Michael Schumacher’s narrow Ferrari victory in Spain nearly two weeks ago was greeted more with relief than respect. In the event, Schumacher was pushed hard and the result was made even more acceptable by the fact that Fernando Alonso, the closest challenger, represents a Schumacher of the future
The latest Ferrari may be beautiful to behold but, on the evidence of last weekend, it does not possess the feared advantage of its predecessor. Rubens Barrichello, in the second Ferrari, muttered about tyre problems as a reason for failing to catch Alonso in a Renault.
The situation may be different for Renault in Austria this weekend. The stop-start nature of the first half of the 4km track will highlight the shortfall in engine power, a handicap that did not matter quite so much on the fast sweeps of Barcelona, where Renault’s first-rate aerodynamics came into play. Renault will introduce the latest development of their V10 engine in Austria, but the hoped for improvement would have proved useful last weekend and given Alonso a better chance of dealing with a potent Williams-BMW. Alonso had emerged from a pitstop to find himself stuck behind Ralf Schumacher for the three laps that effectively blunted his chances of getting close to the leading Ferrari.
Michael Schumacher, by comparison, took just one lap to get past his brother’s Williams under similar circumstances — a sign at least that the latest Ferrari engine is keeping its end of the bargain.
That weekend was a disaster by McLaren-Mercedes’s excellent standards. Neither David Coulthard nor Kimi Raikkonen finished. Coulthard had been involved with Jenson Button in an unnecessary collision.
Raikkonen, on the other hand, has taken heavy criticism for driving into the back of a stalled Jaguar within seconds of the start. The truth is that Raikkonen’s biggest mistake had come the day before, when an error during his qualifying lap had left the Finn open to the potential hazards associated with starting from the back of the grid.
When a driver pulls 2G as the launch control kicks in and a power surge of 830 bhp fires him forward, there is little chance of avoiding a stationary object that is only revealed when the car directly ahead — Justin Wilson’s Minardi — suddenly darts to the left. His worst fears were confirmed when, 90 minutes later, Michael Schumacher reduced Raikkonen’s championship lead from 14 points to four.
Under the new one-lap qualifying rules, it is possible to lose Sunday’s race through a misjudgement 24 hours earlier. All the more annoying when Schumacher and Ferrari go on to suggest they may not be invincible. —