Ask Nigel Roebuck: March 3

Dear Dale,

I've just finished writing this week's Fifth Column on precisely this subject - and stressing how much I hate to make predictions immediately before the start of a season: it is, of course, way too early to able to forecast anything. All we have to go on are the results of sundry test sessions, at very few of which have all the front runners been out at the same time, in similar conditions. I would never, for example, set too much store by testing times at Barcelona, because that place 'changes' more than just about any other circuit, and quite often from hour to hour.

All we can say with some certainty is that 'The Big Four' - Ferrari, Williams-BMW, McLaren-Mercedes, Renault - look in pretty good shape, as you'd expect. But there are variables here. Of the leading teams, after all, only Ferrari run on Bridgestones, and until very recently it looked as though Michelin's dry tyre advantage of 2003 had been maintained. Then Michael Schumacher set a shatteringly quick time at Imola, and gave everyone pause for thought.

It may be that Bridgestone have closed the gap, or even gained a slight advantage, but equally it could be that they simply happened to produce a tyre that worked very well at Imola. Last year, for example, a Bridgestone-shod Ferrari comfortably won at Silverstone, but it came in the middle of a barren patch for the team, caused primarily by tyres generally inferior to Michelin.

If Bridgestone should establish a degree of superiority over Michelin this year, then we really should worry, because Williams, McLaren, Renault and now BAR are all on Michelins, and we really don't need a repeat of 2002, when about the only races Schumacher didn't win were those granted to Rubens Barrichello.

It interests me that you speak of the 'Ferrari vs Williams vs McLaren battle' - that you don't include Renault. I very much do, actually. They have finally laid to rest the ultra-wide-angle V10 (great from the standpoint of low centre of gravity, but always very lacking in horsepower), and although the more conventional engine to be used this year is based on an old design (and therefore not state-of-the-art), clearly it has more power, and is mounted in another superb chassis. In long-distance tests, the car has looked remarkably strong, and Fernando Alonso is assuredly a World Champion in the wings.

Of the other three, let's deal first with Ferrari. The F2004 may be only a development of last year's car - but let's remember that, despite being frequently hampered by its Bridgestone tyres, it still won half the races, and took Schumacher to his sixth title. Not exactly a dog, in other words, and I suspect this year's car - so long as Bridgestone have their act together - will be more competitive still. Michael is Michael, and I also feel that Rubens Barrichello will be more of a consistent force this year.

Next, Williams. It's the first year of the 'one engine per weekend' rule, and I expect BMW, like Ferrari, to show well in this situation. On power, the drivers should lack for nothing, and the speed of the FW26 - out of the box - much impressed them. Williams folk say they are way ahead of where they were at this point in the 2003 season. Plus, Montoya and Ralf Schumacher are on Michelins. That said, Montoya is definitely leaving at the end of the year, and I'm sure that Ralf will do the same, to go to Toyota. This could lead to problems through the season, but I anticipate that JPM, in particular, will be a front runner throughout.

Now, McLaren. By all accounts, the MP4-19 is fundamentally a stunningly quick car, so the big question mark is against Mercedes, whose latest engine is once more said to be down on power to its major rivals. On certain circuits this may not be a major problem, but Raikkonen and Coulthard could struggle at the quick tracks. Kimi - who seems to be most people's favourite for the World Championship - is bound to be in contention all year long, and I also have a suspicion that DC might have a strong year. He knows now he is out of McLaren at the end of the season, and I just have a feeling he may find this in a way liberating. What he needs to do is stop thinking too much, and just get his head down. When David is really on it, there is no one better.

I'm surprised you bracket Renault and BAR in your question, I must say, because, while Renault are very definitely potential winners in 2004, I'm rather less convinced this is the case with BAR. Yes, I know the latest car has set impressive testing times, in the hands of Jenson Button, but the true indication of the car's worth will be seen only this weekend, in Australia. For the first time in his career, Jenson has to step up to the plate as a team leader, and it will be interesting to see how this changes him. As for Honda, I still have my reservations. It seems they have begun to close the horsepower gap to BMW, Ferrari and Toyota, but not a few have gone bang in testing - and with the new 'one engine' rules, you can't afford to have that happen too often.

