Ask Nigel Roebuck: January 21

When Ferrari reached a new agreement with Michael Schumacher, in June of 2003, they declined to do the same with regard to Rubens at the same time, and clearly there was a message there: let's see how you do for the rest of the season, and then we'll make a decision.

By the end of the year, there had still been no new contract on offer, at which point Rubens took the initiative, and announced that he sincerely hoped his future beyond the end of 2004 - would be settled by the time the new season began.

He told me at Monaco last year that he hoped that his future would be with Ferrari, but of course, like everyone else, I wondered if the news of Juan Montoya's move to McLaren for 2005 might have changed that a little. Potentially on offer, after all, was now a seat in a Williams-BMW - and on Michelins.

When Schumacher announced his decision to continue for two more seasons, beyond 2004, Barrichello was plainly as surprised as anyone else - and disappointed, too, for obviously he must have dreamed of being at Ferrari in a post-Schumacher era.

In the end, though, the new deal with Ferrari was done, and now Rubens's future is sealed until the end of 2006, by which time he will be approaching his 35th birthday, with 14 seasons of F1 behind him. I think it not unreasonable to assume that the money on offer from Ferrari was more than any other team could match, but if I was pleased that the team had decided to keep faith with him, still there was also a feeling of disappointment we would not be getting the opportunity of seeing Rubens as a free agent in another team.

Last week he said he felt certain there was a world championship in him, but I think this will be hard to achieve unless or until there is a fundamental shift in mindset at Ferrari - inevitably one must wonder if he is still to face the thankless prospect of subjugating his own ambitions, at the team's discretion, to those of Schumacher.

I'm not saying that Rubens can't win a championship with Ferrari - in fact, I suspect he's going to be more competitive this year than ever before. Overall, let's remember, he was the best qualifier of last year, and at Silverstone he scored the season's best victory. But, like you, I would love to have seen him in a Williams-BMW, with no constraints upon him whatever.



I used to love everything about going to 'The Glen'. Time was when it was the last race of the World Championship each year, and everything about it was right. First, it was a fantastic circuit in its own right; second, it was in upstate New York, an area I adored - and seen at its best in the fall; third, I would fly into JFK, and spend a few days in my favourite city before going up to the race; fourth, there was always a lovely 'end of term' feel to the race weekend.

Let me answer your last question first: would I like to see the circuit hold a race again one day? Emphatically, yes, for all the reasons listed above. But I have to say I think the chances of it are minimal - not least because the Glen is not situated in an area proliferating in the glitzy hotels without which F1's high rollers are apparently lost.

I first went there for the US Grand Prix in 1971, a marvellous race which ended in victory for the Tyrrell of Francois Cevert - sadly the only one of his all too brief career. Two years later, at the same circuit, Cevert was killed in final qualifying, and his team mate Jackie Stewart withdrew from what would have been his 100th - and last - Grand Prix. The race featured a fantastic battle between Ronnie Peterson's Lotus and James Hunt's Hesketh, but the death of Francois inevitably cast a pall over the weekend.

Three years later, Hunt won the race in his McLaren, and put himself on course for the World Championship, which he duly clinched in Japan, and the following year he won it again - but only after Hans Stuck's Brabham-Alfa had dominated the early stages.

Probably the best race I ever saw at the Glen, however, was the '79 Grand Prix. Jody Scheckter may have already clinched the World Championship, but throughout that season the out-and-out fastest men were Alan Jones (Williams) and Gilles Villeneuve (Ferrari). At Montreal the weekend before, the two of them fought a pitched battle throughout, with victory going narrowly to Jones, and at the Glen they resumed their rivalry, with everyone else a bit player in the proceedings.

This time Villeneuve, with wavering oil pressure, won, following Jones's retirement (a lost wheel immediately after a tyre stop). It was wet in the early stages, during which Gilles had control, but as it dried out the superior grip of the Williams asserted itself, and Alan looked set for another win until his problem intervened.

We were all delighted to see the season end with another Villeneuve victory, however, not least because of the display he had put on during wet practice on the Friday. Conditions that day were as bad as ever I have seen at a race track, but Gilles looked to be travelling at a completely different sort of speed from anyone else.

So, too, he was. When the times came out, Scheckter was second quickest - 11 seconds slower than Villeneuve!

I watched that session from the pits with Jacques Laffite, who, like several of his colleagues, had declined to go out at all in the monsoon. "Look at him," Jacques said as Gilles fishtailed past. "He's not like the rest of us. He's on another level..."

Of all my days at the Glen, that is the one I remember most of all.



First, a disclaimer. When I started work as a journalist in F1, in 1971, Chris Amon was the first driver to befriend me, and so anything I say about him is probably going to be more than a touch biased. Given that I live in England, and that, for the last 25 years or so, he has lived in his native New Zealand, we don't see a lot of each other any more, but we have always kept in touch, and it's been one of the enduring friendships of my life.

However, I'll try and be as even-handed as I can. First of all, I think Chris's natural talent was phenomenally high, and I'm not alone in that. Ferrari's Mauro Forghieri, who worked with a few drivers in his time, said this of him: "Chris should have been World Champion with Ferrari, and it's a fact that we let him down, that we didn't give him the car to do it. As a test driver, he was the best I ever worked with. As far as I'm concerned, he was as good as Clark."

At the beginning of the 1970 season, Jochen Rindt said this: "I have only two rivals - Stewart and Amon." And JYS said that, "In terms of natural, raw, talent, I'd rate Chris right up there." So that much we can take for granted.

