Japanese Grand Prix Review

Schumacher's supremacy this year has been both sublime and subtle, aided by Williams' early unreliability and McLaren's later stagnancy. At Suzuka, he added to his record-breaking achievements this year: winning his record-equalling 9th race of the year, scoring a record 123 points (having broken the old record of 108 at Indianapolis), and ending up with a total of 801 points in his career, surpassing Alain Prost's 799.5. But at no stage has Schumacher 2001 felt like a Nigel Mansell-esque 1992 cake-walk.

Before the teams arrived at Suzuka, we knew this race would mark the final outing (for the moment, at least) of two big names. The first was Benetton, which will become Renault as of 2002. Always colourful, never out of the headlines, Benetton entrenched itself as one of the leading teams in the late 1980s. It pinched Schumacher from under Jordan's nose, became 'Michael's team', got taken to giddy heights by the German, but completely and irretrievably fell apart once Schumi left.

The second big name we knew was bowing out was, of course, Mika Hakkinen. Having come into F1 with Lotus in 1991 after destroying the opposition in F3, he showed glimpses of raw speed in 1991 and 1992, before becoming the 'original Panis' and taking the McLaren test job in 1993, thereby beginning his relationship with Ron Dennis, one of the strongest the sport has ever known. But as long as the car Woking produced wasn't quite up to it, Hakkinen remained a talent unfulfilled and unrefined.

He was lucky to survive a horrible practice crash at Adelaide in 1995, but along with McLaren's resurgence in 1997 came Mika's rise to the top. By 1998 he was already seen as 'the fastest man in F1', even if he was not the best. 20 victories, 2 World Championships, and a respectful rivalry with Schumacher has cemented the Finn's place in F1 history, although doubts linger. Was he one of the greats, or was he just really good? And, of course, is 2002 just a sabbatical, or code for 'retirement'? Your guess is as good as mine.

To be fair to EJ, he really had no choice. In a year where his team has achieved as little as in 2000, whilst perhaps not being even as competitive as it was in 2000, EJ sacked an under-performing Heinz-Harald Frentzen and, on a whim, threw his old friend Alesi a lifeline. On reflection, it was a sign that the Irishman had maybe given up on 2001, but out of curiosity had given Jean the drive to see if the French-Sicilian still had the spark. It was a question that I think many of us have wanted answered.

And the answer, I'm afraid, has been 'no'. Jarno Trulli's speed in qualifying this year has been amazing, but for all those who said Alesi still had the speed, the fact is he never got respectably close to his team-mate, even allowing for Jean's limited time in the car. And in modern F1 where Jean's innate racing skills were obscured by aerodynamics and pit strategy, without sheer qualifying speed Alesi had become something of a spent force, as sad as it is for me, an unashamed Alesi fan, to say that.

In qualifying, though, reality hit hard, Alesi down in 11th as the leading contenders took centre stage. Michael did the near-perfect lap and ended up on pole an astounding 0.7s exactly ahead of Montoya, who has become Williams' front man ever since Spa (another ominous sign for 2002). For Ralf Schumacher it would have been a case of 'no, not again'. Having raced in Japan previously, with plenty of experience at Suzuka, last year he was out-qualified by Suzuka rookie Jenson Button, and this year it had happened once more.

Perhaps the big surprise in qualifying was Benetton, aiming to go out on a high, with Giancarlo Fisichella qualifying a year-best 6th, and Button in the top ten for the second race in a row. Whereas other teams such as BAR have given up on 2001 in favour of working on their 2002 challenger, Benetton and Renault have been improving throughout 2001 in order to work on their 2002 challenger. Their many vociferous doubters at the start of the year, us included, have been forced to reconsider.

In the ITV commentary box, James Allen and Martin Brundle waxed lyrically about what a great race this turned out to be. While Brundle was right in saying that the leaderboard had chopped and changed "like a fruit machine", in truth that was only because everyone had variations of similar pit strategies. In the end, nothing that exciting really happened at all. All of Michael, JPM, Ralf, Hakkinen and David Coulthard were on two-stoppers, although they didn't all come in at the same time. Michael's first fuel load was in fact small enough to allow Ferrari to potentially change him onto a three-stopper if need be.

