Sunday March 12th, 2000

Paddock stories from Melbourne, by Bob Constanduros

• As ever, the Australian Grand Prix was immensely popular. Even on the Thursday, when Grand Prix cars weren't even on the track, the crowd figure was 48,400. On day two, it was 78,600 which was the second highest Friday crowd in the history of the event. On day three, qualifying, it was 107,200, 3,2000 more than the previous best so figures were up over 7,000 at this stage. Race day saw a crowd of 124,300 which resulted in a total of 359,500 which makes it 14,200 more than last year

  

• Eddie Jordan was a busy chap at the Australian Grand Prix, partially thanks as his status as Ireland's Ambassador for Tourism. That required him to dress up and attend a couple of official functions, acting as guest speaker at events hosted by the Irish Tourist Board and the Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce, together with the country's Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, who took time out to visit the Jordan garage after qualifying.

• Bernd Maylander takes over from Oliver Gavin as safety car driver this year. The German driver was the reserve safety car driver last year, at the same time racing in the Porsche Pirelli SuperCup. This year he drives a new Mercedes safety car, which is the latest CLK 55, as modified by AMG.

• Mercedes are confident that they can cure the problems that stopped both their cars in the Australian Grand Prix. A leakage in the pneumatic valve system stopped both cars on Saturday morning also caused both cars' retirement during the race itself on Sunday.

  Norbert Haug, Mercedes' competition manager, said "I certainly feel that they can cure the problem for Brazil. We didn't have the problem at all before this weekend. We had ten engines here, and a similar number destined for Brazil, but they haven't left yet and we won't be sending them in this current specification.

  "We looked good prior to that. It was close but that's what it should be. We had the upper hand while we were in the race. But everything else - including what Michael has said - is sheer theory. Who knows what would have happened. Our pace was not bad."

• Both Jordan and Prost continue to have problems with their TAG Electronic systems. The system tends to lose its memory, explained Jordan team managing director Trevor Foster, and the gearbox changes on its own. So you can be in fifth gear and suddenly it changes down to second. "We thought we'd got on top of it," said Foster, but it has caused problems for the team throughout the off-season, although Heinz-Harald Frentzen's retirement in the race was caused by a hydraulic leak. He tried to continue in one gear, but it wasn't possible.

  Nick Heidfeld also had problems with his gearbox, also claiming that it was due to a hydraulic problem, but at least he finished the race. There's no doubt, however, that the TAG Electronic system on both cars have been causing trouble, and that McLaren have suffered the same thing with the same system.