From the Pulpit

Once you've designed and built your new car... and launched it to the world's press... and hired a couple of throttle jockeys to drive it... and tested it over thousands of kilometres at Barcelona, Jerez and Valencia... and done all your sponsorship deals... and written your press packs... and painted your trucks... and redesigned your team apparel... and freighted everything and everyone to Bahrain or Malaysia or Australia or wherever... the die is cast, right?

In other words, what you've ended up with - the famous package that everyone in F1 craves and reveres - is either going to make your team a contender for victory... or it ain't. If it is, well, bully for you. If it ain't, well, there's always next year.

In a nutshell, the above paragraph represents a whistle-stop tour through conventional F1 paddock wisdom with regard to the art of winning, and it's largely accurate.

But, although it may be the truth, it's neither nothing but the truth nor the whole truth. Because, once you've done all those things and your mechanics are rolling your cars into your pit garage and you're into the three-day countdown to the when-the-flag-drops-the-bullshit-stops zero hour, which is to say 2:00pm on Sunday... there are still five men in 21st-century F1, but only five, who can make the difference between winning and merely taking part.

They are, in no particular order, Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Ross Brawn and Pat Symonds. And that's it.

The drivers, we know about: the best of the current era, three freakishly rapid and wondrously accomplished race winners who have repeatedly turned the sniff of a half-chance into the 10-point haul they long-for like nothing and no-one else.

Pat Symonds © Reuters

Brawn? Symonds? Race strategy is everything in 2006-model-year F1, and these two have it taped. They think about nothing else. The result is that, time and time again, Ferrari and Renault manage to optimise a changing set of conditions, in real time, on the pit wall, with the result that when the final pitstops have been done and dusted, their drivers are out in front, reeling off the last few laps, ready to spray Mumm.

Not convinced? Then consider, then, that my famous five work for Renault, McLaren and Ferrari, the three teams who have sewn up the FIA Formula One World Championships these past nine years, and who look like sewing them up for quite a few more (if early 2006 form is anything to go by, and it is).

Yes, other teams will win the odd Grand Prix - just as Giancarlo Fisichella won for Jordan-Ford at Interlagos in 2003 and Johnny Herbert won for Stewart-Ford at the Nurburgring in 1999 and so on - but, much as we all like to hype the likes of Williams and Toyota and Honda, the bulk of this year's Grands Prix will be won by Renault, McLaren and Ferrari. Well, they will, won't they?

Ah... Honda. So much promise. So much ambition. So much money. So many good people. Such a beautifully crafted design. Such a good engine. And yet...

Don't get me wrong. As I say, Honda will probably win a Grand Prix one day, and Jenson Button will probably be the man who wins it, but they don't look as though they're about to make it a habit, do they? Not like Renault already have, anyway (two out of two so far in 2006, and counting). Not like McLaren did last year (10 out of 19, and it should have been more). Not like Ferrari did from 2000 to 2004.

The problem isn't Jenson, because he's the real deal: in terms of pace, racecraft and experience, he's the one man who's ready, now, to gatecrash the Schumi-Fernando-Kimi triumvirate and make it a four-man show. No, the problem is on the pit wall. Bluntly, Honda don't always optimise their race strategies, and they probably know it.

How many times has Button looked to be in very good shape, post-qualifying? How many times has team boss Nick Fry then told us, pre-race, that his team "really could win this one"? And how many times, a couple of hours later, has Button rolled in third or fourth, disappointed and not a little confused?

Many times, is the answer. Two out of two so far in 2006, for example. Ask Renault's, McLaren's, Ferrari's or even Williams's race strategists what they think of Honda's recurring ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of possible victory... and they roll their eyes heavenwards and laugh.

You know what I think? I think that, when last year Honda finally admitted that Takuma Sato was never going to make it, they made a mistake in hiring Rubens Barrichello in his place. There's nothing wrong with Rubens, but his signing answered a question that no-one (sensible) had asked.

Yes, Sato had to go; no, the replacement didn't have to be an ageing superstar, and, no, he certainly didn't have to cost $10 million per annum (or thereabouts). Whenever Honda come up with a genuine race-winning strategy, Jenson will do the business. That's been the case for some time now. They didn't need another number-one.

Jenson Button © XPB/LAT

No, what Honda should have done is spend their $10 million on two men, not one: the first man, whose signing would have eaten up $4 million at the most, should have bought them a sensible, hard-working, no-nonsense number-two to Jenson (Nick Heidfeld? Alex Wurz? Perhaps even their own test driver, Anthony Davidson?), and the rest, all $6 million of it, should have been offered on bended knee to a second man, and that second man should have been Pat Symonds.

"We've got it all, Pat," Fry should have said, waving the wonga. "Well, we've got everything except what you can bring. We've got so much promise, so much ambition, so much money, so many good people, such a beautifully crafted design, such a good engine. We've got Jenson, too. But what we haven't got is you, Pat. We'll pay you very well. Near-as-dammit as much as Adrian [Newey] and Mike [Gascoyne] get paid. Come and be our six-million dollar man, Pat, and turn our points-finishes into prizes."

And, perhaps not utterly convinced that Renault will remain in F1 beyond this year, whatever he says on the subject in public, perhaps Symonds would have said, "Okay, yes." And perhaps, then, the man on the central podium plinths in Bahrain and Malaysia would have been Button, not Alonso or Fisichella. And perhaps Jenson's chances of winning in Australia, and elsewhere, would now be greater than they currently are.

Honda are already an almost-great team. But, like many F1 insiders and fans, especially in Britain, I desperately want to see Jenson succeed. If it so happens that he should win in Australia, don't kid yourselves that what I've written is total bullshit. It probably isn't. Besides, Honda can still hire Symonds even now, can't they? You know it makes sense...