ATLAS TEAM F1


The Powers That Be: FOCA, Williams and the red buttons of Renault
by Michael Whitfield

There is so much money riding on the F1 competition that the powers-that-be can't simply accept that one driver dominates the field. For television rights, and for the sponsors, a close competition is needed so that large numbers of punters follow the races. I was not totally of this position until the Hungarian Grand Prix.

At the last race (Hungary), when Schumacher was 21 points ahead of the rest, a friend of mine gave me the idea that the championship was not totally controlled by the skills of the teams and drivers. He said that 21 points was too much, more than 10 points ahead and the leadership couldn't change during any single race, so why would people be interested in today's race? Something had to be done. He predicted that Schumacher would break down a couple of laps from the end of the race. Not to put Schumacher's talent in question, but to bring the race for the championship a bit closer. When it actually happened, I sat up and started to take note of everything that happened.

The theory that has been openly expressed, on French television at least, is that now that Schumacher is going to Ferrari next year, Renault will not accept that he win the championship this year. How could they let the number 1 be carried by a Ferrari when it was Renault that won the championship? Hill must win. This ties in directly with the interests of the FOCA (not the FIA) to have a close championship. If Renault agrees to keep the championship close, the FOCA will guarantee that Renault (and therefore Hill) will keep the number 1.

I'm not sure whether Williams is in on all this. They certainly have everything to gain, and have a lot of sway with both Renault (their traditional partner these days) and the FOCA (being a rich team). Frank may have even been the mind that came up with this scheme - but my gut feeling is that he's too much of a fair play Brit to be involved. And if he really held that much power with Renault, Benetton would never have had the Renault engine.

Its time to introduce my prejudices. I believe that Schumacher is a driver who is in a class above the rest. I'm even more convinced of this watching the Belgian GP, watching Schumacher on slicks, in the rain, defend his position with Hill, on wet weather tires, sitting right behind him. My opinion is that Schumacher is the best driver in a average car, and Hill is an average driver in the best car. There will be a ferocious fight for the title, but no matter what happens I won't abandon the opinion that Schumacher is a brilliant driver.

The great thing about F1 is that no-one will ever know the truth, we will never see Hill and Schumacher in the same car.

I also believe that the FOCA is the organisation that controls the F1. The FIA has the biggest media profile, but the FOCA controls all the money. Therefore Bernie is the chief, Max is the actor. A bit like the between the fight between the Indy car and the Indy 500. The Indy 500 is the name that everyone knows, but when they try to pull their weight and pull away from the formula Indy, they find that they are alone.

The theory that I have come up with recently is that Renault have 4 big red buttons. Corresponding to the 4 Renault engines racing. Pushing one big red button makes one Renault engine explode, or at least become non-competitive. But they can't just push all the big red buttons except Hill's, otherwise their intentions would be too obvious. So they limit themselves to one big red button per race, and under exceptional conditions they will push one during the practice sessions.

In the end, Renault didn't push any big red buttons during the first qualifying session for Belgium, because the results were totally due to luck. The Ferraris happened to be out at the right time, and Schumacher was only ahead of Hill because Hill was held up during his last lap before the rain by the Pacific.

Renault were spoilt during the second un-official practice, as Schumacher, without Renault ever having to push the big red button, was upset by a slower car and spun off the track - seriously damaging his car. Hill had an advantage purely due to the luck of the draw.

But during the second qualifying session, Hill (who both FOCA and Renault wants to win) spun off towards the end of the session. And Schumacher had a repaired car that was ready to challenge the front lines of the grid. So Renault have no choice but to immediately push Schumacher's big red button, to make sure that Schumacher stays behind Hill. Schumacher goes out twice to try to beat Hill's time, but the both times he had gearbox problems. The question for me is what the problem really was: it could have been a motor problem that Benetton did not want to admit to (who could imagine that Flavio would say no to a few million dollars to stay quiet). Or even that Flavio would refuse a couple of million to sabotage Michael's gearbox. For me, Flavio is a businessman more than a sportsman.

In any case, Hill was way ahead of Schumacher on the starting grid. FOCA and Renault were both happy, maybe even Benetton if they managed to make a few million dollars knowing that Schumacher had the talent to come back from such a position.

So the race started and both Hill and Schumacher started to climb the order. Coulthard started to really show himself better than the Ferraris. Who knows if it was due to the car or the driver, but he was starting to pull away from Hill. Only one possibility for the championship: THE BIG RED BUTTON. Coulthard was out of the race.

Unfortunately for Renault they'd used their one chance to affect the outcome (assuming the theory that they allowed themselves one red button per race), so they had to sit and watch the rest of the race as spectators.

So now we find Hill and Schumacher fighting for the leadership, the other cars just down to the 6th place were just noise compared to the 2 leaders. Then the winning decision: who knows if it was from Schumacher or from his team - Schumacher stays out on a wet track on slicks, whereas Hill goes in to put on wet tires. Schumacher manages to keep Hill behind him for 2 laps where Hill was obviously faster on wet tires (all my admiration for Schumacher for those 2 laps).

After those 2 laps Hill manages to pass Schumacher, but just as quickly the rain stops and Schumacher overtakes Hill to get the leadership back. It can't just be luck that the rain stopped, given that the Benetton team has got right just about every tactical decision over the last two seasons. I could believe that Benetton had paid a couple of hundred of average people to be at 20 km intervals all around the circuit to tell where the rain was and how the weather was changing.

So Hill, on rain tires that are rapidly deteriorating due to the diminishing rain, has to stop to put slicks back on. So instantly Schumacher has 20-30 seconds lead. Williams made a mistake, so Renault called on the FOCA to see what could be done. The result: the Pace Car. Why else did the Pace car come out? The track was not blocked (Katayama spun off after the pace car, and wasn't in a terribly dangerous position anyway). If the track was so trecherous due to the rain, how could both Schumacher and Hill be happy on slicks? The pace car let everyone except Schumacher past, so it wasn't out there to protect the rest of the field. It slowed Schumacher long enough for Hill to catch up, then the track was suddenly safe again. The only effect of the pace car in the end was to slow Schumacher down.

My theory is that Hill was meant to win this race, but the Benetton/Schumacher tactics unexpectedly upset the situation. The powers-that-be tried to bring the Hill back to the same level as the Benetton, but it was a bit obvious. A Pace car that comes out when there was no real danger on the circuit - it may be normal in Indy car, but for F1 there will be real questions. So the Belgian officials quickly put the situation back to normal: give Hill a penalty that effectively puts him back to where he was before the Pace car came out.

There was of course Brundle that now appeared between Hill and Schumacher, but the officials had already done their calculations and Hill would overtake him. Otherwise we would have seen a 10 sec stop and go for Brundle: they must keep the 2 participants for the championship happy.

Imagine that Hill, who's under enormous pressure, had to defend himself for losing his second place due to pit lane speeding (which in my opinion didn't happen). He may just let out that he had the speed limiting button pressed all the time (really, how can you speed when the drivers have a button that limits their speed to the pit lane speed limit?).

So after all this, I believe that all the money is on Hill, and he will win the championship. But that Schumacher is by far the better driver, and will do all that he can to steal the championship by simply driving better. Unfortunately he won't succeed, as the money comes before the talent in today's F1.


Michael Whitfield
Send comments to: Michael.Whitfield@nb.rockwell.com

Michael is an Aussie living In France, an F1 fanatic, and a fan Of Schumi despite everyone around him. Apart from F1, he is a BMW 2002 owner and restorer, along with enjoying physical training since 3 months ago. Michael works as a electronic engineer for Rockwell International, Nice, France.