Ask Nigel: December 27

Dear Jorge,
Sorry to say this, but at this early stage of his career there's absolutely no way of answering your question about Alonso. On the face of it, yes, he looks immensely promising, and perhaps, as you suggest, he has everything he needs to be on top in a few years' time, but if I've learned anything about racing drivers over the years, it's that it is impossible to know how they will go in Formula 1 until they actually get there.

Performances in the lower formulae are some guide, but no more than that. Remember, for example, that a few years ago a lot of people - including no less than Jackie Stewart - were predicting that Jan Magnussen was a future World Champion. Indeed, Stewart thought him potentially the best driver since Ayrton Senna...

That being so, let us wait until Alonso begins to a race an F1 car before we start suggesting he can be Spain's first World Champion. When he begins to threaten people like Montoya and Button, let alone Schumacher and Hakkinen, then - and only then - will we know exactly how good he is.




Dear Kevin,
Olivier Panis' year at McLaren has, I think, fundamentally changed the way the F1 teams now approach the question of testing. It's true that when he went to McLaren, Panis' F1 career was in something of a slump, and he badly needed an opportunity to give it a kick start - and also to work with a top team.

It worked out perfectly, for both him and the team. McLaren discovered that Olivier was first-rate when it came to feedback, and also that he was very quick: whenever he went testing with the regular drivers, Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard, he was invariably at least as fast as they were, and not surprisingly this registered with other teams, notably BAR, who signed him to partner Jacques Villeneuve in 2001. Testing with his new team, Panis has continued where he left off with McLaren, and looks set to have an excellent season.

It's interesting to note that Ron Dennis went to great lengths to persuade Olivier to continue in his testing role with McLaren, offering him a sum of money way beyond what most F1 race drivers earn, but he accepted that any driver worth the name wants above all to race, and knew he was always likely to lose Panis after one season.

Now, as Olivier comes back to racing, the man he replaces at BAR, Ricardo Zonta, heads in the opposite direction, taking on the job of test driver at Jordan, while Alexander Wurz, late of Benetton, is to be McLaren's test driver.

If such people become available, it seems only common sense to employ them, for they know all about F1 before they arrive, and are known quantities, to some degree. "The great thing about having Olivier in the team," said Coulthard of Panis, "was that we knew absolutely where we were with him. We knew he was quick, so his times meant something, and we also knew that if he said something about the car, we could rely on it. When you've got a driver like him working with you, it takes a hell of a lot off the shoulders of the regular team drivers."




Dear Tim,
I also read Alain de Cadenet's recent piece in Motor Sport, and much enjoyed it, but, quite honestly, I don't agree with his conclusion that it is Ferrari's sports cars, rather than F1 cars, which have created the company's legend and mystique.

To me, anyway, the legend and mystique have come from the fact that this company which builds exotic sports cars has also been involved in Grand Prix racing for more than 50 years (and considerably longer than that, if we go back to the 'Scuderia Ferrari' Alfa Romeos before the war). You buy a Ferrari 360 or whatever, and it carries the same badge as that carried by Ascari, Fangio, Hawthorn, von Trips, Surtees, Lauda, Villeneuve, Prost, Schumacher et al.

I don't think the success of Chrysler's Viper or even Porsche's 911 are relevant, quite honestly, when it comes to Ferrari. NASCAR apart, Chrysler is not known as a 'racing' company, and has no heritage to add to the mystique of the Viper - beyond the Viper's own racing successes. Porsche, of course, has a fantastic competition record, but its major successes have come in sports car racing, rather than F1. It's therefore only logical that much of the legend and mystique which attaches to its road cars should come from Le Mans, etc.

Ferrari, though, is different. Although there were countless sports car victories, at Le Mans and elsewhere, down the years, it is a very long time since Maranello had any 'official' involvement in any form of racing but F1 - and F1, it must be said, has always been the company's preoccupation. Enzo, remember, always said that he originally began to build road cars as a necessary evil to pay for his racing - not that he went racing to sell road cars...

However much we may regret it - and time was when I adored it - the fact is that today, in the overall scheme of motor racing, sports car and GT racing counts for very little. Quite honestly, I don't think that Maranello could care less about creating a link between its current road cars and its successes on the track, because I reckon it exists already, in the minds of enthusiasts across the world. And the waiting list for 550s and 360s, bear in mind, runs to years, not months...




Dear Leow,
Winning the 1979 World Championship with Ferrari was by no means Jody Scheckter's only accomplishment, but it was inevitably his greatest achievement, and the high point of his career. However, while he won three Grands Prix that year, he had already won four with Tyrrell, and three with Wolf.

When first he came into F1, as McLaren's third driver, at the end of the 1972 season, Jody was immensely quick, but something of a wild man. The following year, he again drove in selected races with McLaren, and led most of the French Grand Prix, at Paul Ricard, before being eliminated in a coming-together with Emerson Fittipaldi. Then, at Silverstone, he lost it at the end of the first lap, spinning at the 'old' ultra-fast Woodcote Corner, and causing one of the biggest multiple accidents in Grand Prix racing history. Somehow, miraculously, only one driver - Andrea de Adamich - was hurt in the mayhem.

Scheckter moved to Tyrrell for 1974, and, although I'm sure Ken would deny it, I always felt that Jody was robbed of some of his spark at that point, which was never fully regained. He became the consummate pro, very quick when he needed to be, but increasingly known more for consistency than blazing Peterson-type speed.

