I wonder if Sauber winced when he read those words. I just can't see this as Peter's style at all. Of course he did have Jean Alesi driving for him in 1998 and 1999 - seasons that were punctuated by a few collisions involving the impetuous French-Sicilian. Theirs was anything but a logical pairing and I have similar concerns over Massa in 2002.

There's an extra edge to Brazilian Massa's aggressiveness as well. "One thing is certain in life," he said. "One day you have to die. I think it's better if you die in a racing car at 200 mph, doing what you love, than if you are run over by a car in the street or something. I love racing." This kind of talk sets my teeth on edge. Massa may feel free to end his own life on the track, but what about the others that he might involve? Since when is this young twerp the judge of who is to live and who to die?

This is one aspect of Felipe Massa's mooted similarity to his countryman Ayrton Senna that I can live without. Senna too seemed a fatalist who felt that God would always be on his side. Some of those who shared the track with him were less than thrilled about this attitude. Some drivers lack that all-important switch that you reach for when you realize you're about to do something dangerous, indeed life-threatening.

My friend Steve Wilder was like this. You won't know of Steve; he would have raced in the first American Grand Prix at Sebring if his Lotus had arrived on time. Later he had an almighty crash at Lime Rock which he was lucky to survive. Realizing that he lacked that switch, that he was too much inclined to walk out and beyond the brink, Steve hung up his helmet and is happily still with us.

Felipe Massa may turn out to be a very safe as well as fast driver. For Sauber's sake, I hope so. Peter burns four cigars during each Grand Prix. "When it's going well," he said, "then I enjoy them. When it's going badly, I get some comfort from them." For 2002 I wish Peter Sauber more of the former and less of the latter.