Ferrari triumph in France

I had this commentary written in my head on Saturday morning before qualifying. So sure was I that the Renault-Michelin combination would triumph at their home Grand Prix that I had dedicated my piece to the incomparable French national anthem, La Marsellaise. Countries tend to have namby-pamby prayers as their anthems. They are all a flimsy variation of the same theme: "God bless our country". "Pah!" say the French, "none of that merde for us. Our anthem is going to be a call to arms! Aux armes, citoyens, Formez vos bataillons, Marchons, marchons! Qu'un sang impur Abreuve nos sillons! (To arms, citizens! Form your battalions! Let us march, let us march! May impure blood Soak our fields' furrows!).

I had visions of the little Spaniard in the employ of the French driving his Renault past the chequered flag on Sunday with the partisan French crowd bursting out in an emotional rendition of La Marsellaise. But it was not to be. In a cruel repeat of the events in Berlin a week previously, the Italians were once again on hand to ruin the French party. Bastards. Once Michael Schumacher had nailed pole position on Saturday you knew things were going to be bad. Schumacher on pole position at Magny Cours…well, you might as well go home then. Nobody knows how to win the French Grand Prix better than the German android. He led a largely processional race from pole to the finish to earn himself some more unbelievable statistics. This was his 88th career win and his 150th podium. Also, he became the first man to win the same Grand Prix eight times. Somebody needs to shoot this bastard…

Schumacher's form may be at its commanding height and Ferrari may be back on top but the battle to win the world championship is a steep uphill one. Now more than ever, Ferrari require the services of their number two, Felipe Massa. It is crucial that Massa denies Alonso points by consistently finishing races ahead of the world champion. To be world champion again, Michael Schumacher needs to score eighteen points. There are only seven races left. If Schumacher wins the lot of them, and Alonso comes second every time, Schumacher will only achieve fourteen points - four fewer than he needs. Those crucial four points are all down to Felipe Massa: Ferrari have to do at least two one-twos if Michael Schumacher is to be crowned world champion.

I had my doubts about Massa's ability to defend Schumacher but these were quashed decisively this weekend. Massa performed superbly by qualifying second on Saturday. He then proceeded to produce a sterling "protect-the-leader" effort on Saturday when Alonso, in third place, attempted a daredevil overtaking manoeuvre on him at the first corner. Defensive driving worthy of any world champion forced Alonso to yield - Massa was that good. Unfortunately for him Renault's technical director, a man with too many teeth called Pat Symonds, proved himself to be the equal of Ferrari's strategic genius, Ross Brawn. Symonds worked out that Ferrari were on a three-stop strategy. In a clever effort at damage limitation, he switched Alonso to a two-stopper. This was not enough to get Alonso ahead of the race leader but it was certainly enough to deny Massa second place. By coming second, therefore, Alonso only sacrificed two points to Schumacher. The deficit is now 17 points. It may end up very close by the last race but the championship is still Alonso's to lose. Neither he nor Schumacher dares contemplate a retirement before the final showdown in Brazil.

Retirement is the word constantly ringing in the ears of English wonder boy, Jenson Button. What an absolutely dreadful season he is having. First he qualified so appallingly on Saturday that Honda were in the ranks of the lower orders; the teams that exist merely to make up the numbers. Then his engine blew up ten laps from the finish line. As if this was not bad enough for Honda, Rubens Barrichello also failed to finish. The Honda bosses must be punching walls in Tokyo. This is not what was intended at the start of the season. What must be particularly galling for them is that things look to have finally come right at Toyota. Ralf Schumacher's fourth place ahead of Kimi Raikkonen was a splendid effort. To beat McLaren is what Toyota have been aiming for since they came into F1 with sackfuls of cash a few years ago.

McLaren did a lot better than I expected. Although only one driver, Kimi Raikkonen, managed to secure some points (two for fifth place), at least both cars finished reliably. Pedro de la Rosa's seventh place suggests to me that McLaren's rhythm has not been terribly upset by the premature departure of Juan Pablo Montoya. Not even Chipo would argue with this analysis.

Friends, we have been here before. The two years when Mika Hakkinen beat Michael Schumacher to the world championship, 1998 and 1999, Ferrari failed to score points early in the season and were chasing McLaren right to the end. It is always easier to lead than to chase. Michael Schumacher knows this: witness his championship of 2002 when he had the job done well before the end. Only now are we seeing the anti-Schumacher effect of the new points scoring system. The number of points second and third placed drivers receive was increased to stop Schumacher ending championships too early. It is working. In the old days the gap between winning and coming second was a massive four points - the kind of gap Schumacher now desperately needs.

Yesterday's race might have been a boring, processional affair but it may well hold the key to the 2006 world championship.