As for the Sauber - we are not to call it 'a blue Ferrari', according to Max Mosley - who knows? I have a lot of time for this unobtrusive team, not least because Peter Sauber is a man who spends his entire budget on his cars, and that hasn't necessarily been true of everyone in the paddock. Theoretically, Giancarlo Fisichella is the best driver the team has had in quite a while, and could spring a surprise here and there, but it remains to be seen whether or not a year's testing with Ferrari has matured Felipe Massa, something of a wild man in 2002.



Dear David,

First question, yes. Second question, no.

To go into it in a little more, I don't doubt - if he wants to return to F1, that is, and with him you never know - that JV would love to get back in a Williams, complete with BMW engine and Michelin tyres. Who, in his position, wouldn't? But he's a quirky individual, to say the least, and may quite possibly have put F1 out of his mind.

As for Frank taking him...I really doubt it, quite honestly. He and Patrick Head really did not want Jacques to leave at the end of 1998, but he made his decision, and went off to join Craig Pollock's fledgling BAR outfit for a quite extraordinary amount of money. The years with BAR were generally a disaster, and did tremendous damage to the reputation he had made in three seasons with Williams. Personally, I find it hard to believe that all that speed and commitment has evaporated, but he is not an easy man to work with, and I'm sure FW's mind is more on the likes of Mark Webber. It will be surprise me if we see Villeneuve in F1 again, I must say.



Dear Curtis,

One of this sport's fundamental truths is that you never know how good a young driver is going to be in F1 until he gets there - and, what's more, gets himself into a quick car.

Of course there will always be the special cases - the Prosts and Sennas and Schumachers - who are plainly out of the top drawer from the start, and progress seamlessly into F1, almost immediately snapped up by top teams. But times without number, too, there have been guys of apparently tremendous potential in the lower formulae (including sports car racing), yet when they get into F1 somehow it doesn't all come together. A relatively recent example of that is Jan Magnussen, who looked like a potential Senna in his F3 days, yet flopped badly when he got into F1 with Stewart Grand Prix. We all thought he would be quicker than Barrichello there, but Rubens completely blew him away.

Conversely, you get drivers who look good, but not special, in their early careers, yet explode when they get into F1. Look at Nigel Mansell. In F3 he only ever won one race - and that came only after the disqualification of Andrea de Cesaris. When he somewhat fortuitously made it into the Lotus F1 team, though, he immediately impressed, and in the fullness of time won 31 Grands Prix (the bulk of them with Williams), and also the 1992 World Championship.

Zonta and Webber, I think, are classic examples of these two scenarios. Ricardo, after looking scintillating in the AMG Mercedes days, never really stepped up to the plate as an F1 driver with BAR, while Mark Webber, once regarded as a superior journeyman, has shown himself to be very much more than that in F1. On the face of it, I agree it's a mighty strange phenomenon - but it happens, and it always has. There is a lot more to being a top F1 driver than merely being able to drive fast.



Dear Alan,

You're quite right in what you say, and I'm not entirely sure I have the answer.

Actually, mention of Alan Jones puts me in mind of the previous question, for he was one of those drivers who never looked terribly special in his early days - and not terribly special, either, when he first got into F1. I remember Jones's driving for Graham Hill's team in 1975, as team-mate to Tony Brise: on one occasion, at Zandvoort in the rain, a vivid memory is of Brise shaking his fist at Jones, inviting him to step aside - while he lapped him...

However, Alan made very good progress after that. He had several impressive drives for Surtees in '76, and won his first Grand Prix - at Zeltweg in the rain - for Shadow the year after. Only when he joined Williams in 1978, though, did his career really begin to take off. In '79 Williams introduced the legendary FW07, and while it took a long time to get the car acceptably reliable, during the second half of that season Jones was near enough unbeatable, troubled only by Gilles Villeneuve's Ferrari.

The 1980 season was all Jones. He won the World Championship consummately, and to my mind drove even better the following year. This time, though, his finishing record was not so good, but although he failed to retain his title, he did win what looked to be his final Grand Prix, at Las Vegas. At Monza he had informed Frank Williams that he had had enough of the travelling involved in F1, and was going home to Australia.

