ATLAS F1 - THE JOURNAL OF FORMULA ONE MOTORSPORT
Winners & Losers in Formula One

By Roger Horton, England
Atlas F1 Senior Writer



Mega Winners: Undoubtedly the biggest winners have to be the entire Ferrari team together with Michael Schumacher, so no surprises there. Who now remembers just what a shambles the Ferrari team was back in 1996 when the German first joined the Maranello based outfit? Schumacher's Ferrari exiting the pits in Canada shredding parts as he went; his engine blowing up on the parade lap in France, followed by an early retirement in Britain. The Ferrari team of today is an example of what can be achieved when a talented management group are left alone to do their job, with the best driver in the cockpit and fuelled by heaps of money.

Major Losers: McLaren-Mercedes. I know, it's hard to call the statistically highly successful McLaren team - run by the ultimate perfectionist Ron Dennis - losers, but let's reflect a minute.

Nearly every time McLaren has stumbled in the past, it was possible to put your finger quickly on the problem. In the mid-Eighties the initially successful Porsche engine was out-muscled by Honda. Then Honda, powering the Woking team's chassis, lost out to Renault's power and Williams's superior active suspension technology. Honda withdrew and McLaren were in the proverbial wilderness until Ilmor Engineering got its act together in the late Nineties.

Last year, McLaren as a team were just not a consistent force despite having total continuity in technical partners and personnel. The Reds have done to the Greys what for years McLaren had done to everyone else - worked harder and smarter in every department that matters. They have managed to oust McLaren, and I am not sure Ron Dennis knows why.

Provisional Winner: Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit. I can't recall anyone in the F1 authority having a good word for Silverstone over the last three or four years, but somehow it has survived one more season, albeit by the skin of its teeth.

Make no mistake, the track and its environs are old, run down and decidedly rustic. That, and the fact that the track itself no longer inspires the awe that it did when Keke Rosberg blasted his way to pole at a touch over 160 mph back in '85 is reason enough to condemn the place.

Now, however, an upgrading programme and a new traffic management plan for this year's race may yet save the day providing it is completed to plan and on time. Given that the UK's recent record in managing infrastructure upgrades has been pretty woeful, underline provisional.

Winner or Loser? Make your own decision on Craig Pollock, who was recently fired from the team he created. Pollock achieved what very few people have ever done. As an outsider he talked the huge multinational tobacco company BAT into supporting his plan of creating a team around his long-time friend Jacques Villeneuve. He spent their money like water and yet his cars have never looked like winning a race. If you are old fashioned like me, that makes him a loser, because creating a team that wins (or at least is making progress in that direction) is how I think all team bosses should be judged.

On the other hand, Pollock has made himself a great deal of money and learned a lot and will no doubt return to the F1 game much wiser than he was first time around. Some would call that winning. The joker in the pack here is, of course, just how the BAR-Honda 004 performs in Melbourne. If it is quick out of the box, Pollock's stock will soar along with his credibility; but if it is just midfield material, then the loser tag will stick for me.

Definite Winner: If, like French tyre company Michelin, you enter F1 with the third ranked outfit as your lead team, and after seventeen races you have scored four wins, you are a pretty big winner.

Michelin boss Pierre Dupasquier played the F1 media and political game to perfection. Always talking down his chances and being honest when he screwed up and his tyres were second best. Along the way Michelin convinced McLaren to join the party in the hope that this year, the French company's products would give them (and Williams) the edge over the Bridgestone-shod Ferraris. Last year they were just winners, what chance that next year they will be Mega?

Sad Loser: Adrian Newey. It's hard not to like and respect Adrian Newey. There surely can't be a more gifted guy in the pitlane than the rather shy and softly spoken Englishman, as his incredible record of success with both Williams and McLaren attests.

After the fiasco of his on/off move to Jaguar broke onto the F1 world after Monaco, Newey stayed away from the Canadian race but returned to the F1 paddock in Germany at the Nurburgring where, inevitably, he was forced to run the gauntlet of an F1 media corps hungry for even the smallest scrap of news. A sad sight indeed to observe.

