Coulthard Ends Uber-Schumacher’s Streak
The Brazilian Grand Prix Wrap-up
By Brian Stovall

Round 3
Brazilian Grand Prix
Sao Paulo, Brazil
April 1, 2001

Much has happened since the Malaysian Grand Prix two weeks ago: the BMW/Williams team proved that if idiots will actually let them finish a race, they might be the ultimate threat, Schumacher’s reign of terror ended, and I got a job!!! More on that later.

© 2001 Brian Stovall

All teams went into this race knowing it was going to be their last “away game” for a while (Canada is in June). I sort of got the feeling this was still a tuning-up event, most of them knowing the battle is definitely going to heat up when San Marino rolls around next session. It’s easier for a team to diagnose and work on a car’s performance when all of your testing facilities and parts are an arm’s length away. And with all teams based out of Europe, it’s not such a hassle for them to pack up for a race, knock it out in a weekend and come back to start testing again. This is in comparison to the controlled chaos endured each time they have to pack up their equipment and literally FedEx it overseas to their destination. Hence the reason why three of the races on separate continents were scheduled in a row, as they were at the beginning of this season.

Now that they’re back, I think you’ll notice them buckling down and consistency increasing. I mean, it was the same story with McLaren last season; a very weak season debut for the first couple of rounds, which were also away (minus Malaysia), then they kicked it into gear and cleaned up their act. Hakinnen and Coulthard took the season over after Schumi started to slip. Now we’ve reached that point again. I think that there's an additional threat in BMW/Williams, though. Both drivers, R. Schumacher and Montoya, have shined but had their potential for success hindered by the dumbass powers that be (Barrichello, Verstappen and Villeneuve). Montoya’s car has had a bit of a performance problem but I believe his efforts in Brazil more than made up for that. I’ll get deeper into it during the race summary. The one thing I refuse to do yet is call it a Ferrari season. There’s a lot of the season and a lot of talent left.

Practice

Friday was your usual batch of testing and setting up the car. Since it’s almost been a week, it’s a bit foggy but I believe Coulthard had the fastest lap. What is memorable is the rash of violence, theft, and sketchy conditions of the track that led up to the weekend.

For starters, team personnel and drivers demanded to have security for the benefit of their safety. One reason may have been the Minardi manager held up at gunpoint in broad daylight by three men. Many have complained about the deteriorating society each year they visit there.

There were no physical threats to anybody when Jaguar had seven laptops and Minardi had several rims stolen from their track locations. I’ve been to races and off-season visits to Indianapolis Motor Speedway many times throughout my life. I know that there’s no way anybody could get a roll of toilet paper out of that place let alone a stack of laptops and huge racing wheel rims. And I believe every guard at IMS is over 65. What the hell is going on down there?

Then there’s the final issue of structural safety at Interlagos. Bobby Rahal was almost smashed by a camera mounted above a garage. A section of gutter came down during a storm right along the garages. And the overall safety of the track itself is a concern. Remodeling improvements had been taking place, but were halted for the race. I’ve got to wonder, if they wanted Silverstone off the schedule so bad last season for the condition it was in, then I have no clue why Brazil was even held?

Qualifications

Saturday’s qualification session pretty much set the tone for the race. The biggest surprise came out of Juan Pablo Montoya clocking the fastest lap of the Saturday morning practice session. Combine this with Ralf Schumacher’s consistent performance and you knew these were the two drivers you were going to want to follow through quals.

With the McLarens performance waning lately, Coulthard and Hakinnen needed to send a message that they were going to be the guys to end Michael’s six-race win streak, it’s just too bad nobody told their cars the same thing! Mika pulled a third place time and David found himself in fifth, on the third row.

A bit of excitement arose when Montoya’s car shot off the track just before the last turn. The camera happened to be trained on him when this happened and the sight of seeing him fly straight off into the gravel and make contact with the wall gave me chills. Here was the former CART Champion’s opportunity to keep Ferrari off pole but the loss of control would almost definitely cost him. He had to run back to the pits and hop into the backup car, which was setup for R. Schumacher. The crew also had to figure out how to set this car up as good as his main ride. Here is the proof that BMW/Williams are a threat; Montoya takes off for his qualifying lap and busts out fourth place on the grid. These cars seem almost flawless, except for when some moron gets into the back of them (again, it’s time for me to run the disclaimer: “not that I would do any better!”). With Montoya’s spot sealed, unless the Rapture begins and Minardi actually poses a threat to the top six, it was time to watch Ralf. This would go in the record books. Not as a new track record or personal achievement, but maybe more of a sentimental one, which doesn’t look to be broken anytime soon. Ralf took second place, which is the first time brothers have sat next to each other on the front row. See, I used my powers to predict this in my last article. It’s in their blood, and if he just matures a little more (not in a childish way, but with experience) I think he’ll step out of the shadow of Michael and they’ll become more of a legend than trivia question.

