Ask Nigel Roebuck: February 11

Dear Steve,

Weight is a little more crucial in F1 than in Indycar racing, and I think you'd have a problem persuading designers it was a good plan to lug compressed-air jacks through a Grand Prix. Speed doesn't really come into it - the wheel changes are usually completed long before all the fuel has gone in, so it's the refuelling that governs the length of the pit stop. Also, the restrictions of the number of personnel allowed to work on a car are much less tight than in US racing.

The last time a team tried to field two cars with different colourschemes was BAR some years ago - seem to recall that one was to be in 'Lucky Strike' livery, the other in 'State Express'. In the end, both cars raced with a sort of half-and-half paint job, which looked ridiculous. Why do the cars have to be in identical livery? Because, in the opinion of the powers-that-be, it looks better that way, and creates a more professional image for the whole sport of F1.



Dear Stephen,

No, I don't think Luca Badoer could have been a front runner. Certainly, I think it's not impossible he could have won a Grand Prix or two, had he been in the Ferrari team for the last few years - let's face it, in 2002 it was virtually impossible to lose a race if you were in a Ferrari, and once Michael Schumacher's umpteenth World Championship had been clinched, his team mate - whoever he was - would have been allowed to take a victory or two, as was the case with Rubens Barrichello.

Badoer, though, is plainly nowhere near Barrichello's class. Recently I was chatting to an ex-World Champion about the Barcelona test session he had just watched, and he made the point that, of all the drivers present, Badoer was far and away the most untidy: "Every lap was different. That's not the sign of a top driver..."

I'm not saying for a second that Badoer is other than a very competent F1 driver, but I certainly don't regard him as 'a great wasted talent'.

As for Wurz, yes, he does seem to have had a career in reverse - although not to the same extent as Giancarlo Baghetti, who won his first F1 races in 1961 (including his first Grand Prix, at Reims), but never won another thing in subsequent years! Alex did indeed look very promising in his early races with Benetton, then faded somewhat. I don't necessarily think that going to Jaguar at this time - when money is short, and the R5 is looking less than spectacular - would have been his best move, but, on the other hand, he has now been a test driver for a very long time, and one doubts that he will ever be offered a chance to race with any top-level team.



Dear Peter,

Alain Prost - as you say, among the very greatest drivers who ever lived - did indeed have an aversion to wet races, but this had nothing to do with the track's being slippery. What Prost objected to - and quite reasonably, in my opinion - were conditions when there was great deal of standing water on the circuit, when the spray was so severe, the visibility so negligible, that a driver was effectively blind. This, he felt, had nothing whatever to do with skill. Whether you're the greatest driver on the planet, or the most inept, if you can't see, you can't see. Period.

Prost's attitude did indeed have plenty to do with the 'incident a long time ago during practice at Hockenheim', as you put it. But this was rather more than an 'incident', believe me, and I know because I saw it.

It happened during Saturday morning practice in 1982, and conditions were truly dreadful. Towards the end of the lap, immediately before the stadium section, Prost's Renault was slowing, preparing to come into the pits. "I had Daly's Williams behind me," Alain said, "so I kept to the left, at maybe 120mph, allowing Derek through on the right."

Didier Pironi's Ferrari, in the meantime, was on a quick lap, thundering up on the pair of them. When Pironi saw Daly move to the right, he interpreted it as an effort to get out of his way, give him room to go by on the left. Hence, quite unable to see Prost, he headed flat out into a wall of spray, into what he thought was a gap, an empty space. His left front wheel hit Prost's right rear. At 160mph the Ferrari vaulted over the Renault.

"I felt completely helpless," Prost said. "Pironi's car actually overtook me in the air. It landed, gearbox first, in front of me, then bounced away, somersaulting down the road. Awful. And I was worried about running into him, because now I had hardly any braking - the right rear corner of my car was gone..."

Prost got the car stopped, and ran to the wreckage of the Ferrari. Already there was Piquet, who had also pulled off, he had looked into the cockpit, and what he had seen made him vomit. It should be no surprise that neither man has ever forgotten that morning. Pironi - who had been on course to win the World Championship that year - survived the accident, but his leg injuries were so severe that he never raced a car again.

Six years on, at the British Grand Prix in 1988, once again there was torrential rain, with appalling visibility. Prost's McLaren was not handling well, in any case, but the conditions were so bad that after 24 laps he pulled into the pits, and climbed out of his car.

Following that race he was castigated by some members of the French press. Typically, he made no excuses, frankly admitting that the conditions had scared him, that he saw no good reason for continuing in a race in which he had no chance of a decent result, a race in which he might easily get hurt. At Hockenheim, a fortnight later, I talked to him about it.

