Two Races Left...the Next is at Indy

By Parminio
September 20 2002

Monza was an interesting race. Not just due to the fact that someone besides a Ferrari led fro a few laps, but because the order of the parade seemed to change a bit.

With a STUNNING performance at Monza, Jaguar moved up in the ranks to 5th and 8th in qualifying one spot ahead and one spot behind Kimi and David repectively. With BMW supposedly bringing a more powerful unit to Indy, and with Ferrari's dominance, it looks as though barring a major developement that McLaren will qualify outside of the top six yet again. Although testing at the Spain circuit has gone well, it remains to be seen what improvement will actually be made. Knowing that McLaren broke track record after track record at the start of the practice season this year, only to find themselves 1.5 seconds off the pace for most of the year, makes one sceptical. Should Jaguar repeat it's success, and with the addition of Frentzen to the Sauber team and the fact that BAR were not too far off of McLaren's pace at Monza...it should make for a very interesting qualifying session. The other concern of course is not the speed, but reliablility of the Mercedes engine. Kimi's engine failure at Monza added to an already dismal record for Mercedes this season as far as reliability is concerned. One can only hope that we see some kind of improvement in these last two races, or it's going to be a very hard off season for McLaren.