Ask Nigel Roebuck: June 26

Dear Robert,

First, I guess it's good that one major manufacturer has been involved in sports car racing - even though the word is that Audi will pull the plug on the programme at the end of the year. If so, you can't really be surprised: they've won Le Mans three times on the trot, with the same trio of drivers, and probably it's best left at that.

As for Audi and F1, yes, I agree it would be a splendid thing to see them take on Mercedes and BMW, but at the moment there's no sign of this happening - indeed, Audi personnel have frequently said that the company has no F1 plans 'for the foreseeable future'. These things can change, of course, but I'd be surprised to see them in F1 in the short term.



Dear Glenn,

First, I understand Reynard's demise had been coming a while - even if it seems to have taken its CART customers by surprise...

As for the volte-face on engine regulations, I'm completely in favour of it. For now, all we know that turbocharged engines are guaranteed for the next couple of years, but I very much hope that some way can be found to extend that indefinitely.

Why? Because, for me, the heart and soul of a real 'Indycar' is its 900-horsepower engine, complete with that glorious sound. I must admit that I've never heard IRL engines 'in the flesh', but people who have say they make an ugly noise.

As well as that, of course, they have considerably less power than the CART motors. This was particularly apparent at Fontana, where the CART cars run a high line on the 2-mile superspeedway because they have to - their sheer speed takes them up there. When the IRL brigade went there, in April, they simply ran round at the bottom of the track, able to hug the white line all the way round. In part, this was because they had so much downforce, and in part because they had relatively little power. Maybe that's why the stands were deserted...

Toyota and Honda have decided to abandon CART, and commit to 3.5-litre, rev-limited, low-tech, engines, as required by the IRL. Earlier this year CART decided to adopt similar engine (albeit with a higher rev limit) rules, and it was thought that the Japanese companies could perhaps supply both series. But it became clear that teams already using their engines in CART would come under pressure to switch to the IRL, and there were concerns that this would lead to a wholesale defection, leaving the already depleted CART field further reduced.

Once Honda, who had previously never shown the slightest interest in the IRL (or even the Indy 500), had made its surprise announcement that not only was it getting out of CART, but that it was going to the IRL with a badged Ilmor engine, Chris Pook had to rethink CART's future. The shift to the IRL's engine rules had anyway been extremely unpopular, with both teams and fans, and now there was no reason to go through with it. Any semblance of reconciliation with the IRL was now obviously at an end, and therefore Pook had nothing to lose by being aggressive.

As of the start season, CART will essentially be a 'spec formula' with everyone running Lola chassis, Ford Cosworth engines and Bridgestone tyres, but the new engine leasing programme will save the teams a considerable amount of money, and the hope is that those who had seen little alternative other than to switch to the IRL will now change their minds, and remain loyal to CART. That is certainly my hope, too.

In the meantime, I wonder how the IRL is going to develop from now on. Nissan - one assumes in response to the news that Honda, as well as Toyota, are to build engines for the IRL - have already announced their withdrawal from the series as of the end of this year, and I wonder how long Chevrolet, faced with financial firepower of the Japanese giants, will continue.

Whatever, the way the IRL appears to be going, it seems ever more remote from Tony George's 'all American' dream, with midget and sprint car drivers developing into Indy 500 superstars. The dominant team, after all, belongs to Roger Penske, whose drivers are Brazilian, and I don't see too many graduates of the dirt ovals taking them on...



Dear Adam,

Ah, Rouen, a circuit for the gods... I have a house in Normandy, 40 minutes or so from Rouen, and sometimes, when we go there, I drop my wife in the city, then take off for a couple of hours to nearby Les Essarts, there to flog round as quickly as traffic allows. Who know how many times I've been there now, but every time that downhill section, at the beginning of the lap, takes me by surprise. Rouen Les Essarts, like the 'old' Nurburgring or Clermont Ferrand or what remains of the original Spa-Francorchamps, serves to remind you how brave racing drivers had once to be.

