The
5th race of the season saw a very dominant Ferrari but they weren't reliable
though.
Ralf Schumacher back to his silly mistakes ? thinking too much about the car
behind ?
Will McLaren get their performance sorted out ? Lucky the Renaults struggled!.
And what about their reliability ? (Although Ferrari are not much better in
that department.)
Sauber
equal 4th with Renault, any real chance of staying there ?
Arrows finally showing Jaguar how its done with the same power. While
Jaguar keep telling us their car is bad!
The Honda runners, the only teams with 0 points! Only Villeneuve finished yet
only ahead of the Toyotas. Can it get any more embarrassing!
And Minardi, how cruel can luck be ? or does Webber enjoy flying cars ?
Your
thoughts ?
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What others are saying:
Been a Barrichello fan it is amazing to see him in
qualifying get the closest to Michael but in the races he struggles to even
finish. It can't be the cars fault as we've seen Michael finish every race
this year and winning by convincing margins. Surely in a team sport how can Ferrari
keep letting Rubens down. If Ferrari loose the constructors championship to
William's or any other team, they only have themselves to blame.
It was an okay race in the end the Jordan's were shit, same with BAR, Renault
were unlucky, Sauber I thought were excellent with both cars scoring well,
Arrows finally scored something, McLaren weren't that exciting with Raikkonen
only doing 4 laps on their test track with wing failure Same old, same old for
Williams and FERRARI ( AKA TEAM MS). Bring on Austria - James - Australia
Al, yes you are right in that Ferrari will not be so
dominant for ever. That just will not happen. They will be surpassed by
somebody sometime. But when? That question I can answer for you with
certainty. Ferrari will go downwards (or the other manufacturers will catch up
- which ever way you want to look at it) the day that the combination of
Michael Schumacher, Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne, and Jean Todd is broken. Not
before that or not long after that. These four (plus of course the dedicated
team they have) are the backbone of Ferrari's success. They were that from
their Benetton days. Things will go better for the other teams the moment they
realise that it is not Ferrari they have to beat, they have to beat these
four. Break up this team and you break Ferrari. Plain and simple. There is a
bond between these four that has never been seen in F1 before or I doubt we
will ever see again. Based on this I can also predict that when one of them
quits, the others will quit at the same time. And down goes Ferrari - may that
day never come!!!! Anyone prepared to place a bet on this? - Johan M -
South Africa
Sunday saw a great race for Ferrari/Shuey and good results
for Williams and McLaren. Great results for Sauber and HHF.
I am enjoying the Ferrari wins, as, any Ferrari fan remembers the "dark
years". From the decline in 86 to the resurgence in 96. Ferrari is good
for F1, wait, let me restate that, Ferrari is the essence of F1. I hope the
other top teams use their recourses to develop their cars, and not waste their
energy w/ the silly reports I read last week about the "moving
wings".
And we can only hope Barrichello gets to finish a few. He's driving really
well, and smarter than last year.
Enjoy Ferrari fans, because as we all know, someone can find the magic element
to make their cars unbeatable, and it can happen at any time - Nova A - USA
What a race (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)! Unless you’re a raving
Tifosi or a transcendental Zen master, it’s hard to get worked-up over
yesterday’s procession. Although I’d love rant and rave about how boring
the current season has become (when you start looking for excitement by
comparing different vehicle settings or the chemical properties of one tire
compound vs. another, you know you’re in trouble!!! – We’re talking
racing here, not mechanical engineering).
I’d like to take this opportunity to reassure my fellow enthusiasts that
this is just a passing phase and that exciting times are just around the
corner. How can I be so certain? Well sit down, crack open a cold one and let
me explain: Before the mid-80s, when modern (i.e. Big Money) F1 was in its
infancy, races were really hard to find on TV (probably due to the incessant
fighting between the FOCA and FIA). Around 1985 things started to change (they
buried the hatchet) and races started being shown with greater frequency, thus
enlarging the fan-base of F1 on a worldwide basis. Well, it so happens that
1985 was also a pivotal race year for F1 with Alain Prost winning his first
world championship (with McLaren - Porsche), Ayrton Senna moving to a
competitive ride (from Toleman to Lotus-Renault) and with Nigel Mansell and
Nelson Piquet making their move to a newly competitive (Williams - Honda).
