A DEMONSTRATION OF POWER

Ferrari are constructors´world champions 2002

When Hungary still had been with Austria, it had been a long while ago. The son of the last Austrian Emporer, Dr Otto von Habsburg, a Member of the European Parliament for twenty years and meanwhile ninety years of age, presented the trophy for the second place driver on the podium of the Hungaroring 2002, this time for Michael Schumacher - in spite of Dr von Habsburg being a great fan of Michael´s brother Ralf. The Williams BMW driver finished third behind the dominating Ferraris being pretty happy about after the race.

The demonstration of power of the Maranello based team already had begun in the free practice sessions to be continued with a complete front row during qualifying and was crowned by a start to finish victory of Rubens Barrichello (who had started from pole position and to whom was the T-car available for). At the end of the race Michael Schumacher became a lot faster driving the fastest lap overall at the 72th turn, but he did not start any attempt for a real attack of his team mate inspite his car also working perfectly. Both Ferrari drivers now are on the top of the drivers table and at the same time Ferrari had won the consructors´competition before the season being finished.

After the simply awful qualifying positions 10 and 11 both the Silver Arrows drove into the points. David Coulthard, who had destroyed a back tyre on the high kerbs of the Hungaroring already in free practice, in the race once drove into the gravel making him drop fifth place behind Kimi Raikkonen. Ralf Schumacher gave a fine third place as a present for the 50th birthday to BMW engine guru Dr Mario Theissen, but the second Williams BMW driver Juan Pablo Montoya also this time was in deep quarrell with the pretty slow Hungaroring. When fighting with the McLaren Mercedes of Iceman Kimi Raikkonen the Colombian drove over the kerbs into the gravel trap, damaged some of his deflectors and entered the pits with a very bad handling very early for re-fuelling, tyre change but also for taking away a damaged part from the car. While Williams´technical director Patrick Head was involved in heavy discussions with Montoya´s race engineer Sam Michael at the team´s commanding stand, their driver only finished 11th position. All top drivers were on a two-stop-strategy, but both McLaren Mercedes came in last, being absolutely right on the finish line. In spite of the summer heat in the Hungarian puszta on the Hungaroring full of curves (that automatically brings cooling problems because of the lack of long straights) only four retirements were seen against the general expectations and of that only two (Villeneuve´s BAR Honda and Irvine´s Jaguar Cosworth) were caused by technical reasons. Jenson Button in the Renault and Grand Prix novice Anthony Davidson in the Minardi Asiatech (who had been driven 12.000 kilometres at BAR Honda as their test driver) spun into the gravel trap because of theirown driver errors. Mark Webber in the second Minardi Asiatech missed his parking position, because he had not seen enough close behind Allan McNish´s Toyota. One of his mechanics trapped his finger, but cold water reduced his pain pretty fast. Mika Salo, involved in a fierce battle for position 13 with Pedro de la Rosa, forced the Spaniard to go into the wall when leaving the pits, the Toyota and the Jaguar Cosworth touched each other. Salo received a 25 seconds time penalty for this manoevre by the stewards after the end of the race.

Not at the start was Arrows, after Heinz Harald Frentzen had left them some weeks before, because no result can be found of the battle between their different shareholders so far. In spite of the team´s history bringing crisis from time to time, no Arrows was seen on the grid since their debut in the 1978 Brazilian Grand Prix at Jacarepagua with the Shadow Ford DN9 carbon copy FA1, Riccardo Patrese and airline sponsor VARIG. In contrast to that the cars in the team of Eddie Jordan will be powered by Cosworth engines in 2003, for the first time again under the name of Ford since 1999. A new sponsor was presented by Minardi in Hungary: Gazprom is Russia´s greatest gas exporter. Alex Yoong, for whom the qualification had been a hurdle not to surmount, had come to Budapest, but he will enter again the cockpit of the second Minardi only in Indianapolis and Suzuka, two tracks he already knows from last year. Sad news came from Terra Verde in Florida before the Hungarian Grand Prix. The former Lotus test driver Jim Crawford had died there. The Scot had also driven two Grand Prix in 1975 (Britain and Italy) in the famous Lotus Ford 72, after Colin Chapman had sacked one of his star drivers, Jacky Ickx from Belgium, in the middle of the season. Later Jim Crawford had driven the Indianapolis 500 and he had sustained heavy fractures of his legs like Nelson Piquet. Also Nelsinho celebrated his 50th birthday on the 17th August, 2002.

Deeply shocked the Grand Prix family showed about the flood catastrophe in Austria, the Czech Republik, Slovakia and Germany, but the taking place of the Hungarian Grand Prix had not been in danger at any time, in spite Budapest also lying at the Danube river. A lot of spectators from Germany this time stood at home, because especially in the Eastern part of the country many regions are destroyed like after a war. Especially hit was the Florence at the Elbe River , the City of Dresden, that had been nearly wiped out by Allied bombers in World War II . In Austria the health centre of late Professor Willi Dungl was seriously damaged. Niki Lauda, who had found very quick recovery after his Nuerburgring 1976 crash by Dungl, was very positive about private donations for the victims, but he expressed clearly: "Confronted with the masses of destructions the money has to come from the governments." Michael Schumacher contributed one million Euros "also for a signal effect", others followed him.

Klaus Ewald

© 2002 by researchracing

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