San Marino Grand Prix Review

The surreal novelty value of some of the things that happened during this race weekend overshadowed what was in all honesty a fairly unexciting meeting. The usual suspects floated to the top of the time sheets on the Friday, and it was no surprise to see the Ferraris on home soil perform well. It was probably also no surprise to see the Saubers up there, since anyone who knows anything in F1 will know that Petronas = Ferrari, but for Kimi Raikkonen to have the edge on Nick Heidfeld was a mild shock.

The threat of rain saw cars come out early for a change in qualifying, and while some may have found Ferrari's slightly disappointing performance in qualifying only 4th (Michael Schumacher) and 6th (Rubens Barrichello) somewhat hard to explain, there really wasn't much to it. They made a gamble on harder Bridgestones which didn't pay off in the cool conditions, plus McLaren had always been saying that they would be on the money again once the European season started.

Interestingly, the top 12 cars were separated by less than two seconds, and came from 6 teams precisely (McLaren, Williams, Ferrari, Jordan, BAR, Sauber). There was then quite a sizeable tailing off amongst the rest, confirming the quite definite split between the top and bottom halves of the 2001 F1 grid. In the top half, McLaren, Williams and Ferrari are a cut above, but Jordan, BAR and Sauber seem poised to challenge.

Amongst the bottom five teams, Jaguar and Prost seem to have a slight edge over Arrows, and Minardi are competitive enough to do a respectable job, all resources considered. But Benetton's atrocious run continued, with Giancarlo Fisichella only 19th and Jenson Button a dismal 21st. Even Fernando Alonso in the Minardi outqualified them both in 18th spot.

Come Sunday, there were only a few deciding moments which brought about the final result. Firstly, Ralf made a superb start from 3rd on the grid, muscled past Coulthard going into the Tamburello chicane, and that was that as far as the race was concerned. With Imola now being punctuated by chicanes ever since 1995, overtaking is notoriously difficult, and with the Williams so powerful and handling so beautifully, in hindsight Ralf's win could hardly have been in doubt, assuming reliability.

Trulli also made an excellent start and found himself up to 3rd ahead of Hakkinen, while both Ferraris had shockers. That's the 4th appalling start in a row for Barrichello, who needs to get his act together in that department, and fast. While Schumacher has made some good starts this year, he found himself mired in 5th while the Brazilian was down to 8th. Michael then had his mysterious gear selection problem, and dropped to 8th behind his team-mate.

REJECT OF THE RACE
Benetton Renault
(Both drivers outqualified by Minardi's Alonso)

Behind Ralf and Coulthard, Trulli headed a gaggle including Hakkinen, Montoya and Barrichello. At the rate at which these four fell behind the front two, one could suggest that Trulli was holding them up, and Hakkinen even complained to that effect over the radio. But the fact is, at no stage did Hakkinen look like threatening Trulli, and after the first round of pit-stops, at no stage did Mika, Juan-Pablo or Rubens eat into the lead the front two had. Credit where credit's due: Ralf and David were the most on-form drivers on the day.

Trulli fell right back at the stops, and looking also at Heinz-Harald Frentzen's performance, it casts doubts over the Jordan's sustained race pace that eventually both were a lap down. A bit of Ross Brawn magic changed Barrichello from a one-stop to a two-stop strategy, and leapfrogged him above Hakkinen and Montoya; indeed, Barrichello and Trulli simply swapped positions. Barrichello thus ended up a somewhat fortuitous 3rd, with Hakkinen a whimpering 4th.

However, after his fantastic performance at Interlagos, some might have been a little stunned to see him completely unable to match Ralf's race pace. But the point should be made that in qualifying Ralf has outqualified JPM 4-0, and it was Ralf who was on the front row in Brazil, although he made a bad start. In Brazil it was also Ralf who, after being hit by Barrichello, got back onto the track and set the fastest lap of the race by quite some distance.

Of the others, Villeneuve had been ahead of Frentzen in the first half of the race and would have taken the last point had his engine not detonated. The Canadian is also suffering from appalling luck this year, and of course he has a team-mate in Panis who has been giving him some stick. On the other hand, Panis struggled with his car the whole race and finished 8th behind a quiet but consistent Heidfeld. BAR seem to have all the ingredients for success this year, but they haven't put it together just yet.

Jean Alesi's Prost continued to be consistent but off the pace. So far this year the Frenchman has qualified in the 13th to 15th region each race, and finished 9th, 9th, 8th and 9th. Quite a contrast to Prost's inconsistency last year, but still not particularly impressive, considering what Sauber are doing with the same engine. Perhaps they were the only team to find the limit of their performance in the pre-season. But still it's an OK platform from which to develop the car.

What Prost need now is an injection of sponsorship (the car does look alarmingly bare), and a second driver who can do some proper development. It seems as though Alain Prost was wily enough to get PSN's money while still putting a performance clause on Gaston Mazzacane's contract, and rumours are rife that the Argentine will be replaced. He is so far off Alesi's pace he probably deserves to be shown the door. But with Marc Gene denying that he will leave the Williams test role, it looks like Stephane Sarrazin will get the nod, but we doubt he can do much better than Mazzacane.

Arrows did nothing all weekend, although it was good for Enrique Bernoldi to get some mileage under his belt, finishing the race in a solid 10th. Minardi's return to Europe was ironically their most disappointing showing so far, with Tarso Marques' engine giving up and Alonso making a fundamental Imola error of misjudging the kerbs and ending up in the wall. The way his front-right wheel came off at relatively low speed, however, was a poor indictment on the strength of the wheel tethers.

And finally, what can you say about Benetton? Well, at least in contrast to Ferrari they've made good starts this year, and Fisichella's race pace has been creditable. Not only is the car slow, it's also unreliable. Benetton have combined BAR 1999's unreliability with Jaguar 2000's ability to drop back during races. When Button went off late in the race at the same place as Alonso did, Martin Brundle lamented that young Jenson had lost concentration because he was so bored and uninspired, and you had to agree with him.

Ferrari did have a bad race for sure, and they certainly seem closer to the field than the first two races suggested. But it's not as though any other team decisively has the wood on them just yet. However, I would go as far as to say that, were I a betting man, I'd put some money on Ralf for the championship. With luck, he could have won the last two if not the last three races. Williams have now shown enough consistency over the first four races to suggest that they are definitely in championship contention.

Of course, all this could change come the next race in Spain, when traction control will be reintroduced. Whether this will have little effect, or really put a cat amongst the pigeons, remains to be seen.

In a drive that earned him the title of 'Ironman', Mark Webber scored his first 2001 F3000 victory, despite driving with a broken rib. What's more he led every lap from pole - a dominant display. Let's hope he can keep it up. He now lies 2nd in the Championship behind Justin Wilson.

Unfortunately, our man in British F3, James Courtney, had it a little tougher. Qualifying for the Snetterton round was in the wet, and Courtney took his Jaguar to just 8th on the grid for both races. Come race day, though, and he drove well, gaining places to finish 6th in both Race 1 and Race 2. He now sits in 4th position in the Championship.

Meanwhile, Australian Toyota-contracted driver Ryan Briscoe was thwarted again in the Formula Renault Eurocup, this time at Brno in Round 2. Qualifying on the second row, Briscoe was victim of an early-breaking Brazilian Augusto Farfus. Spinning off, Ryan finished in 19th, while his teammate Cesar Campanico took 2nd. Thanks to Carlos H. Moyna for the Brno results.