Ask Nigel Roebuck: March 10

Dear Daniel,

Melbourne not as exciting a race as it might have been... I think you pay it a generous tribute! I have watched some boring grands prix in my time, but the '04 Australian comes close to the top of the list, I'm sad to say. One must trust this was not a trailer for the season to come.

However, I agree with you that the most exhilarating element of the race was Montoya's charge - or, should I say, charges, because he always seemed to be making up for lost time, for one reason or another.

This was the first 'manual' start for a bit, of course, but if JPM got too much wheelspin initially, Alonso's Renault got away from the line as if it still had the best launch control system in the business! An amazing start, wasn't it? Montoya being Montoya, of course he raced him down to the first corner, leaving his braking to the very latest, and that might have been OK if he'd been on the normal line when he put the brakes on. As it was, he was over on the right, on the 'dirty' side of the track, and because of that skated straight on.

It was indeed a driving error, and perhaps the kind of mistake Juan, with his 'red mist racer' approach, is always going to be prone to, unfortunately. Conversely, it's because of his approach that he has so many fans across the world, and I'd hate to see him become conservative, a pure 'points driver'. With all his experience, Michael Schumacher, after all, is still liable to make similar mistakes, and I don't hear him castigated for it too often.

I smiled at your use of the word 'assured', when it comes to Montoya's future - simply because, after the performance of the McLaren-Mercedes last weekend, you have to wonder if he's beginning to regret his decision to move. Seriously, though, no one doubts that McLaren will come back, because after a fallow period they, like Ferrari, like Williams, always do. For now, though, if Melbourne were any guide, there aren't too many problems they don't have.

In fact, I don't think his forthcoming move has changed Montoya's attitude to the present at all. He simply wants to win races, and if possible, the World Championship, and it won't worry him in the least if it's in a Williams or a McLaren. Certainly he was hopeful of beginning the year strongly, and will be disappointed by Melbourne, but at least he came away with points. Ferrari's - and Bridgestone's - pace in Australia rather took everyone by surprise.

As for the press conference of which you speak, from what I know, Juan was being taunted by a couple of not-very-funny local 'comedians', and got fed up with it. Eventually he said that if they didn't leave, he would, and when nothing was done about it, he was as good as his word.

It's a fact that Ron Dennis plays close attention to his drivers' behaviour in their PR commitments, but most of those present on this occasion seem to have been sympathetic to Montoya. The problem should have been solved in the first place by those staging the event. I'm sure Ron will have noted what happened, but I don't seriously imagine it has compromised JPM's future with McLaren...



Dear James,

It's not for me to worry about the form of McLaren and Toyota - I'll leave that to Ron Dennis and Ove Andersson, and just get on with writing about it. Racing is racing, and these things happen.

Speaking of people worrying about those two teams, I should imagine the Williams drivers are high up the list, given that Montoya is going to McLaren next season, and Ralf Schumacher to Toyota.

As I said in the previous answer, you never doubt that McLaren will come back from a bad patch - they always do. You say last weekend brought back memories of the bad old days in the mid-'90s, but the late '90s weren't too dusty, were they? Lest we forget, David Coulthard won the Australian Grand Prix in '97, and the following year Mika Hakkinen and DC dominated qualifying and the race every bit as convincingly as did Ferrari last weekend.

Toyota are a different matter. What they're suffering from at the moment is an extreme lack of grip, but their engines are remarkably strong, and have been from the outset - many believe that only the BMW, and perhaps the Ferrari, have more power, and that says a lot for a company still very new to F1. Remember that Toyota have always eventually succeeded in every branch of motor sport they have tackled; I don't doubt that in time they will do the same in F1. Mike Gascoyne is there now, but although he arrived too late to have much impact on the current car, I think we can rely on the fact that, as he designs the next one, he will incorporate downforce...

Look at Mike's recent Renaults, and think of cars as efficient as those, but with Toyota horsepower. The pity of it is that poor Olivier Panis will probably not be around to benefit from all the hard work he has put in.

He was furious at the weekend, and rightly so, as was Raikkonen, who, as you say, became almost voluble in his anger! The board rooms of Toyota and Mercedes will not have places of joy on Monday morning, for different reasons, and in different degrees: at least at Toyota they know they don't have an engine problem.



Dear Nathan,

I'm afraid that's the way I feel about it. I admire Michael tremendously - at the start of his 13th full season of F1, his commitment is still quite astonishing, as last weekend showed - but he's won the World Championship six times now (including the last four years), and I really would like to see someone else with number one on his car.

What would happen if he were to win it again this year? That would depend very much on the way it panned out. In 2003 we had a great season, with eight different winners, and when you get a year like that, you don't care very much who wins the title in the end, because competition has been healthy, and the racing good. Although Michael only edged the title last year, I had no doubts that the right man won, because he won six races, and no one else won more than two.

That says it for me, really. I have always believed the importance of the World Championship overblown - let's keep in mind that the likes of Ronnie Peterson, Gilles Villeneuve and, above all, Stirling Moss never won it - and care far more about who wins the races that comprise it.

