Ask Nigel: May 15

Dear Ian,

Actually, I think Ferrari's decision to continue with Barrichello for another two years is a very wise one - and I'm sure, after the events of last Sunday, they are all too aware of that...

First of all, look how Rubens has been driving this season - often he has pushed Schumacher for pole position, and in Austria he plain beat him, both in qualifying and the race. Offhand I can't think of any other team-mate of Michael's who ever did that. Although his luck has been lousy, his confidence is high, and he is driving beautifully. I thought it was a travesty that he was obliged to give the win away last weekend.

Second, he has the absolute support of Schuey - surprised? - and if you have any Ferrari ambitions at all, you can't put a price on that.
Michael may not actually decide who his team-mate shall be - but for sure he decides who it will not be! In that respect, he is completely autocratic, and you may be very sure that the overwhelming priority in
Maranello is 'not upsetting Michael'. In spite of all the rumours about such as Massa and Button, my Italian colleagues were adamant from the start that Barrichello's contract would be renewed, if for no other reason than that was what Schumacher wanted.

Given all that, I can't think of a better alternative for Ferrari than Rubens. He's extremely quick - and also entirely honourable. Everyone's talking about what happened in Austria last Sunday, but let's not forget about the 2001 Grand Prix, when he drove a better race than
Michael, yet was obliged - on the orders of Jean Todt - to back off on the run up to the line, allowing his team-mate into second place. He made it quite plain afterwards that he had been less than thrilled by the instruction - but still he obeyed it. Not all racing drivers are like this. And on Sunday, of course, he behaved with astonishing equanimity afterwards.

I take your point about Ferrari's taking a young guy, a potential star like Button or Massa, so to groom him into a replacement for
Schumacher, whose contract expires at the end of 2004, and who is not expected to race beyond that date. But I can see a whole lot of things changing at Ferrari when that time comes - it wouldn't surprise me if
Messrs Todt, Brawn and Byrne all took their leave of the team at the same time, quite honestly. As Ross said to me last year, "It will be very difficult to work with another driver after Michael, because his professionalism, his level of ability, all those things...I mean, he's just the best, so of course if you haven't got the best, it's more difficult. It's very hard to get motivated unless you go to a race knowing you've a chance of winning - and every race I've been to with Ferrari and Michael, I've had that feeling."

You talk about grooming a young driver 'as Michael's replacement', but in fact this is not often the way Ferrari do things - they tend to prefer that young guys go through their learning period with other teams, and then lure them away with huge financial offers. This is what happened with Schumacher himself, of course.

My gut feeling is that the driver Ferrari would most like in the future is Juan Pablo Montoya - a man already more popular in Italy than Michael, according to my colleagues from that country. "Schumacher the Tifosi admire, but don't love," one of them said. "Montoya is the kind of driver - like Gilles - they will take to their hearts."

Juan says he would like to drive for Ferrari one day - but it certainly ain't going to happen while Michael's still racing...



Dear Kenneth,

Riccardo was a driver I much admired, and a bloke I like very much - but it wasn't always so...

Absurd as it seems now, for much of Patrese's career, I resolutely avoided contact with him, this the consequence of a brief conversation we had at Zandvoort in 1979. He had crashed (brake failure) at the end of the pit straight in what Jackie Stewart would call, "A fairly important way", and when I later asked him what had happened, he gave me advice not only anatomically impossible, but also, I thought, bloody rude. That being so, I made a similar suggestion to him, and stalked off, siding with those who thought him a brat.

Thus, we had one those ridiculous 'situations', and it persisted until Patrese joined Williams in the late eighties. "Look," Ann Bradshaw, the team's PR said to me one day, "I love you both, and it's stupid you don't talk to each other." In the motorhome Riccardo and I shook hands, exchanged apologies, and were good friends ever after.

"I think," he said, "that maybe I often used to behave like that in those days. Everyone thought I was arrogant, but the truth was that I was shy. I was very young still, and didn't know any of the other drivers very well. And I must admit, I was very intense..."

Disliked, too. Riccardo was one of those young drivers very quick from the outset, and he frequently drove over his head in those early days. But what affected him more than anything was the multiple accident at
Monza, in the autumn of 1978, which cost the life of Ronnie Peterson.

In the subsequent hysteria, other drivers judged Patrese culpable for the chain reaction disaster, which occurred within seconds of the start. At the time it seemed not to matter that the blame lay plainly elsewhere; this upstart had been disconcerting them all season long, and was a natural whipping boy, who needed to be taught a lesson. If Patrese's entry for the next race, at Watkins Glen, were to be accepted, they said, they would not take part. Thus, they effectively had him banned for a race.

"It was because they didn't like my attitude over the season, but by timing it when they did, it looked as if they were punishing me for the Monza accident. Psychologically, I had no problem with that, because I knew it hadn't been my fault. But it took a long time to forget how the other drivers treated me..."

