Ask Nigel: April 10

Dear Byron,

A hypothetical question, indeed, but still an interesting one. If Jacques Villeneuve, rather than Michael Schumacher, had gone to Ferrari, would they be the dominant force they are today? In a word, no. For one thing, JV, as good as he was and - I think - still is, is simply not as good as Michael, although I believe that, when all is right with him and his car, there is not much to choose on pure speed.

There's more to it than that, however. Schumacher goes about his job as Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna did before him: in other words, he eats, sleeps and breathes it - he simply works harder at it than anyone else, and gives thought to every single aspect of what wins races. Michael, like Alain and Ayrton, has the ability to inspire a team, to drag it up to his levels of commitment, to build it around him.

Jacques is not like that. I don't say he doesn't work hard at his job, because that wouldn't be true, but he isn't obsessive about it, and I seriously doubt that he would have been able to inspire Ferrari, as Michael has done. As a matter of fact, I doubt that any driver could have done it to the same degree. And, quite honestly, JV is anything but a 'team player'. I think he'd have won a lot of races for Ferrari, but it wouldn't be the team it has become in Schumacher's era.

Now, if Michael had gone to BAR, would the team be winning races? Yes, undoubtedly, not least because, if he'd gone there, he would very quickly have insisted on major changes of personnel: either that, or he'd have left in no time. Who knows, you'd probably find Rory Byrne designing the cars, Ross Brawn running the operation, and Jean Todt as team director...



Dear Weenson,

I agree entirely with Montoya's suggestion. Over time other drivers have proposed the same thing, but nothing has ever been done about it, unfortunately.

In an incident such as the one Juan had with Michael Schumacher at Sepang, the counsel of an experienced ex-F1 driver would have been invaluable. Even Schuey said he thought Montoya had been harshly dealt with, and other drivers, when they had seen the video, said the same thing. "I can't for the life of me see what Montoya did wrong," commented Eddie Irvine, "and yet he was penalised, whereas in Australia Barrichello was clearly at fault in the accident with Ralf Schumacher, and nothing was done. It's the lack of consistency that's the problem in these decisions..."

Any such ex-driver who accepted the job of adjudicator would, as you say, indeed need to be...courageous. His decision would have to be absolute, for otherwise there would be no point in having him there, and he would need to be a sufficiently strong character not to be bamboozled into modifying it, let's say. Sometimes the pressure to do so can be quite considerable, I'm told.

Then there's the problem of finding an ex-driver with the inclination to continue spending his life in F1 paddocks, simply to fulfil the somewhat thankless task of sorting out the little boys' antics - a thankless task, because no matter what you decide, you can be fairly certain you're going to upset someone! Frankly, I doubt that such a person exists - and even if he could be found, his inevitably sizeable fiscal requirements would probably make the FIA go pale.

To my mind, the ideal person would be Keke Rosberg. There isn't a hope in hell of persuading him, mind you, because he isn't cheap, and he, more than most, has had his fill of long flights and hotel rooms. Setting those things aside, however, Keke would be my choice, because, in his own racing days, he was hard, but scrupulously fair.

This was what he had to say when I interviewed him back in 1984 - when 'driving manners' were beginning to change.

"Today I don't think there's very much respect in this business. The discipline has changed. When I came into Formula 1, in'78, the drivers were the best, and the behaviour was to that standard. Now, it seems, it's kids coming straight in from Formula 3 - and bringing Formula 3 behaviour with them.

"When I started that was out of the question. One thing I've never forgotten is South Africa that year, my first race. I felt a bit out of place, you know, and I was wandering behind the pits somewhere. Mario Andretti came up and said, 'Nice to see you in Formula 1, and I hope you do well', all that sort of thing. I appreciated that. He had no need to do it.

"Then, just as he was about to leave, he turned round. 'By the way', he said, 'you know we do things a bit differently in Formula 1? Take care of yourself. See that you learn the trade, do it like we do it'. That was all he said - all he needed to say. The only way to get into the game is to get accepted by everyone in it. And you ain't going to do that if you're going to bugger around.

