Cooper Straight

By the end of it the greatest racer of the era found himself subject to criticism from many sides, and placed under enormous strain in the immediate run up to the most important race of the year for his team. As he prepared to climb into his car, he was grim-faced.

Earlier that morning a German colleague told me that Schumacher's general demeanour reminded him of Ayrton Senna at Imola after Roland Ratzenberger's accident at Imola seven years ago. "We have a saying," he said. "It means something like Michael is walking next to his shoes." I hadn't heard that one before, but it seemed to fit. Exactly a year after his tearful breakdown in a post-race TV interview, Schumacher was again letting his emotions get the better of him. So what was it all about?



You don't need me to tell me what sort of impact last week's events in America had on people throughout the world. Right now life seems to be getting back to normal, but what you have to remember is that the teams and drivers began to gather at Monza less than 48 hours after the attacks started.

Most people had been glued to their TVs ever since, and for once the main topic of conversation in the paddock was not tyre compounds, or who was going to drive the second Arrows next year. Everybody had a point of view, a story to relate. They either believed that life and sport should go on, and that we shouldn't give in to the terrorists, or they thought that something as frivolous as driving round in circles was not an appropriate activity to be returning to so soon after an international tragedy.

There was no question that Michael was deeply affected by the situation in the US. Michael loves America, not least because it's a country where he can take a holiday and live like a normal human being because he can pass unrecognised. It's quite understandable that he would find it hard to accept that we were back in action just a couple of days later, especially as he had been on such a high after recent successes.

He is the focus of worldwide attention when it comes to F1, and if the Italian GP was going ahead, everyone's first thoughts would be that it must be business as usual for Michael Schumacher. Whatever he said would resonate round the world, so he made it clear that he really didn't want to talk about the situation. He wanted to keep his thoughts to himself. Or perhaps he didn't know what to think.



On Thursday a meeting of team principals was held to discuss what F1 should do by way of response. It led to an agreement to shift Friday morning's practice session forward by 10 minutes, to allow for a one minute's silence in the pitlane at noon. Otherwise it would be back to normal, for better or worse.

It therefore came as a surprise to many on Friday when Ferrari revealed its cars in a plain red livery, with a black nose. Logos were removed from the drivers, the trucks and all crew members. It was a grand, sweeping gesture instigated by Luca di Montezemolo, the general idea being that the team was willing to forego any home ground celebrations of its successful season.

But it created a little tension elsewhere in the paddock. Other teams were still running in normal liveries, and by implication they now appeared to be taking the situation less seriously than Ferrari. One team principal told me he was furious at being put in such a position after the meeting had agreed what would be appropriate. More than one cynic suggested that Ferrari's sponsors would be far more noticeable in their absence that if they were still on the car...

It was an extremely sensitive situation, not least because at least four teams had sponsors that had offices in the World Trade Centre. By Saturday Jaguar's leaping cats had been replaced by black patches on the airbox, while at the specific request of a sponsor the Jordans carried large US flags on race day.



Out on the track, the weekend didn't start very well. There were dozens of incidents at the chicanes in practice, and both Jos Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen had lucky escapes from huge incidents that could had much worse consequences. The Finn just missed a parked Minardi when he went off approaching the first chicane, and a flying wheel from the Sauber very nearly cleared the barrier. Then late in the afternoon F3000 qualifying was completely washed out by an unbelievably fierce storm, that turned the skies black and covered the track with tree branches and swirling piles of leaves.

The drama continued into Saturday morning when Mika Hakkinen had a hefty crash at the second Lesmo. To everyone's great relief F1 qualifying passed without major dramas, but the F3000 race that followed was utterly chaotic, with aborted starts followed by series of incidents when it finally did get underway.

While that race was running the Lausitzring CART event was being shown in a few team motorhomes. After Alex Zanardi's accident German TV quickly aborted its transmission, but descriptions from those who'd seen it circulated quickly around Monza. There was no doubt as to the seriousness of the situation.

It's only two years since Alex last raced in F1, and the Italian has many friends in the paddock. News of his condition was urgently sought, but as ever there was confusion. Reports were misleading, and I'm afraid to say that some people who should know better spread the word that Zanardi was dead without bothering to qualify their statements by admitting that they'd only heard a second or third hand rumour.

