What's Wrong With F1?

By Phil Huff
April 10 2003

The Brazilian Grand Prix rarely runs smoothly, but it's normally hidden away and the public get to see what they want - a proper race.

However, this year things went differently.

First, due to rules put forward by the teams, but ultimately rubber stamped by the FIA, each tyre company was only allowed to bring one wet tyre. Inexplicably they elected to bring intermediates, despite Brazil's well known downfalls. This led to the race starting behind the mighty Mercedes safety car, which led more laps than anyone else!

Secondly, a timing mix up in qualifying meant that Toyota driver Olivier Panis started the race in 15th position with the same lap time as Heinz-Harald Frentzen, despite Panis's sector times adding up to a quicker time. Frentzen set sectors of 18.930, 38.417 and 17.492, a total lap time of 1:14.839. Panis, credited with the same 1:14.839 actually set a lap time of 1:14.690, with sector times of 19.056, 38.323 and 17.310.

Michael Schumacher gambled on a wet race and set his Ferrari up accordingly, sacrificing a better grid position for the race start. However, after qualifying all the teams were allowed to change their wing settings, negating the advantage Schumacher held.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen went one step further, qualifying in a car set up for the dry, but switching to the T-car which was set up for the wet. We're unsure if this is specifically allowed in the rules, but it certainly goes against the spirit of them.

During the race itself, Ralf Schumacher managed to overtake Jos Verstappen at one of the many race restarts, but did so before the vitally important white line. This was picked up by the automatic timing, and registered in the official lap charts, but somehow the stewards managed to miss this. A drive through penalty should have been given, but Ralf has got lucky this time.

Then there was the race stopping incident. Mark Webber had a serious accident at turn 14 after running off line to cool his tyres, spreading debris across the whole width of the circuit. Fisichella and Raikkonen passed by without incident, albeit slowly, and on lap 55 the Safety Car was called out again. Then things get a bit vague.

Alonso came tearing round the corner, seemingly oblivious to the yellow flags, and ploughed straight into the scene of the accident, spearing off into an unforgiving tyre wall and spreading further debris across the circuit.

The race was red-flagged immediately, but was this after considering Webber's accident, or as a reaction to Alonso's involvement? Either way, Fisichella was dangerously close to having started lap 56.

The timing screens showed Fisichella having started that lap, but were quickly amended to show him having only completed 55. This was critical. As the race was stopped, the results are declared from two laps previous, and on lap 53 Fisichella was behind Raikkonen. Had he started lap 56 then the results would be based on lap 54, where Fisichella had passed by the Finn.

The results were declared at lap 53, Kimi took the top step of the podium, Fisichella celebrated his win before quickly bemoaning his loss. Alonso was classified third, but couldn't make the podium as he was strapped in an ambulance. The results were final.

Until Wednesday, when the FIA announced they were going to investigate the result. There has been no protest, so the FIA appear to have protested themselves. Jordan claim to have evidence proving Fisichella had indeed started lap 56 when the red flag went out, but it's all going to come down to EXACTLY when that flag was called for.

We reckon there's less than 10 seconds in it either way. Ten seconds early and Jordan come second. Ten seconds later and Jordan win, McLaren lose two points, and Ferrari breathe a sigh of relief.

But back to the main question: Just what is going on with Formula One?

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