Years later, one of them told me that this was the only incident in his career of which he felt truly ashamed. It had been a witch hunt, nothing more or less, and one of the loudest voices, sad to say, was that of James Hunt. To the end of Hunt's life, the rift between himself and Patrese was never repaired.

World Kart Champion in 1974, Riccardo came into F1, via F3, with Shadow in 1977, and spent years - too many years - with Arrows, then as now a fringe team. Bernie Ecclestone was always a fan, and tried to get him to Brabham in 1979, but at that time Patrese was starry-eyed about Ferrari, and declined to sign long contracts, so as to be free to accept The Offer, which was constantly promised, ultimately never delivered.

In 1982, finally, he committed himself to Brabham, winning his first Grand Prix at Monaco and his second, the following year, at Kyalami. For 1984, though, Ecclestone unfathomably chose to replace him with the terminally overrated Teo Fabi, and Riccardo, against his better judgement, signed for the Euroracing Alfa Romeo team. Two seasons in the deep wilderness followed.

"The cars were hopeless, and I was so angry about it that, by 1985, it was beginning to affect my private life. I can remember one day saying to myself, 'Hey, Riccardo, you have to do something.' I mean, I was not smiling at all! It was a turning point in my life. I changed my approach, my mentality, everything - and I still don't know how I made myself do it. After that, life became easier."

Bernie Ecclestone has been really close to very few drivers, but Patrese was one of them, and he went back into the Brabham fold for two more years. "It was lucky for me that Bernie and I were friends. Even though he decided to give up being a team owner in 1987, he recommended me to Frank Williams..."

So began the most productive relationship of Riccardo's career. "When I went to Williams," he said, "it was like a camera which had finally come into focus." Over time everyone in the team became very fond of him, not least because he established an excellent technical rapport with Patrick Head - not least, either, because he was so much easier to live with than Nigel Mansell, who returned to Williams in 1991. Rather more of a team player, too.

"You call Riccardo up," said Head, "ask him to test at a moment's notice, and he'll say fine, no problem, I'll be there. He's not a selfish man, that's the point, which is quite rare in a racing driver. His ego's under control, too. Which is also quite rare..."

Speaking of egos, in 1991 Mansell said this of his team-mate: "I take Riccardo's speed this year as a great compliment to me." Er, how so? "Well, because I'm the only one who can motivate him." Ah, yes. Had Patrese been inclined to return the back-handed compliment, he might have suggested that perhaps Mansell had overdone the motivation: that season it was not until Silverstone, after all, that the great man managed to out-qualify him...

As it was, Patrese always tolerated Mansell's excesses with admirable fortitude. And although the Williams-Renaults were not conspicuously reliable in '91, Riccardo had a very fine season, with four pole positions and a couple of victories, in Mexico and Portugal.

While not on the same page, week in, week out, as a Senna or a Prost, when the mood was on him Patrese was a magnificent racing driver, and my abiding memory of him will always be final qualifying at Estoril that year. Early in the session his own car blew up, and his behaviour was pure Latin theatrical as he stomped back to the pits. There the spare Williams sat, but, under the terms of Mansell's contract, it was for his use alone. Not until the last five minutes of the session, when Nigel clearly wouldn't need it, was Riccardo permitted to climb aboard.

There had no opportunity for set-up work, merely an educated guess or two, and the Renault V10 was of an earlier, less powerful, type, but Patrese had ire and adrenalin to spare that afternoon; after a single warm-up lap, he shoved Senna, Berger and Mansell aside, and put himself on the pole. "That was good, wasn't it?" Patrick Head beamed afterwards, and he was even sunnier the next day, when Riccardo won the race.

The following year, though, Williams went 'active', and although their performance advantage was stupendous, Patrese was less at his ease, and rarely now on terms with Mansell. "I admit I prefer passive cars," he said, "because they have so much more feel. Nigel either has more bravery, or less imagination, or both..."

He finished second to Mansell in the World Championship in 1992, and then left for Benetton, with whom he had signed when it seemed certain that Frank would run Prost and Mansell the following year. Almost as soon he had put pen to paper, Riccardo learned that Mansell was quitting F1, and that he could have stayed, after all.

"That's life, isn't it?" he shrugged. "Two weeks after I signed with Benetton, there was a chance for me to stay with Williams, but I said, 'No, Riccardo, if you have signed something - or even given your word - that's it.'" Sadly, Benetton behaved rather differently when it came to the second year of his contract, and at the end of a disappointing '93 season, partnering the youthful Michael Schumacher, he had to accept that his 256-race F1 career was at an end.

There were only six victories, fewer by far than might have been predicted when he blitzed into Grand Prix racing in the late seventies, but I'll warrant that Patrese got more pure pleasure from his racing life than any of his more highly-touted colleagues. In a paddock, particularly after his 'transformation' in 1985, he was patently a happy man.

Away from it, too, thanks to the divine Suzy and their three kids, to whom he was devoted. It was never in Riccardo's nature to be flashy - no private jets or helicopters for him - and nor was he greedily obsessive about money, which also stood him proud of your average meeting of GPDA members. "I know other drivers make much more than I do," he would say, "but I can make a good life from what I earn, and I think what Frank pays me is correct for a driver of my record." Team owners dream of folk like this.

