Ask Nigel Roebuck: July 3

Dear Ernesto,

Sad to say, I can't confirm your story either way, but, that said, I am quite prepared to believe it. Brian Redman once told me that, during practice for Le Mans in 1969 - the year of the Porsche 917's debut - he reached 238mph (383km/h), and by 1971 the 917 was in its ultimate state of development, most of the cars at Le Mans running very slippery, 'long tail', bodywork. As far as I remember, Pedro Rodriguez was fastest in qualifying that year, with the JW Automotive Gulf-sponsored, car, and it wouldn't surprise me if he reached 250mph (400km/h) down the endless Mulsanne Straight - there were no chicanes there in those days, of course.

What I do know for sure, having heard it recently from Norbert Haug of Mercedes, is that, during practice for the 1994 Indianapolis 500, Al Unser Jr's Penske-Mercedes exceeded 400km/h - it reached 402, to be precise, and that's a genuine 250mph. This was the year when Ilmor built a special, turbocharged, stock-block engine, specifically for Indianapolis, and Unser has told me it was undoubtedly the most powerful engine he ever experienced. He went on to win the race, too.



Dear Per,

You single out Williams, but really the question that needs to be asked in Formula 1 this year is, 'Apart from Ferrari, what the hell are they all doing?'

The fact is, in 2002 Ferrari have attained a degree of overall superiority that you almost never see in F1, similar to that of Lotus in 1978 (with the 79 'ground effect' car), McLaren in 1988, Williams in 1992 (with the 'active' suspension FW14B), and McLaren again in 1998. And Ferrari have done it this year, not through any enormous technological breakthrough, but simply by designing and building a car without any apparent weaknesses. As I said in a recent Fifth Column, 'It seems that the Ferrari F2002 is closer to perfection than any racing car has a right to be: loads of inherent downforce, rides kerbs like a Cadillac, horsepower to match anything (on Montreal's long straight the car was comfortably faster than its opposition), numbing reliability'.

We are nine races into the season, and Michael Schumacher is only 14 points from the maximum possible. In other words, when he has a bad day, he's second. When he has a disastrous day, he's third.

Bearing in mind how last year went, I suspected we might have a classic season in 2002, with the Williams-BMWs - particularly Juan Montoya's car - pushing Ferrari all the way, and when the team scored a 1-2 in Malaysia, only the second race, that prediction looked like coming right. Since then, though, there have been four pole positions (all of them by Montoya), but no victories.

First, what we have to bear in mind is that, when Williams had their 1-2 at Sepang, Ferrari had yet to introduce their 2002 car - and it has proved emphatically superior to its predecessor, which was itself the best car of 2001.

Second, I don't think there's much doubt that the Ferrari has more inherent downforce than the Williams.

Third, the Ferrari is not only more reliable than the Williams, but also more reliable than anything else - by far.

Fourth, BMW's undoubted horsepower advantage - particularly apparent last season - has been eaten away by Ferrari. We rightly rave about the talents of Rory Byrne and Ross Brawn, but too often forgotten is the contribution of Paolo Martinelli, the team's engine guru.

Fifth, tyres. Bridgestone have much more experience with the 'grooved' tyres than do Michelin, and their only top team - since the defection to Michelin by McLaren - is Ferrari. For some time there had been the suspicion that Ferrari came first, that Bridgestone tended to tailor their tyres to suit the red cars - indeed, this was one reason why Ron Dennis chose to follow Frank Williams to Michelin - and this year there isn't any doubt about it at all. Ferrari, in effect, have 'bespoke' tyres, and generally Bridgestone's have proved superior to Michelin's in the races, even if the Michelin is slightly better for one banzai lap in qualifying.

To be honest, I don't think it's that Williams-BMW are doing a bad job, as much as Ferrari doing a superlative one. The McLaren MP4-17 is fundamentally a first-rate car, and certainly treats its rear Michelins a little more kindly than does the Williams, but there's little doubt - admitted or not - that this year's Mercedes V10 lacks the power of BMW or Ferrari.

You talk about 'Williams opting for soft tyres and one-stint races', but in fact this is not habitually the case. At the Nurburgring, Montoya went for that, and it didn't work, but Ralf Schumacher had the harder Michelins, and at least made it to the flag, fourth.

There seems no doubt - in fact, Pierre Dupasquier has admitted it - that Michelin simply went too 'radical' for the Nurburgring, turning up with two compounds, one soft, the other softer still. Barrichello and Michael Schumacher, by contrast, ran hard Bridgestones, yet still opted for two stops each.

It's worth bearing in mind that at Montreal Montoya was quickly catching Schumacher in the late laps, and might well have won, had his engine not expired. At the time Michael was somewhat hobbled - by a blistered rear tyre...



Dear Nick,

Since the events in Austria a few weeks ago, some have compared Ferrari's action there with McLaren's at Melbourne in 1998. To my mind, the only comparisons to be drawn are superificial, to say the least.

The basic facts were these: Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard, in the McLaren-Mercedes MP4-13s, ran a comfortable first and second from the start, and this changed only when Hakkinen misheard a radio message, and thought it was telling him to come in. This he duly did - only to be waved through by his team, who were not only not ready for him, but didn't actually want him in at that point.