If there have been greater drivers in the history of this sport, probably there have been none braver than David Purley, whose favourite circuit this was. "Every lap at Rouen," he once told me, "I'd come past the pits, and I'd start to scream into my helmet. It was something we were taught to do in Aden: if you were going over the top, about to face a bunch of loonies with Kalishnikovs, the theory was it gave you instant courage, took your mind off what you were doing. Well, I worked on the same principle at Rouen, and it helped, believe me..."

What Purley, and everyone else, faced at Rouen was something like the ultimate roller-coaster - but a roller-coaster where you were in charge of your own destiny. Past the pits the road plunged suddenly downhill and right, then straight, then left, then straight and right, and on and on like that, until you stood on the brakes, went for bottom gear, turned through a right-hand hairpin, named 'Nouveau Monde', and set off uphill for more of the same. This was some respite, but not much. "All the time," Purley said, "you had that downhill sequence in your head - that you were getting nearer and nearer to facing it again.

"It was like being madly in love with a headcase's wife," he grinned. "You had the feeling sooner or later he'd catch you out, but it was so exhilarating you had to keep going back..."

Over time it exacted its dues, that stretch of road. I last saw a race there in 1972, a summer in which Emerson Fittipaldi was winning every weekend, and Henri Pescarolo crashing every weekend. Formula 1, Formula 2, it made no difference. In that F2 race, both men acted out their roles, Emerson beating Mike Hailwood in a classic battle, Henri flying over the barrier, and out of sight. I saw the accident, and knew he could not have survived, but a couple of minutes later there was the bearded figure, green helmet in hand, running across the road, cheating The Reaper once again.

Four years earlier, though, Jo Schlesser had not done. In July of 1968, the French Grand Prix was run at Rouen, and to Honda, which that month was launching its Mini-copy in France, it seemed a fine idea to have a Frenchman drive for it in the grand prix.

Schlesser was 42, a fine driver, but one had never competed in Formula 1. This, for him, was a lifetime's dream, and it was no matter Honda was offering him a new and unproven car - a car which regular driver John Surtees had briefly tested, and found virtually undrivable.

It was horribly wet on race day, and Schlesser crashed early in the race. On the downhill stretch his engine cut, and the car, without any drive, ran wide at a right-hander, skimming up the bank, before exploding back on the track. Much of the chassis was of magnesium, and for Schlesser there was no chance of survival.

Jacky Ickx dominated the race for Ferrari, and took his first Grand Prix victory that day. By the time he took the flag, the sun was out, the track virtually dry. But Schlesser's accident signalled the end of Rouen Les Essarts as a venue for the French Grand Prix,

In recent times, they used these public roads for racing only once a year, in June, for a round of the French national F3 championship, and for saloons. I happened to be over in Normandy at the time of the 1992 race, and went to the meeting. The next year's, sadly, was to be the last.

Inevitably, when I'm there, all kinds of images come back to me, most notably the celebrated pictures of Fangio opposite-locking his Maserati 25OF at 150mph down through the swerves in the 1957 French Grand Prix, all nonchalance and delicate artistry, a man literally miles ahead of the rest, doing something simply because he was able, relishing his own craft.

He only raced there once, and consequently tended to overlook it when you asked him about his favourite tracks. "Spa-Francorchamps, Berne and the Nurburging," he said. And what about Rouen? I asked. "Ah, Rouen!" he responded, eyes alight. "Si, si, si! A fantastic circuit, that one..."



Dear Kevin,

First of all, if anyone pulls the plug on the Jaguar F1 programme, it will not be Jaguar itself, but the Ford Motor Company, which owns Jaguar.

Recently, when I was in the USA, someone-in-the-know murmured to me a few facts and figures about the company's different motor sport programmes. "In the States," he said, "we're in NASCAR, CART and NHRA dragsters - and the whole lot together costs less than the World Rally Championship programme." He paused. "Add all those together - and they cost less than the F1 programme..."

Interestingly, it appears that the amount spent on a particular programme is inversely proportional to the success that programme achieves!

Ford does very well in NASCAR, CART and NHRA, reasonably well in rallying - and appallingly in F1.

