Ask Nigel Roebuck: October 30

Send your questions to AskNigel@haynet.com.


Dear Nathan,

I'm writing this on Tuesday, the day after the F1 Commission meeting in London, and the news - not unexpected - is that the Belgian Grand Prix has indeed been removed from the 2003 World Championship calendar. There is no question of a replacement event, apparently, so next year it will be 16 races only.

You put it very well, Nathan: Spa does indeed 'retain the magic that the sport has slowly lost in recent years'. Unfortunately, though, as we have seen many a time, there is precious little sentiment in motor racing these days - indeed, I can't think of another sport which has so little regard for its heritage. Tiger Woods, I'm told, can talk all day about Ben Hogan, and Pete Sampras says he has always modeled himself on his hero, Rod Laver. But ask a contemporary F1 driver about, say, Jochen Rindt, and the chances are you'll be met with a blank stare. Sad, but there you are.

One thing about racing drivers which never really changes, though, is that they like 'proper circuits', and they don't have many of those to choose from today: Spa and Suzuka, and that's about it. In terms of modern tracks, Sepang is highly regarded, and rightly so, but there are too many bland places like the Hungaroring, which Juan Montoya rightly describes as 'offensive'.

I've touched on the subject of Spa in this week's Fifth Column in the magazine. The problem - on the face of it, anyway - lies with tobacco advertising. As you know, it is to be banned everywhere in 2006, but the Belgian parliament has decided to bring this forward, introducing it on 1 August 2003 - a month before the date of the Belgian Grand Prix.

This the F1 fraternity finds unacceptable, but I confess I don't really understand why it is of such surpassing importance, for we haven't had tobacco advertising on the cars in, say, the British and German Grands Prix for some 15 years, yet have continued each year to go to Silverstone and Hockenheim.

Perhaps, being cynical about it, the real problem - or a big part of it, anyway - lies elsewhere. At this year's race, Ron Dennis was rather more candid than most of his colleagues: "We have to be careful about moving too far away from the heritage aspects of F1," he said, "but this isn't solely a tobacco issue. There are 17 races currently permitted in the world championship, and some have better packages than others. In terms of revenue-raising, this one is probably towards the bottom end of the scale..." The three dots are mine.

On Monday Bernie Ecclestone said he was confident that the Belgian - which is to say, Flemish - politicians would change their minds about bringing the ban forward, which would at least allow the race to return to the calendar in 2004. I hope he's right - but, like you, I have this fear that if the race should disappear next year, it may well never return. In 2004, after all, we already have new races scheduled for Bahrain and Shanghai, which would theoretically mean dropping two European races. And if Spa has gone already...

Like you, I'm mortified - if not surprised - by what has happened, and I imagine a huge number of fans will feel the same way. I have friends in this country who wouldn't cross the road to go to Silverstone, but have never missed Spa, just as there are those who unfailingly go to Le Mans or the TT races in the Isle of Man. Across the water, the same is true of the Indy 500.

Spa, together with Imola, Monza and Indianapolis, is among my favourite race weekends, and the thought occurs that if we don't go there next year the only race in August will be the dreaded Hungaroring.

Although I went to the Spa 1000kms in 1972, and thus saw a race on the 'old', fearsomely fast, track, for reasons I still can't explain to myself, I somehow never saw a Grand Prix run there. Still, I went to the first race on the shortened, revised, circuit, in 1983, and never missed one thereafter. The current track may not be quite the equal of the original, but still the fact remains that they did a wonderful job when they built it, incorporating much of the original track, and remaining faithful to its character in the new sections.

I've seen many memorable races there, of course, but one which sticks in the mind was the 1990 Belgian Grand Prix, won by Ayrton Senna's McLaren-Honda, with Alain Prost's Ferrari second, three seconds behind. Gerhard Berger's McLaren, third, was nearly half a minute behind Prost.

Why this one? Because it was somehow so right that at this, the most challenging circuit, no one could get near Senna and Prost, then conspicuously the two best drivers on earth. Ayrton had more horsepower, Alain better handling, and the pair of them put the rest in the shade.

Both, incidentally, thought Spa-Francorchamps the greatest track anywhere. As I said, some things don't change from generation to generation. I just hope that this crop of drivers is not the last to experience it.

To read Nigel's Fifth Column get this week's AUTOSPORT magazine, which goes on sale on Thurday October 31.




Dear Dave,

In 2000, Jenson had an extremely impressive first year in F1, with Williams-BMW. At the time we thought his performances especially remarkable, given that he had come straight in after a single season in a very junior formula, but now we tend make less of such things: a year later, after all, Kimi Raikkonen did exactly the same thing.

Does this suggest that F1 cars are now, as many suggest, too easy to drive, that experience, in this age of telemetry and 'driver aids', is worth far less than it was? A massive leap in horsepower, for example, is obviously far less daunting if you have traction control to keep it in check, and shifting gears, too, is a thing of the past. So maybe, yes, there is something in that argument - but this is not to suggest that Button and Raikkonen are other than highly talented. I merely wonder if they would have made quite such an immediate impression in an earlier, pre-gizmo, era.

Button, as we said, acquitted himself extremely well with Williams in 2000, towards the end of the year quite often out-qualifying team-mate Ralf Schumacher; if he were less impressive in the races (tangling with Jarno Trulli in the early laps at both Spa and Indianapolis, for example), undoubtedly his lack of experience counted against him.

