Italian Grand Prix Review

Qualifying was actually more interesting that it seemed, in spite of the fact that there was nothing too unusual about the make-up of the grid. In a year of relative parity (unless you're in the red or silver cars), it's been rare to see so many team-mates so close to each other in 'Noah's Ark' grid formations. But here we saw the Ferraris fill the front row, the Arrows 10th and 11th, the Prosts on the second-last row and the Minardis at the back, with only the BAR and Jaguar drivers separated to any great extent. Perhaps this grid was as good an indication of where each car stands compared to the others as we'll see this season.

Frozen fuel or not, Ferrari always come out with something special for their tifosi, but it was a little surprising that Ferrari had such the measure of the McLarens, and that Rubens Barrichello got so close to Schumacher. The question was whether they could maintain that pace into the race, or would Hakkinen come up with another perfect race set-up out of the drawer, as in Hungary? Mention must also go to Jacques Villeneuve, who predicted during the week that he could qualify in the top 4, with Honda pulling out all the stops to celebrate their 200th Grand Prix. The Canadian was as good as his word.

Schumacher delivered a perfect start, whereas Barrichello got terribly bogged down. This took Villeneuve out of the equation, but allowed both McLarens to get through, and for both fast-starting Jordans, especially Heinz-Harald Frentzen, to get ahead of the BAR. Further back, both Arrows got completely swamped, and a few corners later Pedro de la Rosa would pay a heavy price for that. All but three cars got through the first chicane unscathed, with Eddie Irvine and Mika Salo tangling as they snaked towards the braking area, forcing Pedro Diniz off in the process. Adios Sauber.

If the drivers promised they would be conservative into the first chicane, then all gloves were off by the time they got to the next one, and the result was disastrous. The culprit, without doubt, was Frentzen, who missed his braking point completely, and went for a non-existent gap between Barrichello and team-mate Jarno Trulli. The heavy impact pushed those two into David Coulthard, and all four slithered into the gravel trap, wheels flying all over the place, proving once again that the wheel tethers are simply not working. For forgetting where his brakes were, Frentzen earns our 'Reject of the Race' award.

The way the incident was handled was debatable, I thought. OK, so they prefer not to red-flag and restart races if all the wrecks are off the track, for fear that a repeat might happen on the restart, and instead bring the safety car out. Or perhaps it's just a nice trick to promote some also-rans into the points. But when you have so many cars out, so many contenders, so much debris and sharp-edged carbon-fibre scattered all over the track, and a marshal hurt so badly that he tragically passed away afterwards, it was inevitably going to take a while to clean up.

Making everyone drive over the debris so many times was dangerous. What if it shredded someone's tyre or suspension part, and caused him to have an accident right where marshals were clearing the wrecks? So the safety car stayed out for a fifth of the race, which allowed both Salo and Ricardo Zonta to replace punctured tyres done without losing a lap, significant in Zonta's case in particular. Jean Alesi was not so lucky, falling a lap down having stalled at the start, and that was his afternoon effectively over, game, set and match.

So Schumacher may have slowed down unexpectedly, causing a concertina effect and forcing Ralf Schumacher to temporarily pass Villeneuve, and Giancarlo Fisichella to marginally squeeze through the gap between the Williams and the BAR. But Button, in 6th place no less, had absolutely no right to be deciding to put on a sprint at the same time. He very nearly took out Villeneuve as a result, and promptly came into the pits and blamed Michael Schumacher for not driving at a constant speed! Let's just hope that Button, for all his immense talent, doesn't slowly turn into a Mansell-esque whinging Pom.

Schumacher began clearing out from Hakkinen, and that, in a nutshell, was the race for the win. Villeneuve retired from what would have been a safe podium spot with a blown Honda, and that was a real shame, for driver and team. The battle for third was what turned out to be the only point of real interest for the rest of the race, and it was effectively decided on pit-stop strategy, fuel tank capacity and the fact that tyre-wear was just about zero. At one stage, it looked as though both Zonta and Jos Verstappen's Arrows were likely to take third, but in the end it fell to Ralf Schumacher's Williams for the second race in succession.