"Five years ago, if someone slipstreamed by you, and passed, good for him. Today we've come a situation where weaving on the straights, and blocking on a narrow street circuit, are totally acceptable - even praised! And I find that a shame.

"Think about Gilles Villeneuve's win in Spain in '81. He had four guys right behind him for most of the way - but Gilles didn't block once in that race. His car was horrible in the corners and quick in a straight line. He took his line into the corners, and stayed on it - no more, no less. No one could complain afterwards because no one was ever quite close enough to overtake him. He never changed his line deliberately to block someone, and that's what I'm talking about.

"The thing is, Gilles was a giant of a driver. And he drove that race in a giant's way. Completely fair. What angers me is when a guy makes a mistake, letting you get alongside, and then chops across straight at you, so you either give way - or hit him. That's not Grand Prix racing. There's a difference between being tough and being unfair.

"I don't think the basic talent in Formula 1 changes very much from era to era - it's the attitude that has changed, the discipline. The respect for Grand Prix racing is not what it was."

Now, as then, I agree with every word of that, so I'd be delighted to see Rosberg deciding what was what, not least because I know he'd stick to his guns, whatever pressure was exerted upon him. Not sure Michael would like it, though...



Dear Andres,

Yes, it's sad that Reynard Motorsport has gone into receivership, but I think it's been coming for a while, and isn't much of a surprise, quite honestly. Plenty of mistakes were made along the way, but still it's amazing - just as it was with March - that a company which at one time had a virtual monopoly in the lucrative CART market should find itself in this predicament. There are parallels between the two, I think.

Outside of CART, the loss of Reynard is not too much of a blow to 'world motor sport', although it's a hell of blow to those CART teams which had committed themselves to Reynards for this season, and now find themselves wondering where spares are going to come from - and how much they will be required to pay for them. No surprise that Team Green took the precaution some time ago of buying some Lolas.

To be perfectly honest, I can't see why the demise of Reynard should have any impact at all on the development of the current BAR. True enough, David Richards faces a big task in moving the team up the grid, but already he has fired certain long-time personnel, including Malcolm Oastler, originally a Reynard nominee. Things have changed - not before time, many would say - and there's a new regime there now.



Dear Mario,

Much as I hate to say it - because I liked Elio a great deal - I have my doubts that today's cars would have suited him particularly. As you say, his style was ultra-smooth, and I'm not sure that the contemporary cars much lend themselves to smoothness. For that reason, too, I doubt that Alain Prost would have been much in his element in this era. All right, a great driver is a great driver, but drivers like these - and Alain, in particular - were all about throttle control, and that, of course, you don't need much today, for you have software taking care of all that stuff.

Since de Angelis's time, too, the entire format of a Grand Prix has changed. No longer is it a matter of getting a set-up for 200 miles, which will work well with a full fuel load and a virtually empty one. We have refuelling now, and set-up is much closer to what used to be a 'qualifying' set-up. Even a massive fuel load these days is good for not much more than 100 miles, and the races have become a matter of sprint-stop-sprint. You don't have to be bothered any more with such nuisances as changing gear - another art in which Elio was supremely good.

How good was he? Not as good as he could have been, in my opinion, in the sense that, while I think he had natural talent to throw away, his ambition never matched his ability. He came from a very rich family, and so raced primarily for the pleasure of it. With Elio, you never felt that F1 was the centre of the universe; it came easily to him, and was one of many good things in life, there to be enjoyed.

Those of us who knew him remember a delightful man, with a lovely, ironic, sense of humour, and manners from another age. Jo Ramirez, who worked with him in his early days at Shadow, remained a close friend to the end of Elio's life, in a testing accident at Paul Ricard 1986. This is how he remembers him.

"Elio was like Francois Cevert in many ways, charming, completely genuine, a very good driver. I remember the day he signed the contract for his first F1 drive - we went out to celebrate, to a coffee shop in Northampton called Cagney's, where we had hamburgers and chips! For all his wealth, Elio was a very down-to-earth person. He used to come to my house, and play the piano - like Francois, he was classically-trained.