Had he remained there, AJ's career might be remembered more in the way it should be: a winner who went out on a high. Unfortunately, though, he came back briefly in 1983, to drive an under-financed Arrows, quickly tired of it, and went back to Oz once more. Then, in 1986, when Carl Haas - with huge sponsorship - decided to run an F1 team, he was tempted again to return. The cars were uncompetitive, and Alan frankly added nothing to his reputation with a thoroughly unsuccessful final F1 season.

For all that, when I think of Jones, I think of the Williams driver of 1978-81. He was bullish and aggressive in the car, an absolutely natural racer who loved to get stuck into a battle, and also, being a man of resolute political incorrectness, extremely good company. You were never short of a good quote when Alan was around.

So why he is not remembered as one of the all-time greats? Perhaps because his style in the car, while hugely effective, was not the most elegant. If you were looking for artistry in a Williams driver, you looked to Carlos Reutemann, as fast and deft a driver - on his day - as ever I have ever seen. But if you were looking for a driver to win a race for you, even if it meant getting his knuckles bloodied along the way, you went immediately for Jones. His F1 career was not a long one - the bulk of his victories came in two seasons, 1979 and '80 - and that may be another reason why history tends to overlook him, as it does, strangely, with another great Australian, Jack Brabham.



Dear Schutte,

Sad to say, Peter Revson and Tom Pryce both lost their lives at Kyalami. I wish it weren't so, but it is a fact that certain circuits do trigger memories of that kind. In the same way, Hockenheim, for example, will always make me think of Jimmy Clark and Patrick Depailler, Zolder Gilles Villeneuve, Monza Jochen Rindt and Ronnie Peterson, and so on. I'm sure that younger generations of F1 fans will to some degree always think of Imola in terms of Ayrton Senna, but there was a time when fatalities in F1 were not infrequent.

All that said, sad days at a race track should not detract completely from one's good memories, and I have many of Kyalami, which, in its original guise, was one of the greatest Grand Prix circuits I ever saw. It was mighty dangerous, of course, and considered so even 25 years ago, when far less attention was paid to safety than is the case now. I think particularly of that endless straightline blast down to Crowthorne, where there was no run-off at all; simply an earth bank awaiting anyone who had a problem there.

It was indeed a track for the very brave, in particular the long downhill right-handed Barbeque Bend, and the daunting uphill left-handed Jukskei Kink. Watching qualifying here in the turbo era, when such as Nelson Piquet and Keke Rosberg were on the limit, boost off the clock, is something I will never forget.

In terms of actual races, I suppose one that comes readily to mind was the 1983 South African Grand Prix. It was the last round of the World Championship that year, and up for the title were Piquet (Brabham-BMW), Prost (Renault) and Rene Arnoux (Ferrari). Arnoux pretty well accounted for himself during practice, when he contrived to allow a car's wheel to be pushed over his foot. He raced, but really the thing was between Piquet and Prost.

Actually, Nelson blitzed it. In the early laps he simply left everyone behind, and when Prost retired, he knew the title was safe, and ultimately backed off, falling back to third, allowing his team-mate Riccardo Patrese to take the victory.

Only some years later did we learn that the fuel used by Brabham-BMW in the late races that year was not quite...how can I put this, what the governing body had in mind.

The last time the 'old' Kyalami was used was in 1985, and that was a fantastic race. The Williams-Hondas of Keke Rosberg and Nigel Mansell ran away with the early laps, but then Piercarlo Ghinzani's Toleman expired at Crowthorne, dumping oil all over the place. Rosberg, the next man through, spun on it, but Mansell, seeing what had happened to Keke, backed off, and just made it through. Nigel went on to win the race, and Keke, driving absolutely at the edge, came back to finish a brilliant, if frustrated, second, passing Prost's McLaren-TAG Porsche five laps from the end.

It was always delightfully informal at Kyalami, even by the relaxed standards of the day. The 'post-race press conference', I remember, was in a small tent, Mansell simply standing around with the rest of us, answering our questions.

After a seven-year gap F1 went back to Kyalami, in 1992, and again Mansell won, this time in the 'active' Williams-Renault FW14B that was to dominate the season. By now, though, the magnificent old track had been laid to rest, and what we had in its place was just another 'modern circuit'. Inevitable perhaps, but no less sad for that.