Stewart also suggested, though, that a great deal of Amon's bad luck was of his own making, and I wouldn't disagree with that for a second. He was always too trusting, too willing to listen to advice from the wrong people. Much of the time - until he met Tish, his second wife - his personal life was chaotic; always he was disorganised about such routine matters as 'plane tickets and hotel bookings. And yes, as you say, he was a genius at going to the wrong team at the wrong time - and the decision to form his own (short-lived) team was a catastrophic one.

You're right, too, when you describe him as 'engimatic, but surely great'. I always thought Chris's personality was altogether too human to be compatible with a career in F1. It was often said that he lacked killer instinct, and it's a fact that his race was always primarily against himself, his greatest satisfaction the putting together of the perfect lap.

When it came to racing, Amon was a complete purist, of the kind you simply don't encounter among the drivers any more. Even in the '70s he was coming to hate the commercialisation which was increasingly overtaking F1, often saying he had been born into the wrong era. Surprisingly, though, his sense of humour - by no means a universal characteristic of Grand Prix drivers - survived intact, and he was always wonderful company. He chain-smoked and chewed his nails, yet in the cockpit was totally relaxed - it came easy to him.

Chris should have won a shedload of races, and maybe a World Championship, but neither came his way, and it's fact that pure bad luck played a huge role in that - even if sometimes he ran halfway to meet it. In terms of ability, he lacked for nothing at all.



In fact, the P34 was something of an anomaly, for the Tyrrell team was not one normally renowned for innovation, and tended to follow in that respect, rather than lead. I remember, at the end of 1978 (the year in which he won the World Championship), showing Mario Andretti a photograph of the just-announced Tyrrell 009 for the '79 season. "Jesus Christ!" Mario growled. "It's a Lotus 79!" And, true enough, it did look that way.

The late Harvey Postlethwaite, though, was not without an innovative idea or two, and one that instantly comes to mind was the 'high nose' of the Tyrrell 019, driven to such great effect by Jean Alesi in 1990. Even though the Cosworth-engined car was drastically down on power, compared with most of its rivals, Alesi was often highly competitive, and it wasn't long before every team in the paddock had adopted Harvey's 'high nose'.

In fact, I used to chide him about it, because the 'high nose' look was so ugly. "I know," he agreed. "I hated it myself - even on drawings, before we'd had the first one made up. But I also knew it would work..." To this day, Alesi says the Tyrrell 019 was the best F1 car he ever drove.



Oh, Lordy, it's early days for that! The latest Sauber has only just been launched, only just begun testing, and although early indications are promising, it's way too soon to know what kind of season the team will have, let alone which of the two drivers will emerge on top. If Fisichella is as good as many people believe him to be, he should assert himself - but, on the other hand, the probability is that Massa, after a year of working with Schumacher and Barrichello, as Ferrari's test driver, will be very much better than he looked in '02, when he was quick, but very wayward.

Giancarlo, about to start his ninth season in F1, has never been fashionable with the top teams to this point, but many consider him the most underrated driver in the business, and when he joined Sauber for 2004 it was assumed by some to be merely a prelude to his one day going to Ferrari. I confess to having been surprised by the suggestion that Giancarlo, good as he is, might shortly displace Barrichello, but it made more sense than the rumour, a year or so ago, that Felipe - managed by the son of Jean Todt - was being groomed as Michael Schumacher's next team mate.

The confirmation that Barrichello's contract has been extended by two years, taking him through to the end of 2006, has dispelled the rumours for now, but both the drivers at Sauber - regarded increasingly as Ferrari's 'B' team - will retain hopes of a move to Maranello for '07, by which time Giancarlo will be 34, Felipe still only 25.

By then, though, who knows what the situation will be? Will Raikkonen be available, or Montoya, or Alonso - or whomever? True enough, Fisichella and Massa might well still be in the reckoning, but there's no way of knowing at this stage which of the two will emerge as Sauber's leading driver this year. All you can reasonably say is that if Fisichella doesn't assert himself over the rookie, his chances of moving to Ferrari - or any other top team - will be severely reduced.



Awfully difficult to say, isn't it? We haven't even seen the new BAR yet, and until it has done some serious testing, on the same circuit at the same time as a top team or two, we're not going to have any idea of its potential competitiveness. Obviously, from what he knows of the car, Jenson is in a highly optimistic frame of mind just now - not least, I suspect, because of the team's switch from Bridgestone to Michelin - but until he gets aboard Geoff Willis's new Honda-powered creation, he isn't going to know how good, or otherwise, the car is. Certainly, he will be hoping that Honda have made a big step from last year; if not, it's going to be hard to run with such as Ferrari or Williams-BMW.

It will surprise me, I confess, if BAR manage to win any races in 2004, but certainly Jenson, now going into his fifth F1 season, ought to be able to break his 'podium duck' a time or two.

As for his chances of returning to Williams, in 2005, I'd say they were high. Rubens Barrichello had been thought a distinct possibility to replace Juan Montoya, but he has now re-confirmed at Ferrari, so that rules him out. Mark Webber, too, has been talked of as a future Williams man, and I suspect he's exactly the kind of driver both Frank and Patrick adore: a straightforward bloke, who gets in, and gives it everything. Mark, though, is under contract to Jaguar until the end of '05, and we must remember that he is 'owned' by Falvio Briatore, who must want to put him in a Renault at some stage. Either way, a buy-out of his contract would be extremely expensive for FW.

Given also that Ralf Schumacher's future with Williams is anything but assured at the moment, I'd say Button's prospects of going back whence he started are excellent.