Gitau
17 July 2006

The French Grand Prix

Today is Bastille Day, the most important national day in France. It is a day when the world watches as the legendary Gallic pride comes to the fore and celebrations break out across France and the Francophone world. But today is not a happy Bastille Day. There is a general sense of malaise about France en ce moment. The French president is an idiot, his government is incompetent and the French economy is in a bad way. To top it all, France ignominiously lost the World Cup on penalties a week ago to a cheeky Italian side. Having said all of this, it is impossible to ignore France. For France does things differently. It doesn't have a cock as its national symbol for no reason. The cock is the very epitome of overweening pride. Nobody understands grandeur better than a Frenchman. They look at life differently from the rest of us. Taunt Eric Cantona and you get a chestful of football boots, not a slap. Insult Zinadine Zidane and you get a speedy head butt - to the chest. What better place, then, to have a prestige motor racing event? The French Grand Prix is the reason we call Formula One motor races "Grands Prix". Grand Prix motor racing originated in France. Appropriately, the French Grand Prix takes place this weekend at Magny Cours.

There are some races that you cannot imagine being absent from a Formula One calendar. The French Grand Prix is one such race. Erase it from the calendar and the students will come out rioting at Place de la Sorbonne. Since 1950 the race has been run at various circuits all over the grand French republic. Its current location is not ideal for fans because it is in a remote place which is difficult to get to. Nevertheless, Magny Cours can produce some interesting action on occasion. As the home race of Renault and Michelin this weekend's event is crucial. It has been announced that from next season all the teams will be shod in Bridgestone rubber. This, therefore, will be the last opportunity for Michelin to impress at home. I have little doubt that they are equal to the challenge. Magny Cours provides an excellent opportunity for them. The smooth nature of the circuit makes tyre choice particularly interesting. This may turn out to be a straight race between Bridgestone and Michelin.

The fear expressed by the pundits is that Ferrari have surpassed Renault. "Fernando Alonso has peaked," so the argument goes, "and it is now time for the German in the blood red Italian stallion to show the world who is boss." For emotional Italians this is a compelling argument. "We won-a da World Cup," they cry, "we are-a gonna win-a da World Championship again-a!" Fernando Alonso may be cut from the same Latin cloth but he does his thinking in his head, not his heart. A nineteen point deficit with eight races to go is not an impossible gap to breach but it is a very difficult one. Very difficult indeed. Fernando Alonso is a formidable opponent. He won the French Grand Prix last year with ease. He demonstrated such mastery of the tight hairpins and chicanes at Magny Cours that his opponents were left marvelling. I do not think Indianapolis was a taste of things to come. I would more readily place a fiver on Alonso to take the win than I would on Michael Schumacher. With barely a cigarette paper between Ferrari and Renault's respective speed and reliability, at this stage in his career, Alonso is the better driver.

Interesting as the 2006 championship may be, the big story this weekend is 2007. The team choices of drivers for next season are producing fascinating news. The announcement by Juan Pablo Montoya that he would be leaving the glamour of Formula One and racing in the redneck NASCAR series in America next season caught everybody, even Chipo, by surprise. Such is the difference in driving styles required that most experts are astounded by the bravery of the move. Nascars are heavy, closed roof stock cars which brake and accelerate far less efficiently than the sleek, open-wheeled F1 cars that Montoya has been driving for the last five and a half years. The man clearly enjoys a challenge and NASCAR will certainly give him that. The jury is out on whether his WAG-like wife will be happy to swap the champagne lifestyle of weekends in Monaco for turkey legs and two litre cokes in the American heartland. We will know soon enough.

Montoya's place at McLaren will be taken by Pedro de la Rosa. The Spaniard stood in for Montoya for a few races at the start of last season (when the Colombian had injured himself allegedly playing tennis) and performed admirably. I fear, though, that the McLaren-Mercedes is not suited to Magny Cours. The only recent McLaren driver who seemed to know what he was doing there was David Coulthard. In one of my favourite overtaking manoeuvres, Coulthard caught out Michael Schumacher in the 2000 race - which he went on to win - and then proceeded dramatically to give the world champion the finger in full view of the TV cameras. Superb! Kimi Raikkonen didn't do too badly by coming second in France last year though. He may be the man to prove me wrong about McLaren but I doubt it. McLaren and Mercedes seem to have serious problems understanding the concept of reliability.

I expect a challenging French Grand Prix. Most of all, I pray for an exciting one. I will be sipping a decent drop of red from Bordeaux and nibbling on some charcouterie as I hope, like you, I will,

Enjoy Magny Cours!

Gitau
14 July 2006

Ego

Another day another announcement. McLaren issued a statement this morning declaring that by mutual agreement Juan Pablo Montoya would be leaving the McLaren team with immediate effect so that he can spend some time with his family. Montoya's place will be taken by test driver Pedro de la Rosa. Oh dear.

