Quantas Australian Grand Prix 2001

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LIKE A NIGHTMARE

After a horror crash of Villeneuve Michael Schumacher wins his 45th Grand Prix

It should have been such a happy party like only Australians can celebrate. But instead of that there was only violence, death and terrible destruction. We should not deny anything: Grand Prix Racing was able to avoid it`s worst possible catastrophe only by millimeters on the first Sunday of March 2001. When the BAR Honda of Canadian Jacques Villeneuve, world champion and Indianapolis 500 winner, crashed into the back of Ralf Schumacher`s Williams BMW at full power, rose like a jet fighter, there had been only the difference of about one metre in flight height to make the car jump over the fence. Niki Lauda, now Jaguar CEO, expressed it clearly: "If you imagine the car flying into the spectators, you have to stop thinking at once." One killed marshal and 11 slightly injured spectators are tragedy enough.

For that reason the F.I.A. had ordered to fix the wheels by a second Kevlar line to prevent successing drivers and people standing at the rim of the tracks from being smashed by flying wheels with suspension parts after the death of a fireman in Monza 2000. But in Melbourne it became clear very soon in qualifying, that that system does not do it`s job it was constructed for, when Luciano Burti`s Jaguar crashed into the concrete wall because of a collapsed rear suspension. No way, the problem is well known for decades. When competing in a Formula 2 race at German Hockenheim a cut off wheel of Derek Warwick`s car had hit the head of Markus Hottinger. His car had remained nearly undamaged, but the young Austrian had been killed at once shortly before entering Grand Prix Racing.

The semi-permanent circuit of Melbourne`s Albert Park is not free of problems since it`s inauguration in 1996 because belonging to the fast types of tracks. This year Michael Schumacher did his fastest lap at an average speed of 216 kms per hour. When turning over in Friday`s second free practice session Ferraris reigning world champion had unbelieveable luck to escape unhurt. On both sides of the fastest parts of this circuit there are small green areas with the walls behind - the total height of both the barriers and the debri fences on their top is about 3 metres. And that is much too small. Maybe it would be better to bring the concrete walls exactly to the rim of the road as it it had been done on the street circuit of Long Beach/USA in the seventies and eighties to catch an escaping racing car.

Discipline is not the thing shown best by today`s driver`s generation. But exactly that is needed to avoid accidents like that before thinking of better technical measures. In spite the accident area of Jacques Villeneuve and Ralf Schumacher looking like a place left after a bomb attack, inside the ambulance hurried there, the doctors were fighting for the life of the marshal, Panis and Verstappen overtook young Nick Heidfeld - and received a 25 seconds time penalty later. Frenchman Panis, who celebrated an excellent comeback as a racing driver at BAR Honda after being last year`s McLaren Mercedes tester, lost his 3 points he had fought for very hard. Heidfeld, for the first time of his career being in the points, received Panis`4th place.

Jacques Villeneuve always shows a great distance to his father, who had been killed in the qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder. But he has got a very similar character. In Fudji 1997, in a very early stage of his career, Gilles Villeneuve had crashed into the back of Ronnie Peterson`s Tyrrell Ford P34 sixwheeler, and had also jumped into the air to kill 2 people at the rim of the track and additionally hurt many further persons. And how should someone learn discipline when even feeling under pressure by being ordered wearing a tie sometimes.

The safety car period from 4th to 14th lap made all strategies scheduled loose their base. Michael Schumacher had not given any doubts, who was the boss on the Albert Park Circuit, handing the lead over to David Coulthard by 3 laps for his only pit stop in lap 23 taking 10.7 seconds. Mika Hakkinen being the only driver, who could follow the German, crashed into the tyre wall when braking for the Stewart curve from 300 to 120 km/h and the right front suspension of the Silver Arrow broke. The Finn had traces of the accident on his new helmet (for the first time with a little wing on his bottom) and also suffered from a slight concussion.

Since Luca Badoer`s testing accident at Barcelona in winter collapsing suspension are the new source of danger in Grand Prix Racing. All new cars are extremely underweight and the ballast carried is used for better weight balance on the individual track - the same nonsense as the water bottles taken into the side pods (officially for better brake cooling) in the early eighties had been used only for manipulation.

That Bridgestone would be the better tyre in Melbourne became obvious even in qualifying, but Michelin had lost their top gun Williams BMW in the race, because Montoya coming up to 3rd place also had to retire with a blown engine 18 laps before the finish. This way Jaguar driver Luciano Burti became best Michelin man scoring 8th place.

An excellent debut was made by Kimi Raikkonen with the Sauber Petronas, who earned his first point after Panis being penalized. Worldchampionship points in the first Grand Prix ever are as rare as the Blue Mauritius stamp. That Enrique Bernoldi from Brazil, supported by Red Bull principal Dietrich Mateschitz, made 2 heavy greenhorn mistakes on Sunday, shows that Peter Sauber was absolutely right when signing up the young Finn. And that might be a little satisfaction for the Swiss team for loosing their title sponsor and major shareholder next year, because Heidfeld and Raikkonen are the future stars.

Also nearly brilliant was the debut of Fernando Alonso at Minardi. In spite of the car of Austria`s design universal genius Gustav Brunner had constructed with a minimum budget over the winter, had only done some installation laps in Italian Vairano, the only 19 year old Spaniard qualified 19th position on the grid. In the race Alonso brought home the Minardi European 12th place ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella in the Benetton Renault. And the result would have became even better, if he had not received a 10 seconds stop and go penalty for pit lane speeding. Now it is up to new Minardi major shareholder Paul Stoddart, having his home Grand Prix in Australia, to find sponsors and a works engine to make the British Italians from Faenza and Ledbury/U.K. a very strong mid-field team.

Such a thing Benetton Renault can only dream of. Their Melbourne performance was simply a catastrophe. The Benetton Renault, already this year the official works cars of Renault France, are both unreliable and slow. There will be a lot of work to do for new technical director Mike Gascoyne, but maybe, it will be too late for 2001, being extremely bitter for Jenson Button only being on loan there by Williams BMW for 2 years.

When Alan Jones, the world champion of 1980 and still the favourite driver of Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Head took out the chequered flag after 58 laps for finishing the 2001 Australian Grand Prix depression overshadowed the scene. On the podium, late, because first the drivers had been informed, there were the anthems and the trophies, but no champagne.

Klaus Ewald

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