Читать книгу Ferrari: The Passion and the Pain - Jane Nottage - Страница 18

‘Every time I wake up I struggle because we are not winning. But the important thing is to keep on trying…’

Giorgio Ascanelli

Ferrari Chief Engineer, talking after the French Grand Prix

Not even in their worst nightmares could any of the Ferrari team have imagined that the next two months would be as disastrous as they turned out to be. It all started on a fairly positive note, with the debut of the redesigned raised nose in Canada. This won the approval of both drivers. Schumacher said, ‘It’s worth between a tenth and two-tenths of a second, and more comfortable.’ Irvine added, ‘The car is more consistent between entry and exit of corners with the new nose.’ There were also some aerodynamic modifications carried out at Maranello, which made the car less sensitive. After qualifying, things continued to look hopeful. Schumacher took third spot on the grid behind the two Williams with Damon Hill on pole position. Irvine qualified a highly credible fifth.

The atmosphere within the team was calm and relaxed. Everyone expected the cars to show progress, although no one was in any doubt that the win in Spain had been down to Schumacher’s brilliance rather than the car. As Nigel Stepney says, ‘The win in Spain doesn’t reflect our true position. That was down to Schumacher. He was brilliant to watch. He overcomes a lot of problems and is in the same league as Senna. Drivers like that are few and far between.’

However, neither Ferrari driver finished the race. Stepney explains, ‘We didn’t look good on full tanks during the Sunday morning warm-up. There was a problem with the brake balance and the starter motor broke on Schumacher’s car only 30 seconds before the grid was due to form.’

In fact, Schumacher was forced to start from the back of the grid, and even though he was up to seventh by the time of his pit stop on lap 41, his driveshaft broke as he got to the end of the pit lane, forcing his retirement from the race. Post-race analysis diagnosed clutch problems that had effectively overstressed the driveshaft.

Eddie Irvine lasted a mere two laps before an unidentified flying object hit his car and the push rod broke, forcing him to retire from the race. Stepney comments dryly, ‘When Irvine’s push rod went, he came into the pits smelling like a barbecue. This was due to the fact that there is a plank of wood underneath the car and this was quietly roasting!’

Ascanelli was as disappointed as anyone. ‘Canada was a race to forget,’ he said afterwards, the disappointment still etched on his face as he went on to say, ‘Canada should have been one of our best circuits, but we had four or five silly problems which, quite frankly, were all foreseeable. We have to improve our reliability. Schumacher deserves better. However, there are only 24 hours in a day and we will keep on with the learning curve. I have to say that overall I’m happier with the car and happier in general with the team. We still lack confidence and tend to panic, which is what we did when we had the problem with Irvine’s car. The most likely explanation for the broken push rod was impact with a foreign object, but we still tended to go into panic. We haven’t got it together yet.’