Chipo says this is all about egos. She is right. You can clearly wok out the sequence of events. Montoya must have been reprimanded by the McLaren bosses after the calamitous United Sates Grand Prix (when he caused an almighty crash and took out his own team-mate). This must have seriously upset him. So much so that - in an echo of his impulsive decision to quit Williams and join McLaren - he got on the blower to his old American boss and agreed a move to NASCAR. Montoya did not bother communicating his intentions to his bosses at McLaren first. This pissed team boss, Ron Dennis, off mightily. Dennis, whose ego is matched only by Montoya's, instructed his expensive London lawyers to find a "get-out" in the employment contract between McLaren and Montoya. "I never want to see that bastard again!" he spat. The lawyers did as required and Montoya was quietly told not to bother coming back to work. Bland statements of irritating banality - clearly drafted by McLaren's PR people - were ostensibly issued by both sides this morning.

The immediate effect of all of this on Montoya will be a dent in his bank balance. He will have to forfeit half his $13.2 million McLaren salary but that still leaves him with more than $7 million - which is more than sufficient for the remainder of 2006, methinks. Since Montoya no longer has a driving contract with McLaren, he may suffer some collateral harm when advertisers seek compensation for unmet commitments during the remainder of 2006. This is likely to be of little or no consequence - the person crying into his beer today is the manager of Montoya's insurance company.

For McLaren, a team with more money than focus, this whole affair looks terribly messy. They should never have contemplated employing Montoya in the first place. If the irascible Colombian should have known better than to join as stuffy an outfit as McLaren, the Woking boys knew this even better. In a season when they should have been challenging Renault for the world championship, the team looks lost. Money by the truckload and no sense of direction. No wonder Kimi Raikkonen cannot wait to get out.

Fernando Alonso, why, oh why did you sign with McLaren?

What all of this demonstrates is the crude nature of the Formula One circus. Personalities, egos and conflicts are what make the headlines rather than driving prowess and interesting races. When you fill cars with fancy toys (launch control, traction control etc) which detract from pure driver skill and race them in drab, soulless circuits (Hungary, Bahrain…) what have you got in the way of entertainment except some colourful individuals and a bit of pompom waving totty?

I think Kimi Raikkonen has got it about right. The thing to do is get slaughtered in titty bars…

Gitau
11 July 2006

Mercurial Genius

To anybody with the patience to think it through, Juan Pablo Montoya's shock announcement yesterday was no more than a face saving manoeuvre. To leave the pinnacle of motor sports and opt to drive in the United States National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) seems insane. But it isn't. Montoya needed to do something to show the world that he was not a has been. Yes, NASCAR may not have the glamour associated with Formula One. Yes, NASCAR, won't produce as healthy a pay packet as he has enjoyed in Formula One thus far. And yes, the name "Juan Pablo Montoya" will diminish in star quality. But it was necessary to do something. It would not be in keeping with Montoya's overwhelming pride and arrogance to allow commentators to be speaking about him as an unwanted product. Not for Montoya the humiliation David Coulthard suffered in desperately scrambling around for a drive after he was ditched by McLaren. Never. Montoya had to do something to show that he had the last word. I think he knows that his assertion of not having run out of options will be viewed by the thinking public as, at best, disingenuous, but he does not care. Montoya has to have the last word. And he has had it.

The mercurial nature of the man's temperament was what ultimately did for the Colombian driving genius. On a good day, nobody overtakes better than Juan Pablo Montoya. He launches his car into corners with a fearlessness bordering on lunacy. But the operative words here are "a good day". For Montoya has lots of very bad days. It all depends on how he is feeling. If he had learned to restrain himself, to think rationally through a situation rather than react in a red mist of fury at every provocation, Juan Pablo Montoya would be a world champion. He did not and he is not.

I will never forget the manner in which Montoya chose to leave BMW-Williams. In a genuine cock-up, BMW-Williams made a mess of a pit-stop strategy during the 2003 French Grand Prix and ruined Montoya's race for him. Bizarrely, Montoya concluded that the team had deliberately messed his race up so as to favour his team-mate, Ralf Schumacher, who went on to win the race. He lost his temper and swore at his bosses. In a fit of pique he immediately signed with McLaren when there were eighteen months left to run on his BMW-Williams contract. This more than anything else was the defining moment of his Formula One career. This is the point at which he ballsed it up.

"Juan is a passionate character and sometimes this means he makes impulsive decisions which lead him to impulsive conclusions," said Patrick Head, the Williams technical director, after the French grand prix row. "Once he had made his decision [to leave] that was that." He added: "In France [in 2003] he went into a sulk and we couldn't have a situation where he accused the team of being incompetent. I felt this was not something we could say nothing about."

