Another Finale Countdown
	by Robert Pearson, Canada

A year ago, after McLaren suffered the disappointment of having both its drivers drop out of the Luxembourg Grand Prix at virtually the same time, I wrote that the team was on its way back to the top of Grand Prix racing ("The Phoenix Called McLaren"). The team already had two wins to its credit in a season dominated by Jacques Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher, and would go on to claim one more in the season finale at Jerez. While that win, Mika Hakkinen's first, seemed carefully planned by the Williams and McLaren folks, he and team-mate Coulthard - the winner of the Australian and Italian Grands Prix in 1997 - had been contenders in the closing laps of the race. Little did we know at the time that Hakkinen's win was harbinger of things to come. Here we are in the late stages of the 1998 season, and the key figures involved in Formula One scuttlebutt are somewhat different from late last season; Alex Zanardi and Mika Hakkinen are more often mentioned than they were a year ago, but we still find Jacques Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher atop the news pile. And, as James Alexander aptly pointed out last week ("McLaren's Wake-Up Call"), the efforts of the rest of the field to catch up to a McLaren team we all perceived to be unbeatable after the Australian Grand Prix, is tops among Formula One news. Who will win the Championship? Jacques Villeneuve, while partial to his own welfare in the sport and at the same time the most loquacious member of the drivers fraternity, suggests that "it would be great if Hakkinen were to be my successor for the world title. But from my point of view, if Schumacher were to win, I would be relieved. I'd know then that nobody would be doing anything to make him win it next season." Clearly the Williams, soon to be BAR, driver feels the powers that be in Formula One favour the German. McLaren, he says, lagged in mid season. "They're coming back into it," Villeneuve adds, "but now they have to reckon with the fact that Michael is always in the right place at the right time. Especially when the yellow flags appear at the track-side." Further making an appeal for a headline - his mouth is the only thing catching attention these days with his lackluster performance on the track owing either to his driving or the performance of the Williams car is old news - the reigning World Champion opines that Ralf Schumacher "isn't like his brother very much. He seems a nice guy." The obvious intonation is that Michael is not a nice person. Aside from Villeneuve's grab at the headlines, the championship itself grabs them because it is once again coming down to the wire. Every season we hear about efforts to make Formula One increasingly competitive: there are too few competitive teams the common gripe rings. Yet, almost every year we see a championship fought to the last race and since 1984 have gone down to the last or penultimate race of the season, with more than one driver staking claim to the lead after the first half of the season has passed by. Oftentimes, as well, there are different drivers and different teams vying for the top spots. This year the drivers' title has come down to Mika Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher. Hakkinen has led from the beginning, first challenged by his McLaren counterpart David Coulthard, and since challenged by Schumacher who has pulled even with two races to go. In the constructors battle it is down to McLaren and Ferrari. Though not quite even, this one could also go either way, like the drivers' title. So who will be champion in 1998? Michael Schumacher has put up a strong series of performances since his miserable showing at the Grand Prix of Monaco (where his performance was little more than asinine). Will he be able to continue his momentum and pull past Hakkinen in the points? Looking back at his performances since becoming the leading driver on the circuit in 1994, we see a driver committed to only one thing: winning the championship. That year some say, he stole the championship from Damon Hill when they collided at Adelaide, despite holding the championship lead through his suspension after the Silverstone incident. The following year, we saw both drivers on probation for knocking each other out of races - twice benefiting Johnny Herbert. In 1996, Schumacher switched to Ferrari, a team that had scored only two wins since Alain Prost won the Spanish Grand Prix in 1990 (with Berger winning in Germany in 1994 and Alesi in Canada in 1995). The German set about bringing the Prancing Horse three wins in 1996 and a third place finish in the drivers' championship. His win at the rain-soaked Spanish Grand Prix was nothing short of spectacular. In 1997, the season began with a surprising McLaren win for David Coulthard on the Melbourne circuit but, as many expected, Jacques Villeneuve staked his claim to being a serious contender when he took the early season lead in the championship, winning three of the first six races. A string of solid mid season wins for Schumacher made clear his challenge to Villeneuve; something underlined later in the season by Ferrari's tactics at the Japanese Grand Prix (in the shadow of a potential one-race suspension for Villeneuve). Again, Schumacher and the championship came down to the last race of the season. Pundits recalled 1994 when he collided with Hill, and when the moment came, Schumacher collided with Villeneuve as the Canadian attempted to pass the German for the lead of the European Grand Prix at Jerez. No one has forgotten the outcome: Villeneuve continued and Schumacher came to a halt in the gravel, later to have his second position in the World Championship removed from the record. Mika Hakkinen has never been in this position. Hakkinen has been among the favorite drivers of fans for years, and some say that his recent string of disappointing finishes owes heavily to his inability to handle the pressure of being the championship leader. Yet as recently as the eleventh race of the season, Hakkinen was atop the rostrum. Since then we have twice seen mechanical problems push him down to sixth at Hungary and fourth at Italy. Combined with his having been collected in a first corner accident in Belgium (surprisingly, or not, involving first Michael Schumacher), these have amounted, for the pundits, to an inability to cope. However, let us look at his other-than-race-finishing performances in these events: he claimed the pole position at both the Hungaroring and Spa, and put in the fastest lap at Monza. Is this a sign of a driver collapsing under the pressure? I think not. In the final analysis, with the deliberate or accidental crash scenario not very likely, and with Hakkinen venturing into uncharted waters - the Championship is all up for grabs, and may the best man win (though being a longtime McLaren fan, I just hope it turns out ot be Hakkinen...)

Robert Pearson	© 1998 Atlas Formula One Journal.
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