It was a very uncomfortable period, and the welcome firm news that Alex was alive was tempered by the devastating extent of his injuries. What happened to poor Zanardi was completely without precedent in the history of motor racing, and as the full story emerged it surely had an impact on every driver in the paddock. Of course they accept the risks and that they might break bones, but this was something quite beyond anyone's comprehension.

Sunday's F1 warm-up passed without incident, but there was a huge crash on the run to the first chicane in the Porsche Supercup race. For some of us, including Michael Schumacher, it was all getting a little too spooky - America, the on-track incidents through the Monza weekend, and finally Zanardi.



Michael had clearly been affected by everything that had gone on, and memories of last year's first lap accident, which resulted in the death of a marshal, were fresh in his mind. And that's why the idea of a guaranteeing a safe start cropped up.

Michael explained his thinking to FIA officials and asked if it would be possible to have a safety car start. Not surprisingly, they said no. What else could they do? Whatever the circumstances, to agree would imply that the track was not safe and therefore should not have been deemed fit for a race.

Michael then stated his position to his colleagues in the drivers briefing. If there could be no safety car then the general idea was that there should be no passing through the first two chicanes. In other words the field should take off as if on a formation lap, or behind a 'virtual' safety car, and not fully get up to speed until after the second chicane.

Obviously brother Ralf was behind him, as were Eddie Irvine and Pedro de la Rosa. Others either agreed that it was a sensible option, or said nothing and implied that they would go along with the majority. But Jacques Villeneuve was vehemently opposed to the idea, which was completely against his principles - the fact that Jacques and Michael would probably argue about what two plus two make did not help the cause...



A vote was taken, and Jacques stood alone, although Enrique Bernoldi and Jenson Button came close to backing him. The likes of Jos Verstappen and Olivier Panis admitted that they didn't like Michael's idea, but were prepared to go along with it if everyone else agreed. But with Jacques so clearly opposed, there was a problem.

Stunned team managers left the meeting not really knowing what was going to happen, and unsure what to tell their bosses. Meanwhile the drivers climbed straight onto the truck that takes them on the parade lap. There was another minute's silence, at the request of the Italian Olympic Committee, before the truck headed off on its lap of the circuit. TV pictures revealed some serious discussion, and the reason why came when public address interviewer Bob Constanduros stepped in and asked Michael what was going on. Word hadn't yet spread, so his response stunned the whole paddock.

"The tragedy we have seen, and what's happened over the weekend, one of our fellow racing drivers is in hospital seriously hurt, Zanardi. It's a weekend when a lot of things are not right, and we should question whether we should race.

After what has happened last year we know that the first two chicanes are quite a big problem. We just had a meeting and we decided that within the first two chicanes there will be no overtaking. With the exception of one driver, everybody has agreed, and that's what we're going to go for. If this one driver doesn't want to follow this way, that's his decision." So who was the one driver? "I think everybody knows. He's pretty small..."

When the parade lap ended, the drivers headed back to their motorhomes. And that's when it all kicked off. People rushed around, opinions were sought, meetings were held. Some team bosses, notably Flavio Briatore, Tom Walkinshaw and Craig Pollock, were furious.

Meanwhile Michael asked his PR girl, Sabine Kehm, to get a letter signed by his fellow drivers. She duly dashed around the paddock to drum up support. When she got to BAR, by now accompanied by Michael's physio, the message from Pollock clear - you're wasting your time, and that goes for Olivier as well as Jacques.

Pollock told me he was totally supportive of Villeneuve's stand. "Jacques' viewpoint is that he's an F1 driver, and he has every intention of racing, unless obviously told otherwise by the FIA or Bernie. But I believe that Bernie is of exactly the same mind as Jacques.

"As usual Jacques is the one with the courage to stand up and say he wants to race. I think the FIA has sanctioned the circuit, they believe it's a safe circuit to race on. Why all of a sudden is it not safe to go into the first bend? A big part of racing is the start, and the race to the first bend is the exciting part. The FIA has sanctioned it, the FIA have checked it out, therefore that bend is safe. If they say it's safe, the drivers should go and race."