Coming in early, the BAR team had the option of topping him up to the end, which would have given him a good shot at the podium, because of his car's natural speed. Instead, they kept him on the two-stop plan, but since he no longer had a great fuel load advantage, he found getting through the field a much harder proposition than before. As soon as he could not find a way past Wurz again, he and his team must surely have known the game was up. Still, this was Zonta's best drive in F1 by far, although his one point for 6th came courtesy of Fisichella's delayed pit stop (and currently, with 2 points, Zonta's not out of reject status yet).

Next candidate for 3rd was Jos Verstappen. Looking at the gap he had on Ralf Schumacher, if his Arrows held together the podium spot seemed to be in the bag. Only problem was, such is the size of his fuel tank he had to come in for his one stop relatively early, and he had to struggle around on full tanks for those vital laps when the Williams was on a low fuel load, and while Ralf didn't have to worry about worn tyres. The German easily got past the Dutchman in the pits, with ample time to spare. But still a fine 4th for Jos the Boss.

So Schumacher capped off an emotional victory by anyone's standards. Any victory for Ferrari right in front of the tifosi would be. But just how emotional it was became overwhelmingly apparent when the German broke down in the unilateral interview. Last year, it was Mika Hakkinen whose emotions got the better of him at Monza, and we thought the voyeuristic helicopter made it public enough. But I think everyone was taken aback by the level of Schumacher's feeling right in front of the cameras. If ever there was a case for dumping these often seemingly pointless interviews, where they ask some of the most banal questions imaginable, this was it.

Schumacher may be stern, but he is not ice cold. His exuberance on the podium every time he wins is testament to that. So too his anger at Coulthard after tangling with the Scot at Spa in 1998. But here, it was the fact that he had equalled the number of wins of the great Ayrton Senna that triggered him off. That, plus the fact that this win, in front of the Italian fans whom Schumi admitted gave him such a lift, put his tottering World Championship bid back on track, and that he had put in a perfect drive to do it, after a week when Clay Regazzoni had publicly come out and claimed that Michael was past it.

The fact is, apart from Alesi and Herbert who are both so out of the picture this year, Hakkinen and Schumacher are the only other two who are the current F1 crop's links back to the previous era when Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell and especially Alain Prost and Senna ruled the roost. No-one else had the privilege of racing against Piquet, Mansell, Prost and Senna when they were at or near the top of their powers in the late 80s and early 1990s.

In an article on the Atlas F1 website after the Belgian GP, Richard Barnes perceptively argues that Hakkinen and Schumacher have taken over the mantle left by Prost and Senna, only without the vitriol. It's quite compelling to think about. Senna used to say that Prost was the only one he respected, even though on occasions Mansell might out-race him. Schumacher seems to feel the same way about Hakkinen, even if Coulthard, Villeneuve and others may out-race him at times. If you haven't seen that article yet, it's well worth reading.

The death of Ayrton Senna changed the course of Michael Schumacher's life in no uncertain terms, and that's no understatement. To understand that is to understand Schumacher's seemingly genuine tears. With Coulthard now effectively out of the championship race, I for one would be very happy to see either Hakkinen or Schumacher take the title. And I suspect that, whichever of them comes second, they would not be as unhappy to have lost as they would be if, say, the Scotsman did walk away with it. The battle at the remaining three races will be extraordinary. Hang onto your seats, folks.

The first of those three races will be at Indianapolis, a race that everyone is looking forward to, even though the rest of the world will be caught up in Olympic euphoria at the same time. And despite the fact that F1 Rejects will also be right in the thick of Olympic excitement (both of us live in Sydney, and as I write this Jamie McGregor's driving around for Yank TV network NBC at the moment), I can categorically say that I can't wait.