Only Barrichello was tempting fate by being on a three-stopper right from the start, the third race in succession the Brazilian has tried to make one stop more than anyone else. It should have worked in Italy and the USA, but it never looked like working here. Whilst the Williams cars were being stuffed around early by the on-off performance of their Michelins, Rubens put a glorious move on Ralf at the 130R. It may not have looked that good, and it may not have been as brilliant as some of the moves Montoya has made this year, but this was one of the passes of the year.

We say 'we think' because we didn't see anything. More to the point, we couldn't see anything. In the most abysmal world-feed coverage of the year, the signals from Japan were remarkably devoid of replays of anything important. We missed seeing Rubens pass Montoya, we missed seeing JPM take him back, we missed seeing Ralf crossing the chicane to earn his stop-go, and we missed seeing replays of Ralf passing Rubens on the way out of the pits when the Williams seemed to have crossed the white line again, and we missed seeing Coulthard pass Hakkinen for 3rd in the late stages.

We know the Italians are parochial, but so too are the Japanese, it would appear. We only saw four sets of replays all race. One was of the start, one was of Fisichella spinning, one was of the collision between Alesi and Kimi Raikkonen, and one was of Jacques Villeneuve spinning towards the end. Now then, Fisichella is sponsored by Mild Seven, a Japanese tobacco company, and both Alesi and Villeneuve have Honda engines. Spot any connection? Oh, and we saw all the Honda pitstops, naturally!

Not only did he cut the chicane to earn his stop-go in the first place, he did in fact (I have seen the tape) cross the white line when he passed a stuttering Barrichello on the way out of the pits after taking his penalty. But for Rubens being unusually slow at that point, Ralf would have been given another penalty, but it was right that he wasn't. When Barrichello then tried to pass him again at the chicane, once again Ralf cut across it to protect his place, and had Rubens not then passed him soon after, the German could have been up for as many as three consecutive stop-gos in the one race!!!

A quick word too about Coulthard passing Hakkinen at the end. Word was around that the ease with which the Scot got through, and the rate at which the Finn dropped back suggested that this was a payback deal for Melbourne 1998. It might have been, but we doubt it. Hakkinen is not a showy person. 3rd or 4th in his last race before his sabbatical made little difference. Coulthard, the more consistent McLaren driver this year, deserved to end the year on the podium. Sure Hakkinen let him by, but it was no more than a pleasant gesture.

It was not to be. Tucked up close behind Raikkonen's Sauber, the Finn spun at the fast sweeping Dunlop curve, after his car bottomed out on a bump. Perhaps it was a little strange that Alesi, for all his experience, chose to try to go around the outside of the spinning car, when usually spinning machines rotate towards the outside of the track. It was an instinctive reaction, I guess, but one which took the Jordan straight into the side of the Sauber.

The subsequent impact on the wall was a big one, and the Sauber's nose came perilously close to Jean's head. Ever since signing for McLaren, Raikkonen's performance has faltered, and he has had some big accidents, notably at Monza, and now at Suzuka. Montoya's latter-season surge, though, has seen him pinch 'rookie of the year' honours. Raikkonen, on the other hand, for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and taking Alesi out of his last race, only gets 'Reject of the Race' from us.

REJECT OF THE RACE
Kimi Raikkonen
His spin also ended Alesi's slim hopes of farewell glory

And that was all she wrote for the 2001 season. As we said at the outset, it was a fitting way to end the year. In some ways it reflected the whole season, demonstrating Schumacher's authority, Williams' strong resurgence, McLaren's stagnancy, and Montoya and Alonso's promise. In other ways it reflected some late season trends, like Benetton/Renault's improvement, Ralf's questionable mettle, and Raikkonen's equally questionable concentration. All of which pose intriguing questions for 2002 to answer.

In due course we will present our comprehensive 2001 season review. In the meantime, we would like give our heartfelt thanks to everyone who has read our reviews this year. We enjoy bringing them to you, and we appreciate the fact that many of you are genuinely interested in what we, as fellow F1 fans, have to say. And while the teams will be out of action until January 1, we promise that we won't be. We'll continue to churn out the articles, biographies and profiles that makes F1 Rejects what it really is.