Perhaps, on reflection, Patrese left F1 at the right time, for he had little in common with the average grand prix driver of the nineties, preferring Beethoven to the inevitable 'Phil Collins and George Michael', and devoting himself, as well as to golf and skiing, to unusual hobbies, like collecting classic watches and rare Marklin model trains. Although he kept an apartment in Monte Carlo, in reality home was always Padua, where he was born, where he went to university.

You can tell a lot about a driver, I have found, from talking to his mechanics, and among them Patrese was always adored, not least because he never took them for granted. Grand Prix drivers are traditionally slow when it comes to reaching for their wallets, but in Adelaide every year Riccardo would treat the entire team - Williams and Renault personnel - to a memorable end-of-season dinner. Folk remember these things.

It was a sign of the team's affection for him that Patrese was invited to have a run in the Williams-Renault FW18 in the autumn of 1996. Tanned and fit as ever, Riccardo savoured the experience, and proved he could still do this, eventually setting a time which would have qualified him in the first couple of rows at the British Grand Prix.

I briefly wrote about it at the time, and later a letter of thanks came chattering over my fax. Unlike some, Riccardo Patrese will always be one of those guys you hope you'll run into in the paddock at Imola or Monza or wherever. Silly now to think how long we avoided each other...



Dear Dave,

Mmmmm, I know what you mean, but...

You're quite right that the Indy 500 is getting back to something like it used to be, now that many of the major CART teams are entering the race again, and bringing with them drivers who, for the most part, are streets better than the great majority of the IRL brigade.

The problem I have with the race, though, is the problem I have with any Indy Racing League event - and that is that the cars do nothing for me at all. I grant you I have never actually attended an IRL race, but
I've seen many races on TV, and like neither the look nor the sound of the cars. CART cars, on the other hand, I find beautiful to look at, and glorious to hear.

They are also very much faster. Just last weekend I was talking to Juan Pablo Montoya about his one and only visit to the Indy 500 (in 2000, when he ran with away with the race). It was also, of course, the only time he ever drove an IRL car, and I asked him how it compared with the CART car he raced for Chip Ganassi in 1999-2000.

"I guess it's a little like driving an F3000 car after an F1 car," Montoya said. "A lot less power - and a lot more downforce. When I was a kid, growing up in Colombia, I'd watch the Indy 500 on TV, and what I really loved was the way the guys came right out to the wall at the exit of the turns - they really needed the full width of the track, and I thought that was great. But when I went there myself, in the IRL car, I found that there was so much downforce that you only needed about half the width of the track coming off the turns. I would
love to have driven the CART car round there..." I'd have crossed the Atlantic just to see that.

In the last couple of weeks there has been much talk of the speeds at Indy this year, and there is no doubt that they have leaped since last year, with Bruno Junqueira taking the pole at over 231mph. Keep this in mind, though: back in 1996, the first year of the IRL, everyone ran out-of-date CART cars, and in one of those Arie Luyendyk ran a lap at over 238.

I can't go to Rockingham this year - it clashes with Monza - but I will be at Milwaukee in a couple of weeks for one last look at what I consider classic 'Indycars'. As for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway itself, much as I love the place, and everything it has meant, I somewhat doubt that I will ever go to the 500 again. Sorry...




Dear Michael,

As you say, the McLarens have frequently been quick in testing this season - but they've tended to be quick at circuits where high downforce is of more importance than horsepower. And that really is the whole point.

McLaren folk are being remarkably discreet and self-controlled in their public remarks, but there is no doubt at all that the current weakness in the McLaren-Mercedes lies to some degree with the tyres - thus far Michelin have rarely been a match for Bridgestone this season - and to a greater degree with the engine.

Mercedes personnel tend to get angry and defensive when this is suggested, which is not very intelligent, to my way of thinking. Face it: it happens. Sometimes a team will let down an engine manufacturer, and sometimes it's the other way round - and that is no more than inevitable. There have been times when McLaren's chassis has not done justice to the Mercedes engine.

David Coulthard has told me he thinks the McLaren MP4-17 is perhaps the best car the company has produced since the dominant year of 1998, with a tremendous amount of inherent downforce. When I watched out on the circuit at Imola it seemed to me that DC's car was the only one that looked a match for the Ferraris. This was Saturday morning, and at the time David was trading fastest laps with Michael Schumacher.

Come the race, though, McLaren are obliged to take off as much wing as possible - trim the cars right out - so as not to be easy prey down the straights. Thus, the grip goes out of the window, and the car becomes, in David's words, 'almost undriveable'.

The word is that, at present, the Mercedes V10 is 50-60 horsepower down on the BMW and the Ferrari. Honda is in a similarly distressing position. I don't say McLaren won't win a race this season - but, as things stand, it's going to take more than a little luck.