Obviously you’ve figured out that this is the first race of the season which lacks a Ferrari 1 and 2 start. Reubens Barrichello would end up qualifying in sixth place.

By the end of the session, five teams would seal off the first five rows: Ferrari, McLaren/Mercedes, BMW/Williams, Jordan/Honda and Sauber/Red Bull, both of which had team mates sitting side by side on the starting grid.

Race Day

I couldn’t really tell you who had the fastest lap in the morning warm-up. Sorry! But what I can remember is that the pre-race reconnaissance laps were relatively exciting. The biggest news came when Reubens Barrichello stalled his Ferrari while taking a lap around the track. He ended up stranded on the backstretch and had to get back to the pits and hop into the backup car, currently set up for M. Schumacher. Now, Barrichello has a much smaller build than Michael does. For some reason I relate the size of Barrichello to Robin Williams? Anyhow, this means that the mechanics had to adjust all of the pedals and settings to Reubens’ liking. This comes into play later.

The rest of the pre-race activity went as planned, but this would be the third race in a row that took a very odd turn. The cars completed their warm-up lap and came to a stop on the grid. Right as the lights went out, Mika Hakkinen started waving his hands in the air, indicating that his engine had died. This caused a great deal of chaos. Cars that went around on the outside had to squeeze between him and the wall, increasing the risk of colliding with others coming up beside them. Everybody made it around successfully, but the course was put on a full yellow since Mika’s car was stranded on the narrow straightaway. Every race this season has had a full course caution, bringing out the safety car. As I mentioned in my last article, this is extremely odd, and proves that this has been a very exciting and odd season to date.

With Mika’s car out of the way, the drivers tore off with M. Schumacher and Montoya leading the pack. The unthinkable happened in the first turn when Montoya challenged Michael and forced him to the outside of the track. Juan Pablo moved into first place and Schumacher successfully held off Coulthard for second during his momentary loss of speed. Right after the first set of turns, there’s a long straight that goes downhill. Ralf Schumacher had gotten a bit of a slow start and found himself around fifth or sixth place. Going into the sharp, hard-braking fourth turn off of this long straight, Reubens Barrichello nailed Ralf in the back, clipping off the rear wing of the BMW/Williams and tearing apart the front of his own Ferrari.

You know, these crashes are pretty spectacular but let’s put this into perspective: what would be your reaction if I just told you I ripped off the front of my Ferrari (custom made, nonetheless) and pieces of it went everywhere? How does your gut feel? You know, the way it feels whenever you pass an accident where the automobile is on its roof? Now multiply the cost of my car and the feeling in your stomach by about 100%. This is what happens every time they have one of those cool wrecks. And I know it’s part of the sport but I see one of the Ferraris expire and I feel miserable because I can sort of relate the name to a consumer-based car and how I would feel about that. End of tangent!

So you’ve got three races in a row where Reubens Barrichello has ended the race for another driver and not been penalized (more on this later). Poor Ralf has been the victim twice by Barrichello and once by Villeneuve, even though he managed to pull out a points finish in Malaysia. This would not be the case on this day. He made it back around to the pits and four laps later came out with a new rear wing. He would eventually retire from the race in the downpour.

The good news was that his teammate, Juan Pablo Montoya, would go on to lead Michael for a better part of the race. You could tell that Montoya was doing everything in his power to drive his car balls-out while still trying to keep it on the track, while Schumacher seemed to be pacing himself and showing great patience (not a common trait of Michael’s). I was wondering if Michael thought it would work itself out during the pit stops and he would come out in the lead.

Well, he wouldn’t have to worry about it too much longer. About halfway into the race, Montoya approached the fourth turn where Barrichello and R. Schumacher had bit it earlier. Jos Verstappen was right behind Montoya going in and slammed into the back riding up over the top of the BMW/Williams, taking both of them out of the race. My heart sank for Montoya, who was on his way to proving to the BMW/Williams guys that the gamble they took on bringing him from CART to F1 was worth it. Not that they would doubt it, but there would be a great deal of hand-shaking, back-patting and ass-slapping going on if he had completed this race. Even if it wasn’t first. Like I said earlier, they have put together such a solid car that I really think it can hang with the Ferraris.