They always say, though, that you learn most about a racing driver when he's up against it, when he's in a bad car, and on that basis in 2001 many of us had cause to reassess quite radically the opinion we had formed of Jenson the year before. Now he was at Benetton, and the car was admittedly terrible for most of the season, but even so his performances, relative to those of Giancarlo Fisichella, were very disappointing.

This year, with the team revamped as Renault, Button has had a much better car, albeit not a great one, and to a considerable degree has redeemed his reputation. Now he moves on to BAR, with Jacques Villeneuve as his team-mate.

So how good is he? Very good, in my opinion: you don't qualify third (ahead of Michael Schumacher!) on your first visit to Spa unless your skills are pretty special. That said, I'll admit I see Jenson as a driver rather than a racer.

I think part of his problem, particularly in 2001, was that he had been so absurdly over-hyped in the press, when first he landed the Williams drive, that expectations of him were unreasonably high. Personally, I wouldn't put him on the same level as, say, Montoya or Raikkonen, but I don't doubt that he has a considerable future before him in F1.



Dear Mark,

It's a very fair point you make. Ukyo did indeed do a fine job for Tyrrell in 1994 - although I think it's worth making the point that he tended to shine particularly at fast circuits without too many testing corners (like Hockenheim and Monza) - and that Yamaha did get very impressive horsepower from their V10 that year.

Like Sato, Katayama was a delightful bloke, a real character, and he was very popular in the F1 paddocks. In terms of raw skill, though, I think Takuma the better of the two, and I'll stick with my opinion that he's the best Japanese driver we have seen so far.



Dear Lex,

It's a bit of a mystery, isn't it? Many people regard Tazio Nuvolari as the greatest driver there has ever been, Giuseppe Farina was the first man to win the World Championship (in 1950), and Alberto Ascari (World Champion in 1952 and '53) was regarded by no less than Denis Jenkinson as better than Fangio. As you say, though, since then, nothing!

Strange how cyclical these things tend to be. In the late '50s and early '60s, for example, three of the top Grand Prix drivers (Phil Hill, Dan Gurney and Richie Ginther) were American, and in the mid-late '60s three were New Zealanders (Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme and Chris Amon). Where are the Americans and New Zealanders these days?

Conversely, so far as I can remember, there had been no Brazilian F1 (at the top level, anyway) until Emerson Fittipaldi arrived on the scene in 1970 - since when the sport has been over-run by Brazilians!

Remember, too, that no Frenchman won the World Championship until Alain Prost did it in 1985, and no German until Michael Schumacher triumphed in 1994. Britain, meantime, has had eight World Champions: Mike Hawthorn, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, John Surtees, Jackie Stewart, James Hunt, Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill!

In 2003 it will be exactly 50 years since an Italian last won the title, and the only one since Ascari who seriously threatened to win it was the lamented Michele Alboreto, back in 1985. Frankly I don't see those on parade at present being able to end that drought.

Giancarlo Fisichella and Jarno Trulli are both excellent professionals - but so were most of those you cited in your list, particularly Lorenzo Bandini and Riccardo Patrese.

For the 'special talents' (Schuey apart) these days, it seems, you must look to South America and Finland...



Dear Jennifer,

My thoughts on Eddie Irvine's season? Well, like the two which went before, it's been pretty appalling, hasn't it? A lucky fourth at Melbourne, a good third at Monza, a sixth at Spa, and that's it.

That said, nine times Eddie retired in races, and for the bulk of the season he had a dog - the Jaguar R3 - to drive. There wasn't a lot wrong with the Cosworth V10 engine, but the chassis and aerodynamics were hopeless from the start, and it was only towards the end of the year that some discernible progress was made. At Monza the car really was pretty good.

We don't yet know who will drive for Jaguar in 2003, of course, but it's likely to be Mark Webber and Pedro de la Rosa or Antonio Pizzonia. Whatever, to the best of my knowledge Irvine is definitely out. He has, of course, been extremely expensive for the team over the last three years, but I understand he was willing to take a substantial pay cut in order to stay for next year.

No doubt about it, when the mood takes him Eddie still drives extremely well (more so in the races than in qualifying), but I suspect his very downbeat approach has not worked in his favour as Niki Lauda and his colleagues considered Jaguar's future. "When things are bad," a team insider recently said, "what you really need, to keep going, is a sense of optimism, a driver who's good for morale. And Eddie isn't exactly that..."

Irvine could finish up back at Jordan, where his F1 career began, late in 1993, but I've heard that Benson & Hedges are not willing to fork out the extra gelt to land him, and if that's the case, I don't see any drive on offer to him.

Has he got another couple of seasons left in him? Undoubtedly, yes - he is not, for example, desperate to get out of the business, as was Damon Hill by 1999. But whether Eddie will get the chance of those two seasons is another matter. Both Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger, after all, were quick to the end of their careers - why, Gerhard dominantly won a Grand Prix in his final season! - but each was ultimately obliged to retire from F1 because they were getting into their late 30s, and nothing worthwhile was on offer for the future.

If such was the case with drivers like Berger and Alesi, frankly I see little reason why it should be any different for Irvine.