The move to McLaren was disastrous. I remember Chipo wondering why he had done it. He did not fit the McLaren mould. Montoya was too much of an individual. The move I would have liked to see him make was to Ferrari as the replacement of Rubens Barrichello. I don't think he ever even contemplated this. For Montoya it was unthinkable that he could join a team where he was required to be number two. Ironically, that is precisely what Ron Dennis made him at McLaren.

Timing in F1 is everything. Your moment has to be chosen very carefully or you are sunk. By the middle of last year Montoya should have seen the writing on the wall and started looking for another drive. Opting to spend another season at McLaren was the death of him. In this transitional year there are no drives left. Juan Pablo Montoya realised that the end had come. Nobody wanted him to drive for them in 2007. He had to do something to save face. Hence the NASCAR move.

It is a sad day for Formula One. I for one am sad to see such an outstanding talent sacrificed on the alter of petulance.

Gitau
10 July 2006

American thrills

Ferrari own the United States Grand Prix. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway should be re-christened Circuit-Ferrari. Such was the Ferrari dominance this past weekend that the other teams seemed like mere spectators. I emphasise Ferrari rather than either of the team's two drivers, Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa, because Saturday's pole and yesterday's win was all about the team.

Felipe Massa got the jump on pole-setter, Michael Schumacher, at the start of yesterday's race. He then outmatched his team-leader to such an extent that Ferrari were forced to "manage" the win for the seven times world champion. Massa was called into the pits at a strategic moment so as to allow the German his day in the sun. Any pretence that this was not about team orders is deluded. There would be no merit whatsoever for Ferrari in allowing Massa to win when there is an eighth world championship at stake for the team's most expensive asset. After failing to do it in Canada, Michael Schumacher simply had to win yesterday. He did so and chalked up yet another world record in the effort. He is now the first man in history to have won five races - of any series - at the world famous Old Brickyard.

The Brickyard did what it does best and wrecked more than half of the cars that started yesterday's Grand Prix. The carnage was pure drama. The most bizarre moment for me was watching former Indy 500 winner, Juan Pablo Montoya, launch his car into the back of the McLaren of his team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen. Behaviour like that is not written into the employment contract at McLaren. The resultant collateral damage was spectacular. Jenson Button was sucked into the mess. So were Nick Heidfeld, Mark Webber, Scott Speed, Christian Klien and Frank Montagny. I think Chipo is right. Perhaps all Montoya wants is to make babies and play with them in his playground instead of driving cars fast round a race-track. This is not the way to apply for a job in 2007. The primary rule at McLaren is "never ever take out your own team-mate". Perhaps not, though. I always thought McLaren to be the wrong choice of team for the fiery Colombian. The team just doesn't suit his temperament. The look of thunder on the face of Ron Dennis said it all. McLaren and Montoya cannot wait to be rid of each other. Neither is happy.

It was surprising to see Fernando Alonso's lack of pace. Something was not quite right with his car's set-up yesterday - or perhaps he just does not like Indianapolis (as James Allen suggested, maybe Indianapolis is to Alonso what Austria's A1 ring has always been to Schumacher: unwinnable). Alonso did well to come in fifth but suffered the heart-stopping realisation that Michael Schumacher is now catching up with him . The points deficit has now been reduced to nineteen points. The confidence with which Schumacher took yesterday's victory should be of some concern. Most mortals would be alarmed (and, as we know, Schumacher is not mortal) about this. We are about to begin to see whether there are any chinks in Alonso's formidable mental armour. It is crucial that he does not allow himself to get rattled by the German. That's Schumacher's signature ability: unnerve your opponent, make him panic; his mistakes will lead you to the championship. For the first time this season I am worried. Anything is possible with Ferrari. Anything. I wouldn't even rule out the odd dirty trick…

A good race yesterday was psychologically crucial. After last year's shenanigans, Formula One had to step up to the plate and deliver. It did so resoundingly. Americans have a lot of racing in their big country. It is mostly done on oval circuits where plenty of overtaking action characterises a motor race. It is constant wheel to wheel action - not the sometimes processional dullness one gets in Formula One. If yesterday's race had been crap, there was a chance that there would no longer be a viable case for a US Grand Prix because the Americans would simply not turn up. As it happened, there seems little doubt that the event is firmly cemented in next year's calendar and, I am sure, many more to follow.

With nine races to go it is mathematically possible for Fernando Alonso to lose the world championship. And this is the point. If Alonso is not crowned world champion at the end of this season it will be a world championship which he lost rather than one another driver won. Renault's and Michelin's home race beckons in a fortnight. They need to keep their nerve. For France is another of those terrifying places - Michael Schumacher has won the French Grand Prix seven times….

In a fortnight's time, Germany will have won the world cup, England will have stopped crying and the world will have regained its sanity. I can't wait!

Gitau

3 July 2006