These four names would dominate the world of F1 for the next 7 years and
provide a growing legion of F1 fans with some of the most competitive and
thrilling F1 viewing. Even when a top team dominated the rankings (As Williams
did in 87 and McLaren did in 88, 89) the spread was never more than 20 points
between 1st and 2nd place (well…ok, there were actually 22 pts separating
Senna from Mansell in 91, but Mansell was breathing down Senna`s neck in a
very fast Williams Renault towards the end of that year).
By 1992, F1 had grown to resemble the BIG business we know and love today. The
technological complexity of the cars was making them go round faster and
faster (leading to the questionable rule changes in 94). Driver aids were all
the rage with some hinting that pretty soon a trained monkey could learn to
drive a modern F1 car (sound familiar…). Well, the trained monkey didn’t
come to pass and 1992 proved to be Nigel Mansell and Williams - Renault’s
cakewalk year. Not that I didn’t sympathize with Mansell`s story (finally
winning, after many years of trying, the ultimate prize just as he was about
to retire at 39 years of age), it’s just that the overwhelming domination of
the Williams team didn’t make for compelling TV.
For the first time in my life, I found F1 boring. If we dig a little deeper,
1992 had many similarities with the current 2002 F1 season: - Alain Prost
decided to take a year off to reflect (sound like anyone we know?) - Ayrton
Senna was stuck in an uncompetitive McLaren (who can name an under-utilized
former-world champion?) - First full season for new talents Mika Hakkinen and
Michael Schumacher (look at the new F1 crop – loaded with future world
champions).
By 1993, the domination of Williams subsided (Senna gave them a run for the
money in a marginal McLaren-Ford - who can forget Donnington, which remains my
all-time favorite race). As everyone knows, 1994 was tragic (I still remember
watching the whole thing live - The sinking feeling in my stomach, the shock,
the unreality of it all…).
Thankfully, from 1995 to 2001, we had 7 years of incident-free and compelling
racing with 3 different world champions and 4 different constructor titles.
Which brings us to the current 2002 year.
They say that history repeats itself and Ferrari’s domination of the 2002
season is very much like William’s in 1992. In other words, expect the next
couple of races to be really boring. However, by the time Hungary rolls around
I predict that Williams-BMW & Renault will be giving Ferrari a run for the
money.
Another encouraging indicator of better days ahead is the death of Kirsh PPV
(The fallen Kirsh empire will probably be scavenged by Rupert Murdoch on the
cheap, hopefully eliminating once and for all the threat of being held hostage
to Bernie TV – or having the teams walk away and create a rival league)
which means that F1 is going to have to focus again on advertising to secure
it’s future. The fastest billboards on earth need you, the 100M+ F1 public,
to justify the cost of paying for all the glamour, carbon fiber and inflated
egos that makes-up the world of F1. That means coming up with a compelling
show, each and every Sunday. If ratings go down (which I’d hazard to say is
occurring right now) it’ll force FIA and FOCA to shuffle the cards again by
changing the rulebooks.
Finally, there are some really fast new drivers (Raikkonen and Button) as well
as a couple world champion veterans (Villeneuve and Hakkinen) waiting in the
wings to challenge the established order. Who knows, maybe even Montoya, Shumi
jr., Barrichello and Coulthard will live up to their promise and give Shumi
Sr. a run for his money. So remember, arm yourself with patience because
2002’s shaping up to be like 1992, and 1985 before it - a transitional year
which will lead to a couple fat years of racing - Al - Canada
This was a more eventful race than I'd expected, only the
winner wasn't a surprise.
Its amazing how it always seems to be Rubens who has mechanical gremlins on
race day, bit like DC used to always seem to suffer in the Hakkinen era.
Pity for Jenson and in particular for Jarno Trulli.