I think it would be a pity if we get another Schumacher championship in 2004, but again I won't begrudge him if he has to fight all the way for it. What I think would be truly damaging for the sport would be something close to a repetition of 2002, when Michael won 11 of the 17 races, and the championship was over by midsummer. That drove the fans away, because they got bored - and also infuriated by some of Ferrari's tactics along the way, notably in Austria, where Rubens Barrichello was ordered to cede to Schumacher on the last lap. I don't believe Ferrari folk have any idea of how much damage was done to F1 that day.

In many ways, Formula 1 is not as healthy as it was just a few years ago, and there's no point in pretending otherwise. I'm pleased that finally - finally - moves are being made to dissipate the ridiculous 'exclusivity' which has burdened it these many years, and that attention is being to things like pits walkabouts that actually mean something - with the odd car and driver on parade. In the end, though, that only goes so far. What we need, above all else, is good motor racing.



Dear John,

It's a bit of a mystery, isn't it? Jackie Stewart once told me that, of all the top drivers he had ever competed against, Brabham made more mistakes than any other: "I mean, Jesus Christ, there were even times when he forgot - literally forgot - to change gear!"

For all that, JYS was the first to admit that Jack was a very formidable competitor, and an absolute racer. He won three World Championships - the last of them in a car bearing his own name - and was competitive right to the end of his career, which finished in 1970, when he was 44 years old.

So why, when people consider the great drivers of all time, is Brabham rarely included? I can't really tell you, I'm afraid, because I don't have the answer myself. Perhaps it had something to do with his driving style, which was purposeful and determined, but not elegant in the Moss-Clark-Stewart tradition. Jack learned his craft on the small dirt ovals of Australia, and to the end of his career was always good for a bit of getting sideways, and steering on the throttle.

Compared with people like Stirling and Jimmy, he was always considered a bit of a blacksmith at the wheel, but I think that sells him short. He wasn't as good as they were, and knew it, but neither was he far away, and there were some days when no one on earth could beat him.

It's true that Brabham, a no-nonsense individual who never used three words where two would do, was not a particularly glamorous figure in F1, but when you look at his achievements you cannot deny that he was a great driver. I simply remember him as a charger - and look at him now, in his 78th year. He still loves to drive racing cars for the sheer pleasure of it - and he still drives the wheels off them. A very remarkable man, sold short by history, I think.



Dear Francis,

I was, I confess, a little wary of getting too excited by BAR's testing performances, because we've seen this sort of thing before, from a whole variety of teams.

Melbourne, though, went a good way towards convincing me, and others, that Geoff Willis has designed an extremely good car for 2004, and that perhaps Honda is at last beginning to get its act together. Jenson Button was fourth quickest in qualifying (with exactly the same time as Montoya's Williams), but then we know how quick Jenson is. What went even further in persuading me of the strength of latest package was that Takuma Sato qualified seventh. This is not to belittle Takuma, who is evidently the best Japanese F1 driver to date, but you wouldn't - at this stage, anyway - say he was from the top drawer, and if he out-qualified Ralf Schumacher's Williams-BMW, well, that registered with me.

I don't think there's any doubt that David Richards has made a huge difference in the way the team operates. Let's face it, he came to F1 with a pretty impressive track record elsewhere, and had a great deal of experience in running a big motor sport operation, even if it were in rallying, rather than racing.

Craig Pollock, by contrast, had been a drivers' manager (notably with Jacques Villeneuve), and although he worked prodigiously hard to put together the BAR operation from scratch, he had no experience whatever of what it took to run a team. It took way too long to acknowledge the shortcomings of some of the major technical personnel, and to replace them, and way too long, too, to trim back the operation, to make it into a 'lean, mean, machine', etc., etc. Richards has done that very effectively.

BAR over-paid Jacques Villeneuve for a very long time, and a lot of the money could have been better spent elsewhere. That said, it was hardly surprising that JV became worn down by a succession of dismal cars, and lost motivation. This year's car would have brought it back, without a doubt, and you have to wonder how much of an impression he, like Jenson, might have made in Australia last weekend.



Dear Mark,

Why did Piquet and Lotus have such a low-key season in 1988? Simple - because Lotus built a pretty poor car, and Nelson, although unquestionably a great driver, tended to match his motivation to the competitiveness of what he was driving.

You point out that Lotus had a pretty good season the year before, with Senna, winning a couple of grands prix, but, for one thing, Senna was better than Piquet, and, for another, the victories came at Monaco and Detroit, two street circuits at which Lotus's efficient, but heavy and complex, 'active' suspension system paid dividends.

Nelson went to Lotus as World Champion, having won his third title with Williams the year before. At the end of that season, Honda - who had been supplying Williams and Lotus - had a change of mind, switching to McLaren and Lotus for the following season. Nelson always had a 'special relationship' with Honda, and wanted to stick with them. Had there been a place for him at McLaren, he would have gone there, but Ron Dennis had decided on Senna as Alain Prost's team mate, and thus the only 'Honda vacancy' for Piquet was at Lotus.

Why didn't they win a race in 1988? For one thing, the car, in spite of having the best engine, as you say, was not especially competitive. And for another, that Honda motor took the McLarens of Senna and Prost to victory in 15 of the 16 races! These were the two best drivers on earth, and the world championship fight was entirely between them. The one race they missed winning was Monza, where Ayrton tripped over Jean-Louis Schlesser's Williams, while lapping it, and the victory was left to Gerhard Berger and Ferrari.