Ask Nigel: September 26

Autosport's American Editor Gordon Kirby will be taking over Nigel's reins for October 10. So if you have a question for Gordon - be it American or European, or from the past, present or future - send an e-mail to the usual AskNigel address, but type 'Ask GK' in the subject box.




Dear Peter,
I don't know if I'd go as far as to say that Juan Montoya is beginning to put Ralf Schumacher in the shade, although of late it has begun to look a little that way, with Juan starting on pole at three of the last four races.

It's true that I've had a feeling about Montoya's potential greatness for some years, ever since seeing him overtake a lot of cars at Monte Carlo in the course of a comeback drive in the F3000 race. When he did those two years in CART, many seasoned US observers - including Bobby Rahal, who knows a thing or two about race driving - reached the conclusion that he was simply the best driver they had ever seen. "The kind of driver," Rahal says, "who comes along once every two generations."

Earlier this year, though, when I told Patrick Head I had bet my friend and colleague Alan Henry four hundred quid that Juan would out-qualify Ralf more often than not, he said he feared I would lose my money - and he was right!

Patrick thought I had unrealistic expectations of Montoya. He agreed that he had quite incredible talent, but reckoned that, in his first year in F1, it was going to be almost impossible for him to get the upper hand on Schumacher Jr, whom he also rates extremely highly. For one thing, he said, Ralf was almost certainly going to raise his game considerably, in anticipation of Juan's arrival; for another, he already had several years' experience of F1, and when it came to set-up - particularly at circuits new to JPM - that was going to be crucial. In the first half of the season, certainly, he expected Ralf to be ahead, and he was right about that, too...

That said, Patrick anticipated that when Montoya truly began to find his feet, to learn how to operate properly over a Grand Prix weekend, Ralf would need to watch himself, and such is proving to be the case. Even before the season began, Williams personnel knew that Juan was already quicker in the quick corners, countering that by pointing out that, on slow circuits, Ralf was later on the brakes.

Right enough, Montoya's pole positions have all come at quick tracks - Hockenheim, Spa, Monza - and in those circumstances he does indeed appear to have Schumacher Jr's measure. But on slow circuits, like the Hungaroring, Ralf appears able to arrive at a good set-up much earlier, and of course this advantage then snowballs through the weekend.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that this is now the strongest driver pairing in F1, with two immensely quick young drivers, who do not care for each other, and who drive each other to ever greater efforts. There is greatness in both of them, I feel, but Juan seems to me to have something more, that indefinable quality that was there in people like Prost, Senna and Michael Schumacher from the outset. When the Williams-BMW drivers were fighting for the pole at Spa, in the last seconds of the session, he was 17kph faster than Ralf out of Eau Rouge, and I confess that made a big impression on me - as it also did on the Williams guys.

I have long felt that JPM was 'the real deal', as you put it, but at the same time I do not think of Ralf as other than a major talent. I doubt that Montoya will eclipse him next year, although I do expect him to have the upper hand, and very much wish I'd delayed my bet with Henry by one season! As for your last question, history suggests that, yes, German toys may occasionally come flying out of the pram...




Dear Phil,
Way too early to say whether Enge and/or Yoong have a place in F1 long-term. On the strength of Monza, Tomas looked very competent, and the Prost team was impressed with him, but Alex - with two spins in the same place during the race - looked somewhat out of his depth. We'll see.




Dear Mark,
I am extremely fond of Alex Zanardi, and, like you, was very shocked by the news of his accident at the Lausitzring. At Rockingham last weekend one of the Penske guys described him as, 'Probably the nicest guy in motorsport', and I wouldn't disagree with that.

Perhaps, however, I should deal with your last point first. The lack of tyre-warmers in CART had nothing to do with Alex's accident, for in fact his pit stop was merely a 'splash and dash' in the late stages of the race, and he didn't change tyres. Unfortunately, he simply gave it a little too much power at the exit of the pit lane, and spun. It was as simple as that.

I first got to know Alex in his Lotus days in the early '90s, but actually he made his F1 debut for Jordan towards the end of 1991, and it's worth bearing in mind that there they thought him as quick as Michael Schumacher, who had also made his debut with the team a little earlier that season.

It was heartbreaking to see a driver of such obvious talent being wasted at Lotus, which was in its death throes at that time - not least because he was trying so hard in uncompetitive cars, and not even being paid for it.

When Lotus disappeared from F1 at the end of 1994, Alex was unable to find another ride. Through 1995 he hardly raced at all, but in 1996 his career turned around. After a successful test, he was signed to drive for Chip Ganassi's CART team, and he made his mark instantly in the most competitive single-seater series on earth, winning races not only on road and street circuits, but also on the ovals.

He has always been disarmingly honest. At Milwaukee one year I interviewed him, and he said this: "I'd be lying to you if I said that I came here because I thought that was a better option for me; at the end of the day I came here because I couldn't find employment in F1.

"On the other hand, I didn't know much about this series when I came here. Now that I know it, now that I'm established driver over here, I no longer think in terms of which is better or worse, F1 or CART. Technically speaking, I certainly think that these cars are more fun to drive than F1 cars, and I also think they look much better."

Zanardi became a superstar in Champ Car racing, winning the CART Championship twice, in 1997 and '98, but, much as he loved it, at the back of his mind was always the thought that F1 was 'unfinished business'. When Frank Williams made him an offer for 1999, he couldn't turn it down.

"Obviously, it was his success in America which made us think of Zanardi," said Frank Williams. "He excelled there, demonstrated a very skilful and aggressive approach - and his ability to overtake was quite remarkable. We liked his spirit, his fire in the belly, so we went out and got him. He's utterly charming, Alex, and everyone here is very fond of him. I've no doubt he'll deliver for us. No doubt at all."

