French Grand Prix Review

The surprise on Friday free practice was the performance of the Jaguars, Eddie Irvine 2nd fastest and Pedro de la Rosa well up, proving that the improved results for the big cats in the past few meetings weren't a fluke. Undoubtedly the Michelin tyres, specially adapted for this track, would have been a help, but there's probably little doubt now that Irvine at least has bridged the gap to the top half-a-dozen teams.

Unfortunately the Ulsterman was unable to continue his form into qualifying, a few spins leaving him a disappointed 12th. Up front, there were few shocks, and it was another Michelin user, Ralf Schumacher, setting the pace on his 26th birthday. He has been threatening to take a pole for a while now, and with the relatively long straights at Magny-Cours, this was a perfect opportunity. Just imagine how fast he will be at Hockenheim and Monza.

Of the others, Rubens Barrichello under-performed and ended up 8th. The BARs weren't hooked up, just as they weren't at the Nurburgring, and are fast becoming one of the disappointments of the season. Nick Heidfeld would be pleased to have out-qualified Kimi Raikkonen, the Saubers showing off a new front wing designed suspiciously similar to that of the Jordans (although, ironically, their designer Stephen Taylor has just left the Hinwil team to go to the Silverstone outfit).

The Benettons promised big things, and moved up to, um, 16th and 17th. Yippee. Jenson Button was on the verge of finally out-qualifying team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella, only for the Italian to go faster in the last minute of the session. The Arrows were disappointing, while the real shocker was Jean Alesi, mired in 19th, a second slower than inexperienced team-mate Luciano Burti. The excuse? That fiery Jean was simply too emotional in front of his home crowd to concentrate. Even as a huge Alesi fan, all I can say to that is, "How lame!!!"

Hakkinen wasn't the only one to experience trouble on the warm-up lap, since de la Rosa stopped his Jaguar, but managed to get started again just as the leaders were coming around on their first racing lap, such that for a few amusing moments, the Jag 'led' the field before the Spaniard came into the pits. In a dozen years of watching F1, I have never seen anything like it before!

But back to the start itself, and Ralf had promised to pay back Michael for the now-infamous Nurburgring squeeze. In the end the Williams driver didn't need to resort to such tactics, as Michael made a poor start and was lucky not to lose out to Coulthard at the first corner. An excellent start by Barrichello, his first for a while, saw him past both Jordans by the Adelaide hairpin and move up to 5th.

Coulthard seemed pretty comfortable behind the Schumachers in the first stint, but as a result of his stop-go penalty for pit-lane speeding, we never got to see if he could have challenged Michael for victory. I suspect not, but without the penalty, he would have finished 2nd, and his championship challenge is quickly fading, although for once the Scot hasn't done much wrong.

Once Ferrari saw that Coulthard was now effectively doing a three-stop race, and that Barrichello was about to be held up by the struggling Ralf, the decision was made to switch the Brazilian to a three-stop plan. His second stop obviously being shorter than DC's 10-second penalty stop, the Ferrari got ahead of the McLaren in a decisive move, and stayed there for the rest of the race, just to add insult to David's injury.

Instead, Williams ended up keeping him on a two-stopper, but running longer on both the first two stints. Was the aim to allow him to sprint on low fuel and less-degraded tyres while, for example, Michael on fresh tyres struggled with a full tank, and Ralf waited for his Michelins to come in? If so, then didn't the fact that Ralf put on scrubbed tyres destroy JPM's plan? And didn't Ferrari's pace on fresh tyres suggest that full tanks didn't make that much difference?

Suffice to say that Williams didn't make best use of Montoya's brave move to opt for harder tyres, and gave him what was a no-man's land compromise strategy. He only caught up to Ralf because the German's tyres weren't working (and apparently Ralf refused to obey team-orders to let JPM by), and passed Ralf at the second stop anyway, although it turned out to be all academic when the BMW engine let go.

The German then of course cut the chicane to keep his place, and then refused to let Irvine by until his team told him to do so, lest he incur a penalty. Frentzen later made a hash of letting Michael through to lap him, incurring the Ferrari driver's hand-waving wrath, and to complete his misery, HHF then mindlessly spun late in the race coming out of the last corner. All enough shenanigans to earn our 'Reject of the Race' award.

But back to Irvine for a second, having cleared Frentzen the Jaguar driver was fast closing on Heidfeld's Sauber for the last points position towards the end of the race when his Cosworth blew up. Otherwise, Eddie would have been a good bet to get past the Sauber for yet another very well-deserved point. I think we can see a lot more from Irve the Swerve in the remaining 7 races of the year, and with more improvement, Jaguar is looking very good for 2002. But they must learn how to qualify first!

REJECT OF THE RACE
Heinz-Harald Frentzen
A comedy of errors from the German, who is in 11th place in the WDC

Not much to say about the other teams, so a quick comment on the ITV coverage. In Murray Walker's absence, James Allen filled the seat once again. Thus far, Allen has done a fine job, able to imitate to a certain degree Murray's famous high-octane delivery. So what was he doing this time around sounding as though he'd been given an overdose of sedatives? He made the race sound like a funeral procession. Procession maybe, but funereal, I should hope not! Get excited, mate!

Thank goodness Murray is coming back for Silverstone. There is something about the old airfield, even in its modified form, that makes the British GP one of the highlights of the year, and rarely a dull race. It's the home race for all the British teams of course, but it's also the opportunity for Michael to equal Alain Prost's all time record. No doubt Schumi will be thinking that, if he wins at Silverstone, he'll have the chance to break the record in front of his home crowd at Hockenheim. Now there's an incentive.

The first man to win 3 races in F3000 this season is Mark Webber, taking victory at Mangy-Cours. Leading into the first corner, he sped off into the distance leaving his Championship rivals Justin Wilson and Tomas Enge to fight for the minor podium spots. This leaves Webber 2nd overall, just 1 point behind Wilson, with 5 races yet to go. Mark's showings on Grand Prix Saturdays are certainly better exposure than a Benetton testing role...

In the Bristish F3 round at Castle Combe last weekend, James Courtney qualified 4th and 5th for the two races. Performing well in both, he moved up the field and took two 3rd place finishes. His podiums help cement him in 4th place in this most competitive of championships, with 113 points. He is 69 points behind series leader Takuma Sato, but 27 ahead of his Jaguar F3 teammate, Andre Lotterer.

Toyota F1 junior driver Ryan Briscoe suffered heartbreak in the 4th round of the Italian Formula Renault Championship at Monza on the 24th June. Losing two positions off the line, he made these back with some great overtaking moves and took the lead; what Ryan didn't know was that a startline crash had brought out the safety car. After pulling out a signifigant lead, and taking the chequered flag by several seconds, time penalties were handed out to the top 5 drivers for overtaking under yellows! This dropped Briscoe from 1st to 7th, leaving him in 3rd place in the Championship.

Meanwhile, at the 6th round of the European Formula Renault Championship at the Hungaroring on the 30th June, Ryan took a fourth place finish, setting the second fastest race lap. This was after starting a fantastic 3rd on the grid in a field of 40 drivers.