"After Silverstone, I could have said I had a problem with the clutch, the engine, the handling...and the story would have been over: they would all have written that Prost had problems with the car, and that's it. As it was, I said that I didn't feel good, that the car wasn't very good either, so I didn't want to take any risks, and I stopped. It was my decision, and either you respect it or you don't.

"The more I think about it, the more I realise I should have stopped after one lap. And one day I'll do that. Even if I'm on pole position. I'm quite serious.

"I'll admit that Pironi's accident made a big impression, and for sure influenced my attitude, but there's more to it than that. Actually, I like to drive when it's wet, but I don't like it when there's a lot of water lying on the track. Remember Estoril in '85? I did quite a good race there, running behind Ayrton and Michele Alboreto, but it finished when I spun - on the straight by the pits! I hit a deep puddle, and the car was gone.

"Now, think of Silverstone. At the start, I was in the middle of the field - OK, same for everyone, I know. You are flat on the straight. You just see the side of the track, and sometimes the light on the car in front of you. Sometimes you see nothing. You hear the noise of the engines, and you listen hard - are they running flat, full throttle? When you hear the revs coming down, you know there's a corner approaching. Remember what happened to me at Estoril. If one car had done that on the first lap at Silverstone, can you imagine what would have happened?

"What I'm saying is that no one objects to the wet because the track is slippery. We're supposed to be the best drivers in the world, and we ought to be able to handle that. But not being able to see is a different thing again, and that's what I don't like. When you're flat in sixth, and you can't see 10 metres in front of you, it's just a matter of luck - good or bad. For me, that has nothing to do with motor racing, but that's only my opinion. Other drivers think differently, and I understand that."

Later I asked Professor Watkins, who is of course always driven round behind the pack on the opening lap of a Grand Prix, how it had felt to follow in the wake of 26 cars at Silverstone. "Couldn't see a thing!" said the Prof. "At Copse there were bits of car all over the road, but in the spray we never even saw the car that had had the shunt..."

Niki Lauda, Alain's one-time McLaren team mate, and one from whom he learned much, withdrew after a couple of laps at Fuji in 1976. It was the last race of the year, and would decide the destiny of the World Championship. And Niki, in competition with James Hunt for the title, considered the monsoon conditions unacceptable, and quit. So also, for that matter, did three other drivers, but there was no heavy criticism of them.

No, such sniping as there was went the way of Lauda, because he was Lauda. Ferrari's technical director Mauro Forghieri, embarrassed for him, suggested they tell the press of some mythical problem with the car, but Niki would have none of that: he had pulled out because he thought the conditions unsafe, insane.

Prost finally did go ahead with his threat to 'withdraw after one lap' at Adelaide in 1989, where conditions were as bad as any I have ever seen. On the grid there appeared to be virtual unanimity among the drivers; today they would not race, at least not until conditions had significantly improved. And we knew from weather reports that the rain was in for the day. Prost decided to do one lap, then come in, and several of his fellows concurred.

Sure enough, the number 2 McLaren, running second to Senna's sister car, peeled off into pit time, but no other car followed. A spin by JJ Lehto duly brought the race to a halt, and Prost's mechanics pushed his car to the end of the pit time, presumably to show it was fit to run, and had stopped only because the driver had stopped.

Away they went for the second time, and Alain changed into civvies, sat down to watch the TV coverage in the McLaren cabin. He was perfectly at ease with himself: "I can promise you, and I'll say it now - while Senna is leading - that if we had been fighting for the championship this afternoon, I would still have done the same.

"On the grid," Prost went on, "everyone agreed there was no way to start - everyone! Apart from Ayrton, anyway, and I understand that: he had to race because he still had a chance in the championship. But the rest of us agreed it was ridiculously dangerous, and we wouldn't start. I went to the Clerk of the Course, and asked for another delay, and he said no. Then a lot of drivers got back in their cars, so I said, 'OK, one lap, and I stop'.

"I always respect other drivers' decisions, but what I can't understand today is that they said they wouldn't start - and then did. One day, you know, there will be a big accident, when someone will be killed simply because he couldn't see where he was going. What I'm saying has nothing to do with a slippery track - you need skill to cope with that. But skill is useless when you're doing 280kph, and you can't see the car in front of you. It's the straights that are so dangerous..."

Perhaps the most telling comment of all came from Senna, whose freakish reactions and fantastic skills ultimately counted for nothing in the zero visibility on the long straight. At 150mph he drove into the back of Martin Brundle's Brabham - simply because he hadn't been able to see it.