After two seasons with the then new Wolf team - he actually won in Argentina, the team's very first race! - Scheckter finally went to Ferrari for 1979, and there achieved his life's ambition, and won the World Championship. It's undeniable that usually he was outpaced by his team mate, Gilles Villeneuve - but then that would have happened to any driver partnered with Gilles. Jody has, in fact, described Villeneuve as "the fastest driver the world has ever known".

If he were not as quick as Gilles, however, Jody was more consistent, and made fewer mistakes. Through the season, the points mounted up, and he clinched the title in the perfect way, winning the Italian Grand Prix at Monza in a Ferrari. All through the race, Villeneuve - his only rival for the championship - honourably sat behind him, and never gave overtaking him a thought.

"I'd given my word," Gilles said. "I mean, I hoped like hell he'd blow up! But the only team orders Ferrari ever had were that, as and when the two cars became 1-2 in the race, the driver ahead at the time should win. So...there was nothing to discuss."

Different times, were they not?

If the Ferrari T4 had been competitive, the T5 - for 1980 - was emphatically not. Scheckter decided quite early he would retire at the end of the season, and, while Villeneuve continued to give every race his all, Jody frequently gave the impression of a man who couldn't wait for the year to end.

I would not include Scheckter in a list of all-time greats, but undoubtedly on his day he was extremely quick, and a very intelligent racing driver, too. The World Championship did not come his way by luck.

As for the sons of Villeneuve and Scheckter, Jacques' style and way of going racing remind me increasingly of his father; he isn't as quick as Gilles, but certainly he is more controlled. As for Tomas Scheckter, it's a little early to say. He doesn't show the plain savage speed that Jody had in his early days, but on occasion he looked very good in F3000, and he now has a fine intro to F1 with his Jaguar test contract.




Dear Lex,
Why do great drivers decline? For the same reasons that sportsmen of all kinds decline: they get older. You ask: is it physical? The inevitable decline of reflexes, fitness and mental concentration? Yes, it is all of these things. Psychological, too? To some degree, yes again. After a long period of racing, with great successes along the way, it's inevitable that the will to win is diminished, even if only in part.

There are other elements, too. When drivers are young, and new to the game, they tend to be virtually fearless, and take chances they would shrink from 10 or 15 years down the road. And...there's the question of money, too. Once a driver has immense wealth, it crosses his mind increasingly that another life, beyond racing, exists and awaits, and it would be foolish to put that in unnecessary jeopardy. Not a few drivers have admitted this to me.

In the end, though, what counts most is the sheer 'ageing process'. Most great drivers, it seems to me, are at their absolute peak in their early to mid-thirties, after which the raw speed begins to diminish. This may not be overtly apparent for some time, disguised to some degree by other strengths, like experience, but eventually a driver has to face the fact that he isn't quite what he used to be.

This doesn't mean he has to retire, of course. If, like Mario Andretti, there is simply nothing else he wants to do with his life, he can go on for years and years, still winning sometimes, but not the force he was. Andretti, though, is the exception to the rule. These days, most drivers retire in their thirties, rather than forties, let alone - as in Mario's case - their fifties.

It is interesting that so many retired drivers remain quick in their later years. Jack Brabham is a classic example; now 74, he is still well capable of driving a '60s F1 car at a mighty impressive speed. Fangio was exactly the same. "I don't think you ever forget what to do," Brabham says. "You just can't do it for many laps any more - you simply don't have the stamina."




Dear Gregor,
I'm all for it. Through last season, it was quite evident that the Jaguar team needed a considerable revamp, and I think the changes in personnel can only be good.

I must declare something of an interest here, in that Bobby Rahal is a good friend of mine, and has been for many years. Having said that, however, I must say that I have always been very impressed by the way he goes racing, by the way he ran his own CART team, by the way he deals with people. Take my word for it, Rahal, for all his urbane and charming manner, is no fool. He may have a lot to learn about F1, but I get the impression that he has learned a lot already: certainly, he isn't a man afraid to take tough decisions.

As for Steve Nichols, he is another bloke for whom I have a great deal of time and admiration. He worked very successfully at McLaren - Alain Prost still says that the 1988 McLaren-Honda MP4-4 (designed by Nichols) was the best car he ever drove - and then later at Ferrari. I'm not saying that Steve is another Adrian Newey - neither is anyone else, for that matter - but I do think he's a calm, methodical and effective engineer, who can do Jaguar nothing but good.




Dear Javier,
You can draw certain conclusions from testing, but only up to a point. It is not exactly unknown, for example, for a team short of sponsorship to run a seriously underweight car in testing, so as to set impressive times in the hope of attracting new money...

All kinds of variables come into play in testing. You can never be absolutely sure, for example, how much fuel a car is carrying when it sets a given time, or how old are its tyres.

Then there are the drivers. Some - Nigel Mansell was a classic example - absolutely had to set a quick time on every day of every test, whereas others - like Alain Prost - never cared about such things. Prost, in fact, would always aim to drive at about 90% of his potential in testing, so that he knew that any improvement in the times was coming from an improvement in the car, rather than through his extra effort.

The serious teams tend to approach testing in a rather different way from the rest, too. They will tend to have their drivers run longer distances, sometimes a full race-distance, rather than sending them out on short runs all the time. Testing times tend to mean more and more as the winter goes on, as the first race of the new season nears, but in the end the first times that truly mean anything are those in the qualifying session for the opening Grand Prix, when everyone is running together - and everyone shows their hand.