As normal, the FIA Formula One schedule is constantly changing. Here is the schedule as of the 19th of October:
FIA Formula One World Championship calendar for 1996
(provisional from 19th Oct. 95)
10. 3 Australian GP , Melbourne , AUSTRALIA , 4:30 AM
31. 3 Brazilian GP , Sao Paulo , BRAZIL , 6:00 PM
7. 4 Argentinian GP, Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA , 6:00 PM
21. 4 Pacific GP , Aida , JAPAN , 5:00 AM
5. 5 San Marino GP , Imola , SAN MARINO , 2:00 PM
19. 5 Monaco GP , Monaco , MONACO , 3:30 PM
2. 6 Spain GP , Montmelo , SPAIN , 2:00 PM
16. 6 Canadian GP , Montreal , CANADA , 8:00 PM
30. 6 French GP , Magny-Cours , FRANCE , 2:00 PM
14. 7 British GP , Silverstone , GREAT BRITAIN , 3:00 PM
28. 7 German GP , Hockenheim , GERMANY , 2:00 PM
11. 8 Hungarian GP , Budapest , HUNGARY , 2:00 PM
25. 8 Belgian GP , Spa , BELGIUM , 2:00 PM
8. 9 Italian GP , Monza , ITALY , 3:00 PM
22. 9 Portugal GP , Estoril , PORTUGAL , 2:00 PM
13.10 Japanese GP , Suzuka , JAPAN , 5:00 AM
Legend: day, month, name, place, country, CET Time
Note : CET means Central European Time, and is due to time changes.
In winter CET is GMT+1, and in summer CET is GMT+2.
GMT means Greenwich Mean Time (Zulu Time)
As you seen Zelteg GP and Indonesian GP are out because of a sponsorship shortage. Zeltweg may be back in 1997. There may be a shifting of a week or two in first four Grands Prix dates, and Aida may be changed to the 6th of October.
Argentinian GP may be shifted to sooner date -- April is very cold in Argentina (Autumn). Remember 8C Celsius at the GP of Nuerburgring '95?
It seems the FIA decided that there will be shorter GP season, beginning in March and ending in October with an 18 week break for winter testing. The surest dates are probably those for the European events. The official '96 schedule will be announced on the 1st of January 1996.
Although, the most common thought for Schumacher's move to Ferrari is a promising car in '96-- perhaps better than the Benetton powered by Renault. Ferrari is really quick, and with proper driver (Schumacher) it will get another 0.8 second advantage which will make the "prancing horse" faster than any Renault powered car (although, It is my opinion that Williams will be best F1 car next year. Ferrari won't break this 5 year trend). During the '95 season, the Ferarris have always been ahead of 2nd Benetton car in qualifying (sometimes even faster than the 1st Benetton), and that's not because the driving of Alesi & Berger was superb, but because of a good car.
During qualifying, Schumacher was always 1.0 - 2.5 seconds faster than Herbert (1.556 on average). In 1994, Schumacher would edge his team-mates from 0.8 to 4.1 seconds (1.65 on average). Schumacher's ability to constantly dominate his team-mates is a contributing factor to this "0.8 faster-than-anyone" speculation we are currently hearing so much about.
This season, Ferrari was sometimes quick, but with such drivers as Berger and Alesi you can't get superb results. They are far too inconsistent -- especially Alesi -- "who always drives his car 110%." You can't drive F1 in such a manner (karting maybe). It is this "style" that may be to blame for some of th car failures at Ferrari. You just can't drive into a chicane at 150km/h and bump the concrete without making damage to the car. And, to do it for one hour with constant acceleration to 320 km/h, you can bet something will break eventually.
Berger's problem is definitely NOT the Ferrari car! His car broke 6 times this year (Alesi 6 times). In 1994, it broke 8 times (Alesi 6 times - while driving only 13 races). In 1993, Berger was out 7 times (Alesi 9 times). A lot? Yes, but not for Berger. Look at his other F1 seasons... McLaren 1990: Senna won championship with that McLaren while Berger broke his car 5 times. The same thing happened in 1991 : Senna became Champion again: Berger out 7 times! With Arrows '85, he was out 7 times; Benetton '86 he finished early 8 times. And, Berger's first marriage with Ferrari ended like this : '87 = 9, '88 = 5, '89 = 12 outs. You can see from '93 through '95 that Alesi is exactly the same car breaking driver as Berger.
Next year, it is my guess that Ferrari will not be magically broken so much with Schumacher as driver. And, with the new and improved V-10 engine (which has tested fairly well to date), the car will get the power in the lower Rpms that Ferrari has desired and needed for some time. The team will have some problems with the new engine in the beginning of season, of course. And, in the beginning part of the season, Hill in the Williams may develop a points advantage on Schumacher. But, in the end, Schumacher will win his 3rd championship in a row. If he managed to do that with a V8 and only 75% of races driven in 1994, he can repeat that with the Ferrari V10 even easier.
Watch the Monaco GP where Schumacher will win again and, after that, the domination of Ferrari-Schumacher will begin.
What can we expect from Irvine ?
Better results than Herbert, for sure. Irvine was quicker this year in a inferior car compared to Herbert. So, lets say he will be, on average, 1.0 secs behind Schumacher in qualifying.... he should win 1 pole in 1996, and probably win some races too.
If Ferrari won 2 races per year in last two seasons, They will win 8 in 1996 with Schumacher & Irvine. And, they will get much more poles also.
And this will be no exception for the young rookie, Jaques Villeneuve - Indycar 1995 champion.