DC now held a comfortable lead, but he then backed off very deliberately, and allowed Mika past him again, into the lead once more, with a couple of laps to go. They duly finished 1-2, Hakkinen ahead.

There was quite a hue and cry about this afterwards, particularly from the tabloids, who were outraged on David's behalf.

In the press room, there were Fleet Street journalists fuming about it, suggesting that DC and Mika had an obligation to entertain those who had paid to watch. That seemed a bit rich from folk accustomed to nil-all draws between Wimbledon and Coventry, but I let it go. The point was that McLaren's sole purpose in flying its cars and personnel 10,000 miles was to win the Australian Grand Prix, and this they did, consummately.

So what was different from the Ferrari controversy in Austria? First, this was the very first race of the season, and although qualifying had shown the McLaren MP4/13 to be quantifiably faster than anything else, it was thoroughly unproven, having been completed very late in the day - prior to Melbourne, in fact, it had never undergone a race-distance test.

"If we have any worries about the car," Ron Dennis said after qualifying, "they're to do with reliability. Like everyone else, we're also unclear about how the condition of the grooved tyres will be interpreted at the end of the race, so, all in all, our race strategy is going to be cautious."

Dennis, unlike Jean Todt of Ferrari, has always been fundamentally of the opinion that his drivers should be free to race one another - indeed, Ron has sometimes been criticised for not imposing team orders late in a season, when one of his drivers has been in contention for the World Championship, the other not. Spa, in 1999, was a classic example: although Hakkinen was a strong title contender, and Coulthard was not, DC beat Mika to the first corner, and proceeded to win the race.

At Melbourne in '98, because of the doubts about reliability from a brand-new car in the first race of the season, Dennis suggested that his drivers not fight it out, thereby stressing the cars no more than necessary.

That made absolute sense. It is not often that a team finds itself in a situation where victory is there for the cruising. In such circumstances it would have been idiotic for McLaren to jeopardise - for any reason - an opportunity to put 16 points in the bank at the very first race of the year. Therefore, the agreement made was that whoever led at the first corner should win the race - and Hakkinen led Coulthard at that point.

Then came Mika's unnecessary visit to the pit lane. After it, Dennis spoke to Coulthard on the radio, told him what had happened, that it had been the result of a misunderstanding, and not Hakkinen's fault, and reminded him of the 'first corner' agreement, whereupon DC backed off, and let his team mate through once more.

The post-race controversy arose because when the time came for Coulthard to let Hakkinen through, he did so overtly, backing off on the pit straight. For that David could hardly be blamed, for while it was one thing to give up a victory, it would have been quite another to give the impression that he had simply been reeled in, passed, beaten. He wasn't thrilled at being asked to give way, but he understood why he was being asked to do so.

To me, anyway, this is not quite the same thing as Austria this year, when one driver had completely dominated, in both qualifying and race, yet was ordered to let his team mate win - a team mate who already held a very substantial championship points lead going into this, the sixth race of the season.



Dear John,

In fact, to the best of my knowledge, it is the team of the reigning World Champion, which carries the numbers 1 and 2, not the one which won the previous year's Constructors' Championship. In 1999, for example, Ferrari won the Constructors' title, but Mika Hakkinen won the World Championship - and in 2000 it was the McLarens, not the Ferraris, which carried 1 and 2.

In fact, it was not until 1973 that the cars began to carry the same numbers in every race - prior to that, keeping a lap chart was something of a nightmare, because every driver had a different number every fortnight!

Since 1973, too, the reigning World Champion has automatically been given number 1, and this applies even when he changes teams. Thus, Alain Prost, for example, took number one to Ferrari for 1990, having won the '89 championship in a McLaren, and in 1997 Damon Hill took it to Arrows (!), having won it in a Williams.

You're quite right about Ferrari running 27 and 28 for a great many years. In 1980 they had 1 and 2, Jody Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve having finished 1-2 in the '79 championship, while Williams had 27 and 28. Alan Jones went on to win the championship that year, and thus, for 1981, Williams and Ferrari simply swapped numbers. Number 27, of course, subsequently became synonymous with Villeneuve.

I'm sure some crazed individual must have raced with number 13 at some point, but quite honestly I can't remember it.

As for favourite numbers, these have been quite common over time in the USA (Richard Petty with 43, AJ Foyt with 14, etc.), but the only one that sticks in my mind in Europe is Stirling Moss, whose preferred number was 7.



Dear Sami,

No, I don't think these conflicts are good for the sport, but I'm afraid we're stuck with them. Some times you get the impression that 'owned' drivers are passed around like a tray of cakes, that they're merely pawns on a board, and and simply 'placed' where their managers/team principals find it most advantageous. The days when only driving ability mattered are long gone, I'm afraid.

You talk about Flavio Briatore swapping Giancarlo Fisichella for 'his own driver Jarno Trulli', but in fact I was under the impression that Flavio also 'owned' Giancarlo, too! Now, as you say, he may drop Jenson Button (under longterm contract to Williams, remember) from Renault for 2003, replacing him with 'his' driver Fernando Alonso.

This is the world in 2002, Sami, I'm afraid. You don't find many Rob Walkers around these days.