Читать книгу Green Races Red - Maurice Hamilton - Страница 8

I can sum up the Grand Prix in Australia like this: there were two girls in Melbourne whom I had previously got to know in Tokyo, and we had plans to meet. We spoke on the phone – and that was it. I never did get to see them. From the moment I stepped off the plane, I was flat out from start to finish. That’s how difficult it was!

I arrived on Wednesday morning and went straight to a press conference, then on to the circuit where I talked through everything with my engineers. I had dinner in the hotel that night with sporting director Jean Todt, then off to bed. Practice began the following morning, an extra day of testing having been thrown in because the track was new to everyone. Then more lengthy discussions with my engineers, back to the hotel, dinner and bed. This went on without let-up every single day. It was the least fun I had ever had at a Grand Prix! Needless to say, it was a bit of a shock after the more relaxed times at Jordan.

We were in a slightly confused state because the F310 had been reasonably quick from the word go, and yet it felt awful. There was bad oversteer (when the car tries to spin) going into the corners and then, as soon as I touched the throttle, nothing but understeer (when the car tries to plough straight on). And yet the lap times were pretty good. It was all very strange.

Setting-up the suspension and aerodynamics on the car had been a matter of guesswork. Initially I thought the car felt too ‘soft’, so on the Friday night I asked my engineer to set up the car with a very, very stiff front end. He did that, and the car felt a great deal better. Not perfect, mind you, just better. Since the lap times were reasonable enough, it encouraged the feeling that, if we could sort this car out, then we would be looking really good. As things stood, however, the Williams-Renaults were a second a lap faster. That gave a more immediate indication of our competitiveness.

Everyone was keen to see how I was getting on relative to Schumacher. My lap times had been edging closer to his and, at one point, when we went out together, I was a bit quicker, which was quite nice because I think everyone was expecting me to be blown away by the World Champion.

Overall, I was not as consistent as Michael although I felt I could muster a quick enough lap when it came to qualifying on the Saturday afternoon. I felt reasonably confident. Then an engine failed not long before the end of the final free practice before qualifying. I knew straight away that the time taken to change it would eat into the sixty-minute qualifying session.

The Jordan mechanics could change an engine very quickly – I think thirty-five minutes is the record. It took our guys two hours, which was understandable for a number of reasons. One noticeable difference was that in the Jordan car, the radiator came off with the engine, so whenever a new engine was being prepared, the radiator and engine would go into the car as one. In the F310, by contrast, the radiator is in the chassis, so it has to be disconnected first and the whole system bled.

Everything was new and unfamiliar: the car, the engine, the lot. The net result was that twenty-five minutes of qualifying had gone before I could get back into the car.

In some respects, that was not a total disaster because each driver is limited to twelve laps. But you need time for an exploratory lap before perhaps making some changes to the car to suit the latest conditions. This particular day, in fact, was a classic example. The track temperatures had risen quite a bit since the morning session. As soon as I went out, I suddenly found the car had nothing like the amount of grip that we had enjoyed before. Suddenly I had loads of understeer, and as a consequence we were struggling.

The most immediate answer was to increase the front wing angle and create more downforce. That would give the car more front-end grip and allow it to turn into the corners more easily. It was the correct decision and as a result I immediately went a lot quicker. But it wasn’t quite right. And time was running out.

The only thing to do was put on even more front wing and hope for the best. But the trouble was, I only had time to leave the pits and then complete a single fast lap, and that would be it. The way things had been going, everyone had been quickest on their second or third flying laps because it would take until then to get the tyres working really well. I wouldn’t have that luxury.

I really tried to work some heat into the rubber by working the tyres hard in the corners during the first lap out of the pits, and I succeeded – up to a point. The front end of the car didn’t feel as good as it could have done at the start of the quick lap. But it wasn’t bad.

Michael had completed his best lap just as I was leaving the pits. His time was not that quick, to be honest. I thought I was in with a chance, and I knew what I had to do.

From the point of view of timing, each lap is divided into three sections. The split times are thrown up on the computer read-out in the car. I could tell from my time on the first third of the lap that I was three-tenths of a second slower than Michael – which tended to confirm my suspicion that the tyres were not ‘in’ at that point, that is, not up to optimum working condition. But everything felt better for the final two-thirds of the lap.