"I remember going testing with him at Paul Ricard once. No one wanted to go out on the wet track, even though it had stopped raining, and then someone suggested that we all took our hire cars out, and dried the track! I went with Elio, and it was fantastic to watch him - he just floored it all the way round, slowing the car with the steering wheel. Superb! Things like that...well, nowadays no one would do it, would they? It was so much more fun back then.

"Elio was a wealthy man, but he wouldn't buy what he wanted just because he could. There was a particular Rolex watch he wanted, but it took him weeks of deliberating before he said, 'Yes, I'm going to buy it'. Then he took off the watch he had, and gave it to me. It was a gold Baume-Mercier, and although I wear it very rarely, I happened to be wearing it the day he died at Ricard."



Dear Bryan,

To be honest with you, I can't see any of the current Champ Car drivers who would necessarily 'make it in F1', although I think Dario Franchitti, had he been able to make the switch two or three years ago, would have had a good career as a Grand Prix driver.

The same also goes, probably, for Penske's two drivers, Gil de Ferran and Helio Castroneves, but unfortunately both are now in the backwater of the IRL, where they race only on ovals, and have no opportunity to remind F1 team owners of their considerable road racing skills.

As for the American drivers of the moment, no, sadly, I can't really see any having a chance of F1 in the near future. It's true that Bryan Herta was looking around a few months ago, but in reality he was looking for work as a test, rather than race, driver. And his somewhat meagre record in CART does not suggest he would have made much impression in F1.

Sorry to say this, because I would love to see some Americans in F1, reviving the tradition of Dan Gurney, Phil Hill, Richie Ginther, Peter Revson, Mario Andretti et al, but I suspect that the only current American of genuine superstar quality - who could have succeeded in any branch of the sport - is Jeff Gordon, and he, as we know, long ago committed himself to the dollars of NASCAR. I would love to have seen Gordon in an F1 car.



Dear Pierre-Etienne,

If the Clark-Chapman relationship stands as perhaps the yardstick in F1 history, you'd have to say that that between Michael Schumacher and Ross Brawn runs it pretty close - not a few times Michael has said that he owes much of his success to Ross, and he's right, too.

Of all teams, Williams is always said to be the one not to go to if you need contant reassurance, and certainly it is true that Frank Williams and Patrick Head are no-nonsense individuals who expect drivers to be big boys, capable of fuelling their own confidence. For Frank and Patrick, Juan Montoya is pretty well ideal in that respect, just as were Alan Jones, Keke Rosberg and Jacques Villeneuve. It is significant that such as Carlos Reutemann and Heinz-Harald Frentzen did not thrive in a Williams environment.

Indeed Frank acknowledges that, with hindsight, the team might have treated Reutemann with more sensitivity. "In terms of equipment, we gave Carlos exactly the same as Alan Jones, but there was more to it than that. Carlos needed more psychological support than most drivers. He needed to be aware that everyone in the team was wearing a Reutemann lapel badge and an Argentine scarf. We probably didn't appreciate that sufficiently at the time - which is why we didn't achieve as much together as we should have done."

To some degree, it was the same with Frentzen, who, although not in Reutemann's class as a driver, nevertheless should have achieved more than he did with Williams. When he moved to Jordan, for 1999, Eddie did a great job in restoring his confidence, and Heinz had the best year of his career, winning a couple of races, and coming close to the championship.

However, when we're talking of relationships like those between Clark and Chapman, or Schumacher and Brawn, it's important to bear in mind that neither Jimmy nor Michael needed to have confidence instilled into them, because it was there already. In their own minds, they were the best of their time, and that belief showed every time Clark got into a car; still does with Michael.

Drivers like Clark and Alain Prost may have bitten their fingernails to the quick, may have been under-confident indviduals in some ways, but once in the car they were in their element, and it showed. I'm sure there must have been a World Champion who needed to be pumped up by his team all the time, but, to be honest, I can't think of one...