From the very outset, when Ford decided to buy the Stewart Grand Prix team, and re-badge it as 'Jaguar', it has looked from the outside as though they haven't left many mistakes unmade. For one thing, they signed Eddie Irvine for a quite absurd amount of money; for another, they over-hyped the whole thing from the beginning, giving the impression it was only a matter of time before they toppled Ferrari, Williams, McLaren et al.

BAR made exactly the same mistake (and had similarly catastrophic results), but at least this was an outfit new to F1, and the folk involved had the excuse of inexperience. Ford really should have known better, and embarked on the project in the low-key style adopted so admirably by Toyota.

It's been a mish-mash, that's the point. After Neil Ressler's retirement, as the MD of Jaguar Racing, Ford appointed Bobby Rahal to take over, and from the very beginning I don't believe he ever had a chance. Within weeks of his taking over, Wolfgang Reitzle, Chairman of the Ford-owned Premier Automotive Group, had become heavily involved, and - at the behest of Bernie Ecclestone, some say - appointed Niki Lauda as his man in the field.

In effect, Lauda overnight became Rahal's boss, and, had he known there were any question of such a thing, Bobby would never have taken the job in the first place. It was only a question of time before Reitzle and Lauda got rid of him, and in August 2001 Rahal's three-year contract was duly paid off. Now, almost a year on, the team's results have gone from bad to worse, and rumours abound that Niki's position at the helm may not be totally secure.

I hear tales of all kinds about Jaguar's future, that, however bad things seem, Ford is committed to F1 in the long term - and also that the Ford hierarchy in Dearborn has less than no interest in F1, doesn't understand why all this money is being spent to so little effect, and just wishes the whole thing would go away.

The only thing not in doubt is that the Cosworth V10 is an extremely good engine, not on par perhaps with Ferrari and BMW, but very much towards the top of the tree. Problem is, at the moment it is showing to considerably better effect in the extremely under-funded Arrows cars...



Dear Richard,

I think 'exasperated' is the kindest best word I can think of for the other constructors' feelings about Paul Stoddart and Minardi at the moment.

Stoddart, as we know, is desperately short of funds for his F1 team, and has been campaigning trenchantly and endlessly for the slice of the financial cake which would have gone to Alain Prost's team this year, had it not been wound up in January.

Under the terms of the Concorde Agreement, 47 percent of the cake (whose ingredients are TV money, etc) shall be divided between the top 10 teams in the previous year's World Championship. In 2001 Prost finished 10th, and Minardi 11th - the only team not to qualify for the money, therefore.

Stoddart's contention is that Prost's disappearance elevates Minardi to 10th spot, while the other team owners argue that just because the 10th team has gone from the scene doesn't mean that the 11th automatically moves up. Who knows how many hundreds of man-hours have been given over to the discussion of this conundrum?

My understanding is that, at the Nurburgring last weekend, the other constructors offered to contribute, between them, about two-thirds of the money Stoddart feels he should have - and the offer was turned down.

I love your use of the word 'benevolent', Richard! The typical attitude of the F1 team owner is that F1 is a hard business, a difficult business, that no one has a God-given right to be in it, and it's every man for himself. Frank Williams points out that, when he was financially down and out, nobody helped him - and he's quite right, they didn't. Fundamentally, the way of thinking is, 'If you can't stand the heat, keep out of the kitchen', and I have a certain sympathy for that point of view.

As for 'junior teams'...well, anything is possible, I suppose, but I can't really see the attraction of it for the larger teams. Down the road, more likely, I would have thought, is to finish up with fewer teams running more cars, so that the likes of Ferrari, Williams, McLaren et al would field three apiece. This, of course, becomes a little more feasible when the 'one engine per driver per weekend' rule comes in, in 2004.

You ask, "Have F1 teams ever helped each other at all, in the best sporting traditions?" Yes, they have, for sure. I'm bound to say that it was more prevalent 20 or 30 years ago, when most teams ran Cosworth engines, Hewland gearboxes, and so on, but even today it's not unknown for one team to help another out.

That's one thing, though. Helping another team stay in business is quite another. As I may have mentioned before, one team owner put it this way to me: "You work for a big publishing company. If it got into trouble, would you expect its major rivals to come and help it out? No, you wouldn't! Well, F1 is a business, just like any other..."