My overall lap was good, but not brilliant. It wasn’t on the ragged edge. It was a very neat lap, but then the best laps should be neat and tidy. Just as I crossed the line, Luca Baldisserri got on the radio and said, ‘Good lap!’ They sounded quite happy. I checked the read-out. I was ahead of Michael! But I couldn’t tell where I was on the overall list of times.

During qualifying, the officials operate a weighbridge at the entrance to the pit lane. Cars are stopped at random and, as I came in, I was pulled over for a mandatory weight check. As I climbed out, everyone was saying, ‘Well done! Well done!’ It was only then that I discovered I was third on the grid! After all the troubles we had been through, it was hard to take in. To me, this felt as good as winning pole position. The Williams-Renaults were first and second and we knew they were much faster than anything else. I couldn’t help but wonder what I might have done on a second or third flying lap, but I knew there was no way our car was within half a second of the Williams in terms of performance. I was well pleased.

I had to walk the length of the pit lane to get back to the Ferrari garage. On the way, I passed the Jordan pit where everyone came rushing out. There were all sorts of remarks as you might imagine and the one which really grabbed my attention concerned Eddie Jordan. It seemed he had bet Benetton boss Flavio Briatore and Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone that I would out-qualify Schumacher. Each time that happened, they would pay EJ $20,000. And each time Michael was ahead of me, Eddie had to find $5,000. So, EJ was in front already. I had left the team and he was still making money out of me. I guess it should not have come as a surprise.

There were wide grins when I got back to the Ferrari garage. I couldn’t honestly tell how Michael felt; all he said was ‘good job’, or something like that. This had been the first time in a couple of seasons that his team-mate had been faster than him during a straight fight in qualifying. He had been having his own problems with his car – so he was a bit quiet. Anyway, we were soon into another debrief. With the Ferraris third and fourth on the grid, there was a lot to discuss.

Our strategy for Melbourne was to run the quickest race that we could. That may sound an obvious thing to say but there were variables to consider, particularly concerning the number of pit stops. It was clear that Williams would be on a different level to us, whereas I thought that the Benettons (sixth and seventh on the grid) were probably not as quick. It would be a case, as I said, of choosing the right tactic to suit us. There was no point in trying to out-guess Williams; they could do whatever they liked – one, two or three stops – and still win the race. The computer worked out that a two-stop race was best for Ferrari, so we settled on that.

In my opinion, there had been a lot of rubbish talked about pit stop strategy in 1995. It was said that Benetton were smarter than anyone else. I don’t think that had much to do with their success. Michael Schumacher, who was with Benetton then, was simply quicker than the rest of us. He could carry more fuel than the Williams drivers and still run with them. Then, because he already had more fuel on board, he needed to take on less at the first stop and he was able to get ahead by doing that. It was simply down to Michael being quicker than anyone else. The so-called experts talked about Benetton’s strategy being a lot better but the simple fact is, if you are not quick, then you are not going to win.

Back to the present and sitting on the second row of the starting grid, I wasn’t under any illusions about winning this race. In any case, there was a minor distraction when something was dropped on the front wing of my car as we sat on the starting grid. It meant changing the whole front wing. During the reconnaissance lap on my way to the grid, I had found that the car was understeering too much and I had asked to have more wing angle added at the front. This had been done but I don’t think the replacement wing had the same setting.

The 1996 season really got under way when the red lights went out – they had done away with the green lights in a new starting procedure – and I watched the Williams drivers, Hill and Villeneuve, make a race of it off the line. Damon Hill got himself into a bit of a mess at the first corner, the Williams going sideways. I remember thinking, ‘Damon is too easy’ because I saw a bit of a gap and went for it knowing that Damon wouldn’t close it. In fact, he had screwed up so much that he actually let Michael through as well. I thought this was pretty good. Jacques Villeneuve was leading, I was second and I knew there was no way Damon would get past Michael until the first pit stops at the very earliest. It was a great way to start.

Then the red flags came out. The race had been stopped, which was a big disappointment considering I had made such a good start. I didn’t know the exact reason but I assumed there had been an accident somewhere during the first lap. We returned slowly to the starting grid and somewhere along the way I saw pictures of what had happened. Going into the third corner Martin Brundle, who had started from the back of the grid, had piled into a couple of cars which seemed to be involved in their own accident. A chain reaction had been caused by one car moving over on another, which in turn forced David Coulthard to take avoiding action. The McLaren, which may in turn have been touched from behind, swerved into Johnny Herbert’s Sauber just as Brundle arrived on the scene. Brundle hit Herbert and became airborne and rolled a couple of times. It was a big shunt. Martin was lucky because of the way the car had bounced. He was unhurt, but it was ironic that he was driving a Jordan.

