Читать книгу Ferrari: The Passion and the Pain - Jane Nottage - Страница 14

THINGS WENT FROM BAD TO WORSE

The team went to South America feeling unhappy – and things went from bad to worse. Ascanelli says of Brazil, ‘The São Paolo circuit is very bumpy and doesn’t suit our car. We had to just limit the damage, and wait until we could get back in the wind tunnel and do the necessary work to improve the car. The race went worse than I expected. After two days of sunshine, I was writing the race preparation report with ten minutes to go before the pit lane opened, when I looked up and saw it was raining. Disaster! There was no time to alter the fuel level, and our two-stop strategy which was good for the dry was not good for the wet, where we would have been better with one stop.’

Schumacher demonstrated his class and pulled off the impossible by bringing the car in third. His calm approach was paying dividends and he refused to get caught up in any hysteria. ‘I am enjoying driving for Ferrari. It is a challenge and I wanted a challenge. I am paid to work, not be on holiday. The car will be in the wind tunnel for the whole of April and we will be working hard to alleviate the problems. The car was worse than in Melbourne, we seem to be losing power everywhere, but the V10 engine shows good potential.’

The V10 engine was proving to be a good move. As Barnard says, ‘I promoted moving from a V12 to a V10 engine for a long time. When Jean Todt arrived it made things easier, as he was also a fan of the V10. You have to pay a heavy penalty for the V12 in terms of the overall package. The cooling requirements for the V12 are very big; it is longer, it is heavy and it is fuel thirsty. Offsetting these negative aspects was the fact that the V12 should have a higher top-end power than the V10. However, I was always a bit dubious about this. Now we have the V10 we can see this is true. After limited development the V10 is proving to have nearly as good top-end power as the V12. The negative side of the V10 is the vibration problem, which seems to lead to the gearbox cracking. We are investigating this further.’

The next race was in Buenos Aires over the Easter weekend, but there were to be no celebrations for the two Ferrari drivers. Schumacher qualified in second place for the race, with Irvine 10th. Irvine brought the car home in fifth place, to gain two valuable points, but Schumacher was forced to retire when a piece of debris from another car hit his rear wing.

Even though we were only three races into the new season, the rumours were flying around as speculation mounted that Ferrari was going to build a new car to take the team through the rest of the season. Jean Todt remained firm and publicly stated, ‘We need more time testing before we can make a decision.’ Privately, he was less convinced declaring, ‘I’m not happy, I’ll only be happy when we win.’

The atmosphere was muted as everyone left South America and headed back to Europe. They had survived the first three races, but only just. The first European race of the season was at the Nurburgring in Germany and the fans would be out in force. Publicly, Schumacher was remaining calm; privately it was another matter. As Nigel Stepney says, ‘Schumacher doesn’t wash his dirty linen in public as our previous drivers did. He can give shit behind closed doors, but he does it in private, which is much better because if everyone knows our problems, they know our weaknesses. There is a much better atmosphere than last year. There will always be pressure on us, but it is more contained. If we lose a wheel nut in a race, the media will analyse it forever, but if Williams lose a wheel nut they are not put under a microscope like us. The difference is that now we look at the problem and rectify it with the minimum of fuss. That is a big step forward.’

Schumacher says, ‘There’s no point in criticising the team in public. I work with the guys and they all try to do their best. If we feel there should be some improvements then we have to discuss it between ourselves. I don’t think I’m particularly hard. If I notice a mistake, then I will point it out and try to improve it. I’m not harder on the team than I am on myself. If I make a mistake, I kick myself. You shouldn’t make a difference between how you treat others and how you treat yourself.’

Added to the problems of the South American races was a big prang that occured in Argentina, albeit after the race. Claudio Berro explains, ‘When I was sitting on the pit wall during practice, I looked at the start lights and registered that they seemed to be hanging lower than normal. Then it went out of my mind until the day after the race. The trucks arrived to take the cars to the airport, loaded them on and drove out of the circuit. There was a horrible crash and it was proved that the lights had been lower than normal, about four metres lower in fact. The result was they’d hit our cars on the trucks. Eddie Irvine’s car had been smashed, the suspension had been damaged and it had been pushed backwards into the spare car, which was loaded behind it. About 200 million lire’s worth of damage was done. That was all we needed with the work we had to do on the cars anyway.’

Work, work, work. There was a never ending list of modifications needed. When Schumacher was asked to discuss the improvements required on the car, his reply was to the point. ‘This press conference is too short!’ There was also another reason to feel nervous. Schumacher had received a death threat in the form of a letter claiming to come from a national liberation group, sent to two Belgian newspapers. It said that the terrorist organization would kill German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel… and Michael Schumacher.