What happened to Kimi was very alarming and I'm surprised McLaren didn't bring
David in. Apart from that I was pleased to see Frentzen getting a point for
Arrows as I do like to see the points distributed as wide as possible, for the
good of the sport - Linda B - England
The F2002 was amazing. Schumi is was unbeatable, even though
he did not push the car to its limit!
How come Barrichello's car failed in 4 of 5 races??? I can't help but think
that Ferrari don't pay as much attention to detail about Barrichello's car as
much as they do to Michael's, maybe even sacrifice that effort to make sure
Michael's car is perfect. I feel Barrichello deserves better than that. I also
feel Bridgestone has become a one team tyre and most probably they will either
exit the sport next year and if they don't then they will find themself with
only 2 or 3 teams - Vishy - Canada.
Well what can I say my team got a beating (BMW) and I don't
know what they will do to get in front of the red bullets and if they can do
something. What I don't understand is what make the Ferrari so good. What I believe
is that they will catch up but when, I wonder Come what may I will stand by my
team BMW Cheers - Francios - South Africa
From a Ferrari perspective (and because I am a Ferrari/MS
fan, from my perspective as well) a very mixed race that highlighted Ferrari's
very good package. Pity about Rubino's misfortune that effectively gave
Williams BMW 8 points in the constructors ladder.
Worried about the wing failures as theses can be ever so dangerous on this
track.
Williams got it all wrong with a comic of errors. First they did not have a
tyre ready for Ralph when he came in, then they fitted Monty's nosecone to his
car causing him to come in again and then the near disastrous pit stop of
Monty. This way nobody is winning. You can hope to accomplish anything with 2
unscheduled stops. Races have been lost/won in the pits many times
before.
Rob, congrats with Arrows' point. You must be thrilled. Hope there is more for
you to come! And Andre - yes you are right - Schumi has been lucky. But then,
as the saying goes :"The better I get, the luckier I get" - Johan
M - South Africa
Ferrari again hmm, coincidence...no. Rubens again hmm,
coincidence...yes actually, unless the cars are so Shumi tuned in trim that
anyone else will break something, maybe just maybe Rubens has to tweak the car
a bit too much to be quick and it then is subject to Murphy`s law.
Williams hmm,... Ralf`s turn to be a goon, and Montoya who you all have
written off as a kamikazi or car breaker. Drove the neatest lines,
shortshifted the most (used the least revs to go faster) and stayed easily
with Ralf, only to have 2 horrid pit stops and still keep his cool and finish
as Michael would say with the maximum available. Maybe a car wrecker can suit
most peoples perception of talented drivers, until they look at them
objectively through the slo-mo. Sorry folks Montoya has genuine car
speed.
Mclaren, well who cares. Same shit different day. I have faith in Ron and
Adrian though, though they will be back later than sooner.
Renault, bad luck, Jenson looking A O K.
Sauber, good stuff. Minardi,.. next race these parts will not fail.
The rest who cares, maybe Cosworth have gone forward a bit.
Enough bad luck for most every team in Spain to have something to bitch about.
Bridgestone, well done.
Michelin, same same, there is more to traction than hoping for hot
weather.
I thought Williams would stick it to Ferrari this year, I'll have to wait for
this I believe.
On to Austria. Regards Cooky - Australia
YES!!! Finally we did it, we scored a World Championship
Point!!!! Heinz Harald was great all week-end, qualifying in 10th spot and
then racing Panis and Massa. The car is fast and sure we can score more
points. We need to score at least 3 points to be ahead of both Minardi and
Toyota. I am a bit disappointed as I felt Heinz could have taken a few stabs
down the inside of Panis and Massa though!
I now fully understand that Qualifying Day for us, small teams, is vital! We
have to qualify that car inside the top 10 all times!!!! Nice seeing Monty
from the on-board camera celebrating while his team-mate is running wide!!! - Rob
- Australia
Sometimes I wonder about how many times Ferrari lets
Barrichello down. Coincidence? Bad luck?
There is no doubt that Michael is king, the best driver around, but he can't
complain about his luck.
Even when he had that terrible accident at Silverstone he was very lucky to
have a dull pilot like Irvine as #2... Andre B - Brazil
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