Given the state of play between them that year, charity towards the other might not have been expected from Senna and Prost. It was there, though. Just as Prost understood Senna's motive for racing, so Ayrton sympathised with Alain's decision. "In his position, I would have done exactly the same," he said.

Years later, Gerhard Berger told me he still felt ashamed of his behaviour that day in Adelaide. "On the grid I agreed completely with Alain, and said that I, too, would stop after one lap. So did most of the other guys. I saw Prost go in, and I knew I should do the same, but I didn't have the balls - I carried on, and so did the others. Alain was the only one with the guts to stick by what we had all agreed."

Nowadays, of course, if there is rain at the start, the cars set off behind the safety car, and run slowly until conditions improve to the point that the stewards consider it safe to go racing. Similarly, in the event of a downpour during the race, out comes the safety car again. It was all a little different during Prost's era.



Dear Chris,

What are my feelings about this mess? Just that - it's a mess! And I can't disagree with a single point you have made.

The whole thing makes me terribly sad, because I have adored 'Indycar racing' all my life, and for years and years always managed to work at least one CART race into my schedule. When CART was at its zenith - 10 or 12 years ago - I thought it the best racing series on earth. At Milwaukee each year, I'd see more wheel-to-wheel action than in the rest of the season put together. Sadly, though, the last race I saw there - in 2002 - pretty well put me to sleep. The quality of the field was much reduced, and the 'aero regs' of the time had made overtaking virtually impossible.

I sometimes watch IRL races on TV, but frankly find them boring - great bunches of rev-limited cars droning round together, NASCAR-style, and the occasional terrifying accident. I hope the OWRS guys find a way to make their series a success, but they've got a mountain to climb.



Dear Ronan,

Derek Daly did indeed drive for Williams - in 1982, following the retirement, after the Brazilian Grand Prix, of Carlos Reutemann. From the Belgian Grand Prix on, Daly partnered Keke Rosberg, but while Keke went on to become World Champion that year, DD scored only eight points, and was not retained for the following season.

If memory serves, Derek did not actually lead the Monaco Grand Prix - or if he did, it was only a few seconds. The final stages of that race were, as you say, chaotic, partly as the result of light drizzle in the last 10 laps. Alain Prost, leading comfortably in the turbocharged Renault, hit the barriers when his car looped into a spin at the exit of the chicane. This was on lap 74 of the 76-lap race.

At that point Riccardo Patrese's Brabham-Cosworth took the lead, but the following lap he spun - and stalled - into the Loews Hairpin. Because the car came to rest in 'a dangerous place', he was allowed a push start by the marshals, but by now seemed to be out of it. Didier Pironi's turbocharged Ferrari had taken the lead, followed by Andrea de Cesaris's Alfa Romeo and Daly's Williams.

Halfway round the last lap, Pironi's car came to a halt in the tunnel, out of fuel - while de Cesaris's Alfa, too, had stopped at the exit of Casino Square, for the same reason. That should have left the race to Daly - but unfortunately, a few laps earlier, he had clouted a barrier out of Tabac, and wiped off the rear wing. While that in itself would not have stopped him, there had also been damage to the gearbox, whose oil eventually leaked away. He, too, came to a halt.

The restarted Patrese, meanwhile, came in to take what was the first Grand Prix victory of his career. Pironi was classified second, de Cesaris third, Nigel Mansell's still-running Lotus fourth, and Daly fifth.

Memories of DD? That he was - and is - a thoroughly good guy, with a wonderful sense of dry Irish humour. As a driver, though, I remember him more for his bravery than anything else.



Dear Hans,

I am not privy to all the goings-on to do with Verstappen and Jordan recently, so I can't tell you exactly why they failed in the end to reach an agreement for this season - but I am reasonably sure it was not a lack of money, per se, which kept him from partnering Nick Heidfeld in 2004. In terms of sheer dollars, indeed, it seems that Jos's management had quite a lot more to offer than any other driver seeking the ride.

I like Verstappen, and think him a very good driver - at one time, indeed, with Benetton in 1994, he looked like a potential star. In uncertain conditions, where driving ability can compensate for a middling car, he has often excelled, as in the Arrows at Sepang in 2001, where he ran as high as second.

That said, in the end truly exceptional drivers finish up in exceptional teams, because that's the way F1 invariably shakes out. Jos is certainly good enough to stay in F1, but he has never realised his potential, which is why he is now obliged, each year, to attempt to buy a drive.