There had been a bit of controversy over the way Jordan and Williams had interpreted new rules concerning the introduction of raised cockpit sides in order to give more protection to the driver’s head. Jordan had been a bit cheeky by bending the rule in such a way that they did not need to raise the cockpit sides as much as everyone else. There was a performance advantage to be had by doing that. It may have been very small but that was not the point. This was all about safety and I felt that Jordan’s decision to do what they did was totally wrong.

Formula 1 does not need people getting smart when it comes to safety. On this occasion, Jordan were extremely lucky. Martin’s head could have gone over the side of the cockpit. They were fortunate because of the way the car rolled and the fact that there were no G-forces and no heavy impacts with the concrete wall.

The car had broken in half immediately, the engine coming away from the chassis, which meant there was not a huge amount of weight adding to the car’s momentum as it continued to roll. It was the ‘perfect’ sort of accident – if you can say such a thing – one which looked highly spectacular but, in fact, did not amount to a great deal.

Had Martin suffered a serious impact to his head, then I would hate to think what the newspapers would have done with the story in the light of some of the comments which other team owners had been coming out with regarding Jordan’s interpretation of the cockpit rules.

Ron Dennis, the boss of McLaren, was reported in Motoring News to have said (before the accident) that car designers, because of the loophole in the regulations, had to ask themselves a serious question: ‘Are you going to make your car deliberately less safe to achieve a performance advantage, even if that advantage is improved lateral vision?’

Can you imagine what the tabloids would have done with that had Brundle received a serious head injury?

At the end of the day, it was the responsibility of the FIA technical delegates and they had passed the Jordan as legal. The fact remained, however, that the designers of the Formula 1 teams had drawn up the rule. What had become clear was that two of the designers knew they were going to find an advantage with the very rule which they were helping to establish. The sport’s governing body had asked the designers for their help. It was totally wrong for two of them to then use a loophole.

Anyway, the main thing was that Martin was perfectly okay. That’s the first concern when you see another driver have an accident; you just hope he gets out. When he does, you then shut the whole thing from your mind.

I have to admit, that was much easier to do than usual because of my position near the front of the grid. When you are in the middle, it’s a nightmare. When you are at the front, you’ve got the two guys ahead, and that’s it. Once I had seen Villeneuve and Hill get going, I could take a quick look behind to see who was there, and then get on with the business. Further back, however, it is much more difficult to register exactly what is happening. The basic rule of thumb is that the driver following has to watch the guy in front and try to work out what he is going to do. In effect, you look after your front wheels. That’s the law as I see it.

At the restart in Melbourne, once again I made a better getaway than Damon but this time he got through the corner without making a mess of it. The Ferrari was definitely lacking in acceleration and straight line speed. Whether it was a question of insufficient power or perhaps too much aerodynamic drag, I’m not sure. All I know is that I was on the clean side of the grid (in effect, on the racing line which had more rubber and less dust and dirt) and twice I beat Hill off the line, and twice he left me way behind.

While waiting on the grid, I had been thinking about trying to get rid of the understeer. I didn’t want to make too many adjustments as this would take me further away from the original set-up arrived at during practice. It would have been a risk to make further changes because the understeer could have been caused by the tyres not having enough temperature at such an early stage of the race. In the end, we left the car as it was. Maybe, with hindsight, we should have done a bit more because, as soon as the race started, I knew I was still in trouble.

After the first couple of laps, I felt there was no point in trying to push as the understeer would destroy my front tyres. I had to apply caution and simply try and maintain my position.

With Villeneuve and Hill in front that meant I was third, with Michael closing on me. We had agreed before the race that, if I was quicker than him, then he would move out of the way and vice versa. It made good sense. The deal was that I could run my own race if I was faster than Michael, but, if we came to the last corner and I was third with Michael fourth, then I would let him through. I had no problem with that. Michael was employed to win the Championship. As far as I was concerned, it would be three points instead of four. Big deal. Who needs statistics?

We had agreed that if Michael felt he could go quicker than me, he would radio the pits and then my engineer would speak to me and just say ‘Michael’. That would be the signal and I would let him through. Since I was struggling with understeer and Michael was closing on me, it was pretty obvious what was going to happen. But I wanted to allow him though without letting the Benetton of Jean Alesi get by as well.