Lets take a look at Coulthard's progress in the Williams. He started with 1.223 seconds behind Hill in qualifying, and at the end of 1994 season he gains from 0.678 to 0.267 seconds. He drove only 7 races in '94 season. Then had some testing in winter time.... and look: he was constantly faster in 1995 than his teammate Hill.
Now, the new guy, Jaques Villeneuve tested at Imola on a dry track. He was only 0.810 sec behind Hill (on wet, Jaques was 1.060 secs behind him). Hill was driving new Williams FW17B car, when JV drove old one. Hill has broken leg, but Jaques has just moved to F1 and is not so used to it, so he should make more progress during the winter. And, most important: Jaques was faster than Schumacher! Jaques is very familiar with competition in Indy racing, so the actual racing will not be such a problem as it was for Coulthard in the beginning.
At the middle of season, if not sooner, Jaques will start beating Damon in qualifying, but he will not score as much points in the races. Hill will still have more F1 experience which will give him the edge during races. But, I predict Jaques to have the number 1 seat in 1997!
Well, he has chosen a worse execution with Berger & Alesi. Berger is good test driver, but was never and will never be a "World Champion" driver. First of all, he is a bit too slow. With a World Champion driver, I mean a driver who can win several F1 championships -- with slower car too -- not only if a driver has a superior car (like Mansell did in 1992, and repeated that in Indy 1993).
Champion drivers of last two decades are Lauda, Piquet, Prost, Senna and Schumacher. Berger has always been in the shadow of his better team-mates. With Alesi, Berger got himself a young nervous driver, with whom he can compare. Last year (1994) at qualifying, Berger's gap behind Alesi was as follows: +1.470, -0.494, +0.015, +0.832, +0.005, -0.430, -0.987, +1.693, -0.909, +0.134, -1.061, +0.663, +0.269 secs. That made him, on average, +0.092 secs behind Alesi in qualifying. Because he is more stable driver than Alesi, Berger managed to overtake him in championship table for 17 points.
This (1995) GP season, Berger is even better than Alesi in qualifying: -0.135, +0.639, -0.531, +0.019, -0.534, -0.227, +0.290, -0.217, -0.803, -0.909, -0.239, -0.354, -0.421, -0.698 secs. This has him average -0.293 seconds before Alesi in qualifying times. Although he is 14 points behind Alesi, watch for Berger in following races... I predict that Berger will come close, if not overtake, Alesi in the points standing.
If Berger and his 36 years can be faster than you, you are not fast. With such results and his first win after 7 years of Formula One Grand Prix racing, Alesi can't be considered to be a very good driver. His style of driving is just not the right one for F1 as I mentioned previously.
But, if Herbert can win two GP's in '95, Alesi and Berger can score 2 wins in 1996 season also.
Barichello will be faster than Brundle, but Brundle, with his great experience, will help build Jordan as nobody has done before....and they will finally beat McLaren.
Hakkinen was never in a good F1 car, so we can compare him only with his team-mates. Schumacher in his 2nd partial GP season (1992) developed a 15 point advantage against Brundle, while Hakkinen in his 4th full season (1994) gained only 10. Schumacher has, on average, a +1.054 second advantage against Brundle in qualifying, while Hakkinen has only +0.762. But, this isn't great data for comparison because the 1992 season was Schumacher's first full season. Take a look at 1995 season! If we say that Mark Blundell (Mika's 1995 teammate) and Johnny Herbert (Schumacher's 1995 teammate) are equal fast (which I doubt. I feel that Herbert is faster than Blundell) we can get 1.0 second advantage of Schumacher over Mika. Schumacher's average qualifying time is 1.556 seconds better than Herbert, while Hakkinen's is only 0.731 secs better than Blundell.
And please, I don't want to hear about the Benetton car being made just for Schumacher because it is made for him as much as the McLaren is made for Hakkinen.
Yes, maybe Hakkinen was sometimes (or even every time) faster than Schumacher in the F3000 championship, but that was all different world. Nobody is saying that Schumacher would be champion in SuperTruck racing too. We are talking about F1 racing. Brundle beat Senna in F3000 several times... I never heard anybody say Brundle is better than Senna.
McLaren will get another quick driver - Coulthard. He will, sooner or later, become quicker than Hakkinen and, what is most important for McLaren, he will be more reliable. Coulthard will get some podiums, but no wins with McLaren in 1996.
So, one more season without a win for McLaren.
Well if you drove with an engine that powered Schumacher to win a championship in 1994 with only 75% of GP races driven, while you drove ALL the races and your best result was 3rd place, there must be something wrong with you, not the car. Yes, maybe he was faster than Schumacher in prototype championship, but it seems that Schumacher's style of driving is suited for F1.
I would really like to see Herbert joining Sauber. We could see how good Frentzen really is. The current 1995 qualifying gap (through European GP) between Schumacher and Herbert was 1.556 seconds. How big would be gap between Frentzen and Herbert be? But, it seems that Herbert will go back to Ligier and he will leave us wondering another year about how good Frentzen really is.
Don't expect too much from Sauber-Ford V10 in 1996.
1996 CHAMPIONSHIP TABLE :1.Michael Schumacher 2.Damon Hill 3.Jacques Villeneuve 4.Gerhard Berger 5.Eddie Irvine 6.Jean Alesi
So, no big changes can be expected in the 1996 season. Williams will still had best car-engine, followed by Ferrari, Benetton, Jordan, McLaren and Sauber. Ferrari will overtake Benetton, and Jordan will do the same with McLaren.