Sadly for all concerned, Williams was proved wrong. In the four years since Zanardi had been away from F1, the cars had changed fundamentally - and Alex intensely disliked them.

"When I first started in CART," he said, "the cars were heavier than the ones I'd been driving in F1, but basically they had the same character. However, new FIA rules changed F1 cars completely, with grooved tyres, and so on. They're tricky - and they require a different driving style. It's not necessary to carry speed around the corner - in fact, the car doesn't want to go fast around the corner; what you must do is brake really late, turn in somehow, and then get on the power as soon as you can. Well, this is against my instinct..."

Alex always admitted he needed to have fun in his work; without that, he said, he would find it impossible to generate the degree of dedication he feels is necessary for success. "The last thought in your mind before you go to sleep has to be how to make your race car better - and it has to be also your first thought when you wake up."

Unfortunately, though, he was unable to adapt his style to this new breed of F1 car, and through the '99 season was consistently humbled by his team mate, Ralf Schumacher. By the end of the season, Ralf had 35 points, Alex not one. Williams decided not to continue with him in 2000, and paid off the balance of his three-year contract.

If it was inevitable, still we were very sad to see it happen, not least because Alex is a man of humour, courtesy and charm, and you don't get many of those to the pound in an F1 paddock. His inability to get to grips with the Williams remains as mysterious a phenomenon as I can remember in this sport. Although he out-qualified Ralf five times, in the races he was invariably nowhere, which frustrated everyone in the team, but also saddened them, for they liked him so much, really wanted him to succeed.

In 2000 Zanardi didn't race at all. Financially secure, he was devoted to his wife Daniela, and their newborn son, and few expected he would ever return to the cockpit - after all, if he were able to sit out a season, how much did he need it?

In the end, though, the lure of it was too much. In his years at Ganassi, he had worked closely with Mo Nunn, and when Nunn - who by now had his own team - offered him a drive for 2001, he accepted. It was back to CART, back to where he had been happiest, been most successful.

From the start of the season, though, it was obvious that much of the old passion and flair were gone. Occasionally, when there was a whiff of victory, as at Cleveland, he was the old Alex, but usually he qualified poorly, and made little impression in the race. At Rockingham a couple of his friends told me he had decided to call it a day at the end of the season.

Then came the accident - ironically in what was far and away his most competitive race of the season. He was leading when he dashed in for that quick stop, a dozen laps from the end, and quite obviously the old Zanardi was at work that day. It was in his haste to get back to the fight that he jabbed the throttle a little too much as he left the pits.

The consequences were, of course, devastating, and it was only remarkable work, first by CART's Dr Steve Olvey at the scene, and then by doctors at the hospital in Berlin, that saved his life.

At Rockingham I was told by one of his close friends that he had taken the news of his predicament astonishingly well, consoling himself with the thought that he was alive, he was secure, and he had his family. On Saturday, indeed, he watched the Rockingham CART race on TV.

"It's an unimaginable thing to happen to anyone," Chip Ganassi said to me, "but if ever I've met anyone equipped to deal with it, it's Alex. The guy's just an incredible fighter."




Dear Rupert,
If I'm surprised by Mika's announcement, it's only because I had come to expect he would retire at the end of this season, period.

He has had a quite atrocious year, with frequently poor reliability from his cars, notably at Barcelona, where he had Michael Schumacher beaten, and then had transmission failure a few corners from the chequered flag.

The real Mika Hakkinen showed himself at Silverstone, where, for once, he was able to dial out the McLaren MP4-16's inherent understeer (a condition he loathes), and beat Schumacher with ease. Too many times, though, he has not been his true self, and one often felt he was simply going through the motions.

I think, in truth, he is tired, suffering from battle fatigue after several years of fighting for the World Championship, which was accentuated by the fact that this year he was out of contention for it very early in the season.

Do I expect Hakkinen to return? Don't know how to answer that at this stage. At Monza I asked Keke Rosberg, his manager, if he thought Mika would come back, and he said, "As things stand, one hundred per cent yes." At the same time, though, Keke conceded that next year Mika might well find that he didn't miss racing very much at all.

For all the flowery press releases, I can't honestly see how he could go back to McLaren, anyway, in 2003. David Coulthard is currently under contract to the team until the end of that year, and Kimi Raikkonen's new deal is a very long-term one. But, as we've said before, all things are possible in F1...




Dear Clarice,
Actually, I strongly agree with Max and Bernie on the question of the US Grand Prix - I definitely think it right that it should go ahead. Their reasons for feeling that way may be different from mine - as far as I'm concerned, contracts have nothing to do with it - but our conclusions are the same.

Although the spectator attendance is expected to be considerably lower than last year - the locals were somewhat unimpressed by the lack of 'racing' in contemporary F1 - and although I hear tell of many cancelled hotel rooms in Indianapolis, following the atrocities on September 11, a friend of mine at the Speedway tells me that, in the wake of the attacks, ticket sales among local racing fans have increased substantially.

That's interesting, for it suggests a desire to do something - anything - which might take their minds off the horror, even if only for a while. As Juan Montoya put it at Monza, "We must race at Indianapolis, if only because it might bring a little bit of joy into people's lives at an awful time like this."

The thing is, when is the time right to attempt a return to some sort of normality? I know that the Ryder Cup has been cancelled, but in the US every major sport has resumed.

I'm going to the race, and I confess that my worry is not being able to get back, should hostilities escalate, and American airports be closed once more - particularly as I'm then taking a holiday there afterwards. But I feel that normal life cannot be suspended because of the activities of terrorists. When that happens, they've won.