Sabine got the same negative reception at Arrows, for by now Jos had agreed with his team boss that the start should go ahead as normal.

"Some people are in a position to do that, but other people are not," the Dutchman told me. "They have to perform. We have to get results to keep the company up, and we are here to race and not to follow each other. To suddenly decide to do something like that... They should have decided on Wednesday that they shouldn't race. But they came here without any problems.

"We all know what happened in the States. But this is for everybody the same. As soon as you sit in the car with your helmet on you're focussed, and you're concentrated. You don't think what happened in the world, and I think that's for everybody the same. With your mind somewhere else I think you can't do a good qualifying or whatever. It maybe affects some people more than others. I can only say what I feel about it."

Many others did sign, including Giancarlo Fisichella. That led to a major flare-up with his team boss - and the Italian was effectively sacked for 15 minutes until he agreed to disassociate himself from the cause. So by now it seemed a third of the field or more was going to start normally. What the hell was going to happen next?



Down at Jaguar, Irvine sat quietly in his room at the back of the team motorhome. Over the years he's clashed with Schumacher in drivers' briefings, even when they were team mates. He's often ridiculed the German's opinions, but this time he was fully behind him.

"The speeds are too high at this circuit. If you have a small problem, there's no margin. We're doing 350kph. We're doing oval speeds with head-on accident potential, with trees lining the road. OK, there's a little piece of Armco, and a little piece of fencing, but at 350kph it's not going to stop anything. I spoke to Max Mosley personally on this a couple of years ago. And nothing is done. It's worse than Hockenheim. At Hockenheim there's no run-off issues really. It's not safe either, because the speeds too high. There's too much potential for the cars to fly."

Even the gung-ho Verstappen agreed with him: "For me the speed is miles too high for this track. I'm braking down to 80kph for the chicane, so the difference is too high. I think you should have a reasonably fast corner instead of the chicane. To go quick on this track you take wing off. Everybody goes to the limit, and yes, we arrive at 350kph. It's the wrong type of circuit. If we were in Hungary at the moment, nobody would care..."

Eddie had expressed similar sentiments after last year's accident. His opinion was that the track needed more chicanes, which would not only slow speeds in their own right but force teams to run more downforce. His view is that with power pushing 900bhp, cars should have more downforce to slow straightline speeds. But that creates the conundrum of faster cornering...



Clearly Eddie's thoughts were for a long-term solution, but the race was rapidly approaching. The main issue now was that the drivers had shot themselves in the foot by making a fuss at such a late stage. The fatal accident was a year ago, and yet since then everyone had tested at Monza several times. Nothing was said at the drivers' briefing at the start of the weekend.

And that of course left Schumacher and his supporters wide open for criticism. Why on earth did they leave it until Sunday morning to kick up a fuss? As ever, no one could be bothered to address the issue at the right time, as Tom Walkinshaw was quick to point out:

"I think it's the FIA's job to certify the circuit as being safe to race upon, and once they've done it, we come here to race. We're not here to run in an artificial environment. If they've got something to say about the track they've had plenty of opportunity to say it for a year, so that the organisers can do something about it. There's nothing been said here on Thursday, Friday or Saturday for that matter, and I think it's wholly inappropriate that it's brought up on a Sunday morning. At the end of the day we're here to put on the show that the people who've bought the tickets have paid to see. That's all there is to it."

Inevitably Michael became the focus of anger from other team bosses. "It's Senna's bully boy tactics again," said one senior figure. If he wasn't in the mood to race, he should go home, and not inflict his views on others.

The consensus was that the season may be over for Michael, in terms of the championship, but everyone else had a reason to scrabble for points. And of course everybody had a vested interest one way or another, or so it seemed to those with opposing views. Montoya's on pole, so he'll be only too happy with a controlled start. Or Benetton has great launch control, so that's why Flavio wants it to go ahead as normal. Verstappen made no secret of his wishes: "One of the big reasons for me is that I always make a lot of places up at the start, and I wasn't very impressed that we follow them all."

I even heard one driver say that de la Rosa supported Michael because he was involved in last year's first lap crash, and was therefore "scared." Well, I reckon he had a right to be...