I chose the back straight, a place where Alesi might not expect such a move to take place and, even if he did try to come through, there were a couple of twisty corners immediately afterwards which would help me keep him at bay. The trouble was, I think I caught Michael by surprise as well! He ducked out from behind me at the last minute but luckily it worked out. Alesi missed his chance.

I knew I couldn’t run with Michael; I was just too slow. Whether that was because of the understeer, or whether he was just quicker than me, I don’t know. Interestingly, in the morning warm-up (when we run in race trim in final preparation for the Grand Prix) the two of us had been separated by just a few hundredths of a second, which was quite satisfying.

In any case, I was also concerned about brake-wear during the race. I knew from experience that I tended to be a lot harder on the brakes during the race than I had been when qualifying. We had measured my wear-rate on the Ferrari and, if the usual percentage increase occurred, I would have great difficult finishing the race. But this was speculation because I had not had the chance to put in a full race distance during testing with Ferrari, so we didn’t know how big the problem might be. I had no choice but to take it easy. To be honest, even if I had pushed hard, I could not have run with Michael. My race was with Alesi and the Benetton. I just tried to be smooth and not make any mistakes. Unfortunately, with Alesi, you never knew what was in his mind.

Approaching the braking area for a very slow corner – one where I was troubled by the understeer – I took a look in my mirror. I saw Alesi give some thought to coming down the inside, but he was too far behind. I reckoned there was no chance of him coming through from that distance, so I didn’t worry about him.

Then I looked again and there he was, on a mission to nowhere. In fact, he lost control of the Benetton before he even hit me. The impact could have been a lot worse; he could have spun me out of the race. In fact, the Benetton damaged part of my rear wing so I took things easy during the next few laps, just to check that everything was okay.

It was typical Alesi. He seemed to get away with that sort of thing at almost every race. Going into the first corner, not long after the start of the previous year’s Belgian Grand Prix, he came barrelling down the inside with his brakes locked up. I was ahead of him and, if I had turned in to the corner – which was totally my right – he would have gone into the side of my Jordan and the race probably would have been stopped. And I know who would have been blamed. In the event, I gave him room and lost several places in the process. This time, however, he paid for his impatience.

It was great, because Alesi’s retirement took the pressure off me for the rest of the race. I was able to drive at my own pace; in fact, I was able to pick up speed because I could smooth everything out and drive neatly without having to play a defensive game. I found about two or three tenths of a second per lap and, by no longer needing to worry about braking that little bit later just to stop Alesi from coming through, I was removing the worry about brake wear.

The rest of the race was uneventful. I moved up to third when Michael dropped out with mechanical trouble, but I was not pushing at all. I was thinking: ‘I’ve got to finish, I’ve got to finish. I can’t believe this is happening.’

This, of course, was the furthest I had gone in the new car. That’s when you learn things – such as the fact that I was moving around a bit too much in the seat. It seemed a snug fit when I tried it for the first time, but, after an extended period in the cockpit, I was making mental notes about where I needed extra support. I was learning about the way the car was handling, which was very useful experience for the future.

It was quite funny because it occurred to me that, if the Williams drivers crashed into each other, then I would win! I would be like Nigel Mansell, who won his first race for Ferrari in 1989, against all odds. Nigel had been in an identical situation, as the new Ferrari had been plagued with problems. They were introducing a semi-automatic gearbox and Mansell was lucky if he managed a handful of laps during practice without the car coming to a halt. The warm-up for the race had been a shambles. I believe Nigel had booked himself an early flight home. He really didn’t believe he would finish the race, never mind win it. When he did, Italy went beserk.

I was thinking: ‘That would be great if the same happened to me!’ But then I thought about the Australian Grand Prix at the end of 1995. I was holding an easy third place and thinking what a great way this would be to leave Jordan. Then the engine failed.

That made me feel worse. Each lap seemed to get longer and longer. By the time I got to the end of lap 58, I was delighted to see the chequered flag. Everyone at Ferrari was even happier.

I was pleased for the team as much as anyone else because they had worked so hard. But, to be honest, I thought the best thing I had done all weekend was to qualify third; that had allowed me to stay ahead of trouble in the race. Anyone could have come home third under those circumstances. It was no big deal. But at least it justified a beer or two afterwards. Then I had to jump on a plane back to Europe at midnight. And I never did get to see the two girls.