Jos Verstappen was eventually fined $15,000 for the incident which raises the question that why hasn’t Barrichello been penalized yet for the one accident he’s caused every race of this season? There can be a couple different possibilities: Ralf wasn’t in first when their contact occurred, nobody touches Ferrari, or the judges ruling it was out of all control. I don’t know which to believe but I feel he should be given a warning or probation or something. My theory on why it happened was that Reubens’ car wasn’t set up right and he might have had pedal problems. Who knows, but they need to buckle down.

All this action left M. Schumacher in first place. The move of the season came when Coulthard used a Minardi in turn one to make his move on Schumi and take the lead. McLaren had finally slapped intermediate tires on his car when the rain arrived, an action that might have produced more points for them had they made this move in Malaysia. He would lead the rest of the race and take the victory.

Schumacher would lock down second without any problems, minus a small spin around the fourth turn from the slick conditions. But Michael, being the highly skilled driver he is, managed to keep the wheels spinning to right himself and avoid stalling the engine.

The biggest surprise to cross the finish line had to have been Nick Heidfeld, making his debut podium appearance in his sophomore year at F1. His third place finish was even a really cool feeling for me. As stated in a previous article; he spent his rookie year in the shadow of the spectacular 19 year-old Jenson Button, and the 2000 Sauber engine was nothing compared to the fairly new Ferrari powering his car this year. He and teammate Kimi Raikkonen racked up a couple points in the first race of the season at Australia. But I think he’s only as good as the car he’s in and unfortunately I feel that this year’s Sauber will have an on/off year, performance-wise. But this little theory shouldn’t take anything away from his amazing achievement in Brazil (and I could be proved wrong by the next race).

This race was such a mess I don’t feel like going into the details of where the back-markers and mid-runners finished. Some engines blew up, some drivers slid off the track, and some couldn’t find the finish line and ended up in Rio doing 200 mph on the highway. Real quick, I will say that Olivier Panis has taken over on the BAR team with a finish in fourth. This seems to be a trend among the hotter teams; Coutlhard leading Mclaren, Trulli occasionally outperforming Frentzen for Jordan, and Montoya surprising the BMW/Williams guys. We’ll see if this is consistent.

Next Race: Grand Prix of San Marino (Italy)

If you hear or know anything about this track, it would be that this was the course which claimed the life of legend, Ayrton Senna, in 1994. I have a few memories from this time period. I had only been familiar with the sport of F1 about two years and my “favorite” driver at the time was Nigel Mansell (mostly due to the Nintendo video game that boasted his name).

For the record, I don’t really have a favorite at the moment. I’m sort of a fan of the three “runner-up” teams: Jordan/Honda, BMW/Williams and BAR/Honda. I think it’s just because I appreciate the rare moments when they give the big boys a run for their money. Jordan was a little more of a threat two years ago. They need to work out performance issues and maybe a few driver issues and they’ll be back in the game.

Anyhow, the track has been modified to be more of a slow track, to curb the high speeds that were thought to be a factor in the multiple fatalities, which occurred that weekend in 1994. A large number of chicanes were added, forcing the drivers to accelerate and decelerate more often, making San Marino one of the hardest tracks on brakes.

Michael Schumacher was the winner of this race last year. And it was the beginning of a streak of amazing starts by Jacques Villeneuve in his BAR/Honda where he would shoot from a couple rows back to run with the McLarens and Ferraris. He usually fell back one reason or another in the events.

STANDINGS

Brazilian Race Order (Season Points):

A Moment of Reflection on Unemployment

I’m proud to announce that I’m the next-to-last former “S911er” (aka “Russ3:16er”), to finally land a job!!! A local station chose to place me in their production department for the morning and mid-day news shows. Pretty freakin’ cool. I’ve also been freelancing for another local Production Company working on some of the ESPN SportCentury specials. This ends a four-month unemployment streak, started when our former employer decided it wanted to bite off the ONLY HAND that fed it, and replace the appendage with a less than spectacular prosthetic hand.

Although I miss the friends, salary and extreme freedom at my former Dot Com job, I’m very happy to have job security and work in my area of interest again. Enough with the Russ Ray melodrama: San Marino, April 15 (Tax Day, Easter Day).

Back to the Feature Forum

Brian Stovall's email address is brianstovall@hotmail.com. Expect reviews of the new Sylvester Stallone suck-flick, “Driven”, the classic, sassy racing movie “The Young Racers”, and a sad, pitiful line of NASCAR-based comics titled, Race Warriors. All this during the upcoming F1 bye weeks.

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