Clearly Michael's head was some place else, and as support crumbled in the last half an hour before the start, he was even more agitated. There could have been a case for Jean Todt suggesting to him that he should not race, but that missed the point. He wanted to race, but he also wanted to minimise the risk inherent at the start.

When he arrived on the grid several drivers joined him for a discussion, and he also had a chat with a clearly unhappy brother Ralf. Michael then took the unprecedented step of walking back down the grid to tell his colleagues that the start would go ahead as normal. Let's be careful was the gist of the message. He did not visit Jacques.



I suspect the fall-out from this episode will not be forgotten in a hurry. Schumacher has taken a lot of flak, and was probably shocked that his informal role as leader of the drivers was not what he thought it was. Like Jackie Stewart three decades ago, he seems to have been cast as an agitator who over reacts to safety concerns.

I suspect that Michael's general feeling was that the last thing F1 needed right now was a spectacular first lap pile up spread across TV news bulletins and the Monday papers. There were similar sentiments attached to the CART event - I'm told that when the Lausitzring TV transmission was cut the German reporter announced that his channel had agreed to show the race, but wanted no part of any serious accidents.

If that was essentially what Michael was trying to do, he should have been praised for it by F1's senior figures, not vilified. But what he failed to do was deliver his message clearly. It came across as the biggest star in the sport feeling sorry for himself, having personal doubts about racing on this particular day, and trying to impose his views on his fellows. That was bound to incense rival team owners, some of whom were already annoyed by the Ferrari livery saga. The last straw was when poor Sabine Kehm, wearing a Ferrari shirt, appeared at their motorhomes asking that their drivers sign Michael's petition.

You could suggest that a weakness in Michael's impregnable armour has been exposed. Surely this was this the first time that he'd not wanted to climb aboard a racing car - something that seemed unthinkable just a few days earlier? On top of everything else, had long time rival Mika Hakkinen's 'holiday' plans influenced him in some way?

Someone who saw him sitting forlornly at the airport, waiting to escape in his private jet, had no doubts that Michael had endured the weekend from hell. The World Champion admitted he was glad to be on his way home.



It's obvious now that the drivers will struggle to present a united front should any difficult situation arise in the future, whether related to safety matters or anything else. And that, one might speculate, suits both Bernie Ecclestone and the team bosses just fine. History has shown that a strong drivers' body is not welcome - remember Kyalami '82? Villeneuve's intransigence played into their hands. Drivers may earn millions more than their predecessors, but there's no doubt wherein the power still lies.

What surely must be questioned is Briatore's heavy handed attempt to get Fisichella to follow orders. At BAR and Arrows, the drivers and team bosses were at least in complete harmony, but not so at Benetton. What kind of state of mind was the Spa hero in as the start approached? Not a very good one, I suspect, and I imagine more than one of his colleagues was unable to completely switch off once they put their helmets on.

It was somewhat ironic therefore that a fuel pump problem ultimately forced Fisichella to take the start in the spare from the pitlane, while the other Benetton was soon out of contention after Button shoved Trulli out of the way and lost his front wing.

Flavio's 2002 drivers had a couple of clashes last year, at Spa and Indianapolis, and the Monza incident won't have contributed to intra-team harmony next year. And Briatore will have to deal with the fall-out. A case of poetic justice, perhaps?



Finally, a quick note on another matter. A few weeks ago I wrote about the removal of the gravel traps at Spa's Eau Rouge and Blanchimont corners, in an attempt to give drivers a chance to lose momentum by braking on tarmac. Ironically the accident to Luciano Burti occurred at the corner before Blanchimont, but it showed once again how useless gravel can sometimes be, for it appeared to do very little to slow him as he speared towards the tyre wall.

As I said at the time, the tarmac philosophy has also been adopted by some oval tracks in America, notably Fontana, where Greg Moore was killed a couple of years ago. I don't know enough about Alex Zanardi's accident to comment fully on it, but from what I saw the Italian appeared to be bouncing put of control on a grass infield which was presumably still very wet after several days of rain. Unable to control the car, he slid back up the banking. If anyone needed further evidence that some circuits need to be re-examined, surely this was it.