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Articles by Darren Galpin
| Accelerated life - Mon 10th Oct 2005 |
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The entire grand prix weekend can be summed up as a case of accelerated life. It was conceived on Friday, with the early days being seemingly normal. The first trimester came and went with the usual teams heading up the sheets, and the second trimester was very much the same, although with one or two minor worries along the way, such as Räikkönen losing an engine again. However, the gestation during the third trimester (aka qualifying) became a mite more difficult.
The problem was that rain was forecast to arrive during the qualifying session, and it would seem that Japanese weather forecasters are a lot more accurate than the lot we've had to deal with so far this season. Rain did arrive, and it got progressively more heavy. Thus if you qualified early on in the session, you got a good grid position, hence the sight of Minardi's and Jordan's threatening the top 10 on the grid. If you were in a Renault or a McLaren, things looked much worse - the state of the track meant that they were only ever going to qualify at the back. At least Räikkönen's 10 place penalty wasn't going to make much difference.
And so to the birth, and the start of the race. Ralf Schumacher's Toyota showed some early precociousness, starting from pole and getting away first, but it rapidly became obvious that this was due to a case of doping - he had been fuelled exceedingly light, and had to pit early for fuel. It would seem that Toyota were desperate for the publicity of being on pole in their home grand prix of Japan. However, they are a case of all mouth and no trousers, and all they managed to do was prove that they aren't yet ready to race with the big boys, and are wannabe racers.
The first few laps were a case of grand prix in the nursery, with elementary mistakes being made left, right and centre, and with the supervising adults (aka the FIA) seemingly so taken by the behaviour that they felt it necessary to join in the silliness too. Takuma Sato, one of those pupils who promised much early, but never quite manages to pass the year and has to retake it each time, ran too hot into the first corner, and ran wide. Barrichello seemingly had a sympathy moment, and ran wide as well, although later in the corner. As young Taku tried to regain the circuit, Barrichello flew past and tapped his right front; this punctured Barrichello's left rear, and broke part of Taku's wing. Both managed to escape their sand-pits of potential doom and regain the circuit, and both hobbled back towards their respective pits, looking lost for the day. But their salvation was yet to come.
Cars were nerfing each other at every corner, any sense of restraint or self-control seemed to go out of the window (where's a Collina when you want one? No-one messed around when he was refereeing football matches, or if they did, they didn't last very long). Coming out of the fast 190R and into the chicane for the first time, it was obvious that someone was going to get hurt. Cars headed into the breaking zone spread out across the track, but there is only one line though the corner, and several speared off across the Astroturf. Montoya went through the chicane, only to find Villeneuve rejoining the track in front of him. He jinked left to avoid him, but Villeneuve then kept moving over. With nowhere to go on the track, Montoya was edged onto the grass and into the tyre barrier with some force, ripping off the left hand side of the car. Cue the safety car, and several laps of gentle tootling while the marshals cleaned up the nappies, which gave the drivers an opportunity to calm down and grow up a little.
The safety car situation was a godsend for those faster drivers who started from the back, as it brought the leaders back towards them. It also bred a little impatience, as those faster drivers wanted to make it forward at a faster rate. Coming into the chicane again, Alonso tried outbraking Klien, but Klien held his line and forced Alonso to go across the grass. Alonso rejoined the track ahead, and backed off to allow Klien past again. However, he didn't back off that much, and he then used the slipstream of the Red Bull to get past at the end of the straight. Alonso then motored off to hassle Michael Schumacher's Ferrari.
Then the moment of FIA silliness. The FIA said that Alonso had to let Klien past him again for an unfair advantage, and we all assumed it was because he had done the slipstream to Klien and got an advantage that way. So Alonso backed off, lost the five seconds he had gained chasing Schumacher to let Klien past. He then took a lap or two about passing Klien for a second time, but this time made it stick more fairly. Upon which the FIA said sorry, we got it wrong, and it was all a miscommunication. Yeah, right. So what are they going to do about it? If a team makes a miscommunication or mistake and gets it wrong, they can be penalised, thrown out of a race, banned for a number of races, or any number of such permutations, but the FIA? No doubt they won't mention it again, or change any of their procedures. It would be nice if they showed some humility and openness on this subject, so that we can be sure that they won't "miscommunicate" again in future. It has to be especially embarrassing given that the FIA couldn't have been watching the TV coverage of their own event.
Once out of the nursery stages, the drivers breezed through primary school and on into secondary school. This is where star pupils Räikkönen and Alonso demonstrated that they had finally learned the art of overtaking, although Räikkönen seemed to take a little longer in his education than Alonso. Alonso pulled a breathtaking manoeuvre into 130R on Michael Schumacher, leaving no doubt who he thought owned the track. Räikkönen on the otherhand didn't look like he would make it, until he overcame his nerves and had a pit-stop for fuel. Coming back out on track, he overtook Schumacher into turn one, and never looked back. The seven ages of a grand prix weekend were rapidly moving onwards.
The middle ages of the race were calm affairs, with drivers catching each other and playing cat and mouse. Sato had a mid-life crisis though, and dived up the inside of Trulli into the chicane in a desperate attempt to demonstrate that there was still a benefit to someone if they would only employ him next year. Contact was made, and on interview Trulli held no punches when saying what he thought. He shouldn't be on the track was his opinion. Harsh perhaps, but unfortunately it is increasingly looking like being true.
The laps counted down, and Räikkönen was chasing down the lead Renault of Fisichella. As the race headed into its dotage, Fisichella looked like he needed a walking stick, whereas Räikkönen was looking spry and alert. If recent medical announcements are correct, perhaps it was all of the mid-race activity for Räikkönen which was keeping him more mentally alert as the race aged. There was a sense of inevitability about it. Lap by lap the gap between the two came down by more than a second, and Fisichella went prematurely defensive, taking defensive lines when Räikkönen wouldn't have been close enough to take advantage anyway. Coming into the chicane for the penultimate time, Fisichella again went prematurely defensive, and it compromised his speed onto the main straight. Räikkönen needed no second invitation, and ran around the outside into turn 1. It was game over, an unlikely McLaren win.
As the race weekend died its death, Renault could at least take away some satisfaction in now being two points ahead in the constructors' championship, rather than two points behind. For McLaren, there was the pleasure in winning under adverse conditions, so much so that Ron Dennis almost choked up under interview. But Grand Prix racing undergoes reincarnation, and it will be reborn again next week in China. Let's hope that the upcoming nursery stage will be better behaved than this one. |
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