Newey must also share part of the blame for McLaren's poor year and many have wondered whether his dalliance with Jaguar and his old friend Bobby Rahal blunted his creative drive as the team attempted to massage the MP4/16 into a competitive car.

Potential Loser: The more I observed Ralf Schumacher during the season, the more he reminded me of the way Damon Hill sometimes tripped over himself in his dealing with the media.

On the surface, the two have little in common in terms of their backgrounds and life experiences. But both have experienced life at Williams with a quick teammate, and both have gone public with their attempts to get the support of their famously hard-nosed team boss, Frank Williams. It never worked for Hill and it's unlikely to work for Ralf either.

Should the early part of this season continue in the same vein as the latter part of last season, Ralf just might dig a hole for himself that even all the considerable negotiation skills of his manager Willi Weber can't extract him from.

Temporary Loser? If ever a driver has come down to earth with a bump, it has to be Jenson Button. In typical British tabloid fashion, the very same editors who had built him up during his season at Williams were determined to bring him down when he struggled at Benetton. In fairness, Button did hand them some ammunition, but then again, just what can you expect from a young man just barely 21-years old who suddenly got rich and famous.

Seasons like last year's for Button are not called character-building for nothing and can have a positive outcome, provided of course you have character to build on in the first place. I think that Button has both enormous natural speed and enough backbone to come back this year stronger than ever. Than again, with Jarno Trulli as his new teammate he will need to.

Big Winner: BMW. Few companies have made a plan to enter F1 and then executed it as well as the men from Munich. To blow your opposition away in the power stakes in just your second year of competition is sensational, and the fact that they did it all in-house was a wake up call to the established engine makers. Of course choosing Williams as their technical partner was a brilliant decision, as was having two such high-class front men in Gerhard Berger and Dr Mario Theissen as their Motorsport Directors. Was this really the same company that tripped up so badly with the Rover fiasco?

Winner Under Probation: Niki Lauda. The Austrian won three World Championship titles because he was able to harness his enormous intellect and apply it to the needs of his era. It remains to be seen whether the famous Lauda style of shooting from the hip and offering his instant usually withering opinion on almost any topic, will advance Jaguar's cause this year now that he is no longer just a paddock pundit, but a team boss.

The R3 is the product of a design team put together under the guidance of Bobby Rahal, the man Lauda so controversially ousted last season, a situation that would normally call for a deft touch and a little diplomacy. So although Lauda is one of the best-connected men in the paddock and respected by many, the pressure on the 'big' teams stuck in the mid-field is becoming so intense that only real progress by his team will enhance his reputation as a winner.

Big Loser: Alain Prost. Though the fans might hang on every word uttered by today's superstar drivers, many in the paddock know better, and it is for this reason that very few drivers rank anywhere near the top of F1's unofficial pecking order. Year after year of having your path smoothed over by 'minders' and PR assistants is hardly good training to manage a business as cut throat as being an F1 team boss. Prost, a genius behind the wheel, is perhaps still underrated to this day as a driver, but sadly Prost, with his team now in the final stages of bankruptcy, can only be rated as a loser in his current role.

Long Time Winner: Murray Walker. Like seemingly half the paddock, I shook Murray Walker's hand and wished him well after his last ever TV commentary at Indianapolis last year. Understandably he looked more than a little preoccupied and his normally ready smile a little forced. Clearly his mind was elsewhere, and in Murray's case 'elsewhere' could be about any one of the hundreds of Grand Prix races he has covered and 'beamed back' over the airwaves to millions of devoted listeners or viewers over so many years. In F1 terms, Murray ran his own race, was loved by most, and quit at the top. A good example to set and a hard act to follow.


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Volume 8, Issue 02
January 9th 2002

Articles

Winners & Losers in F1
by Roger Horton

Amateurs at the Wheel
by Karl Ludvigsen

Off-Season Strokes
by Bruce Thomson

Columns

The F1 Trivia Quiz
by Marcel Borsboom

The Weekly Grapevine
by The F1 Rumours Team



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