Austrian Grand Prix Review

Mika Hakkinen took a break after France, decided that he could still take the 2000 World Championship despite not being in the groove for the past few months, and set a blistering pole. Ferrari decided to extend their grip problems in the French race through to the whole Austrian weekend, and were, relatively speaking, completely off the pace. Once again, you could spread the proverbial blanket over most of the rest of the field, with 5th down to 19th covered by virtually 0.7 of a second.

The slightest of errors in setting up the car, or on the track, meant a lowly grid position (good morning, Herr Frentzen), so I won't really bother congratulating Nick Heidfeld for qualifying 13th. But I presume there must have been something inherently wrong with Williams, who recorded their worst team qualifying effort in living memory, with Jenson Button 18th and Ralf Schumacher 19th. It was probably their worst since the days when notables like Emilio Zapico and Masami Kuwashima drove for them!

David Coulthard jumped the start, or will someone please pinch me? Or did he? To the naked eye he did, but using the best super slo-mo my Panasonic can handle, the Scot seemed to move as soon as the lights started going out. Surely the race starts as soon as the lights start to go out, as opposed to when they are fully out, so in essence it was a brilliant start. Of course, David will tell you he judged it to perfection, but I'll have you know he was a few milliseconds from making an utter idiot of himself. With memories of last year he then wisely avoided rejectdom by letting Hakkinen go at the first corner.

Ricardo Zonta had been one of the heroes of the weekend up to the race. Having responded to harsh criticism from BAR boss Craig Pollock, he outpaced Jacques Villeneuve all weekend, qualified 6th, made a good start, and was about to take Jarno Trulli for 5th until he tested the ramming abilities of his nosecone by pitching Michael Schumacher into a spin. Trulli got outdone by the Brazilian in the ramming stakes; his touch on Rubens Barrichello was a mere nudge by comparison.

Meanwhile Zonta, Villeneuve, and the Prosts of Heidfeld and Jean Alesi had all taken the Barrichello option of running wide, with Zonta's nose having survived a double rigidity test of running up the Ferrari's backside and then a rumble through the gravel. For his troubles Zonta was later given a ten-second penalty, and later in the race, when his engine finally blew, the recovery tractor managed to clout him in the head, provoking the now-familiar 'bird' gesture. Not forgetting that young Ricardo only has one championship point to his name, he's done a fabulous job of cementing his rejectship in this race alone!

He wasn't the only one, of course. Pedro Diniz was also given a stop-go at the same time as Zonta, and no-one really seemed to know why. Closer examination reveals the answer in stark detail. Despite my relative appreciation of his skills, gained painstakingly over the past few seasons, it appears as though in 2000, Diniz has realised that his stint pretending to be a real Grand Prix driver had to end eventually. Faced with another mediocre midfield season this year, he's resorted to regaining notoriety for brain fade. Just ask Pedro de la Rosa after Montreal.

Somehow Salo managed to get away unscathed, and streamed into a temporary 3rd place, with De la Rosa, Jos Verstappen and Johnny Herbert following through behind him. At this point, Fisichella, without a nosecone, and with probable suspension damage after kissing the pit wall, had momentum carry him around the first corner, where he proceeded to come to a halt smack bang on the racing line just about next to Schumacher's stricken Ferrari, creating even more havoc.

Frentzen slowed to get around the Italian, which allowed Button through. Alexander Wurz in the other Benetton also slowed likewise, and suddenly all of Marc Gene's Christmases had come at once, for the Minardi was well entrenched in the top ten. After a season so far in which he rated a D+ in Atlas F1's midyear review, and in which he took out our first 'reject of the race' award, Wurz's humiliation was now complete, thanks to his team-mate. The Austrian, in front of his home crowd, would not get past the Spaniard's Minardi all race, or even look like doing so.

And so, after all this, the safety car came out. Now, Michael Schumacher hates losing, we all know that. So, seeing that if the race continued he couldn't win the Austrian GP, and that his chances of winning the World Championship would slip even further, he decided to attempt to engineer a red-flag. Schumi somehow kept the Ferrari engine running, drove slowly out of the gravel and positioned his damaged car nicely across the racing line before stalling it. He'd done his best, but the marshalls were too efficient and both cars were out of the way when the paddock came around again.

The rest of the race was rather nondescript by comparison. Frentzen spun off on his own oil after his Mugen engine blew, but you can't blame him for that. De la Rosa got past Salo, which Barrichello also did, but the Brazilian could make no inroads into the Arrows ahead of him. With the Spaniard on a one-stop strategy like everyone else, this was no Canada-style dash on light fuel, this was a genuinely competitive outing. It was a shame that a safe podium finish was lost to more Arrows unreliability.

Despite my admiration for him, Jean Alesi is officially running last in this year's World Championship, and has been acting recklessly since the French GP. Here he pulled an impossible move on Heidfeld, and the resulting clash saw both cars in familiar territory, i.e. the first-corner gravel trap. He then blamed his team for not issuing team orders to the German to let him by, which is fair enough, I guess. Was the real reject, then, as Prost's chances of securing a half-decent deal for 2001 took a very public blow, Alain himself?

Amongst all the rejects, the heroes, and who better to start with than Mika Hakkinen? Criticised by all and sundry recently, including by myself, he took a break, cleared his head, and roared back to form. Credit goes where credit's due, and I heartily congratulate the Finn. A good solid drive from David Coulthard as well, cementing his championship chances, but even he must admit his team-mate got the better of him at the A1-Ring. (Having said that, as I write this, Hakkinen's win is under investigation after his car failed scrutineering.)

Not quite as brilliant, but in the same vein, was Jenson Button. Sir Frank Williams is, as has been well documented, looking for a driver who can not only match Ralf Schumacher but actually beat the German. Jenson hasn't actually beaten Ralf all season despite being mightily impressive, but in Austria he was Williams' number one. The FW22 obviously wasn't working here, but the young Brit still got enough speed out of it to pass Salo and Herbert in the pits and finish 5th, including an off at the last corner, which he held excellently.

Salo himself was one of the real positives this weekend. Usually at about this stage in the season Sauber starts dropping back, but at the A1-Ring there were signs of improvement, and Salo was genuinely competitive. And what about Gene's Minardi? He spent the whole race hovering pretty close to Herbert's Jaguar, and he seemed able to run comfortably at a similar pace to the likes of Button, Salo and Herbert. At no stage was he ever threatened by Wurz's Benetton. Without doubt, Gene was one of the real stars of the race, along with Hakkinen and Villeneuve.

Mind you, what this also means is that, should he never drive in a GP again, on the mediocre, if solid, strength of this performance Burti will be a Formula One reject!

And so, to Germany, where it will be Schumi v Mercedes with little between them, in performance and on the scoreboard. Was Austria just a flash-in-the-pan, or have McLaren really regained the upper hand as they have been threatening to do? This will be the big question in the Black Forest.