Heidfeld Signed By Sauber

Nick Heidfeld was released by Prost and signed by Sauber today.

Shortly after Prost announced that they would not be keeping Heidfeld on the team next year Sauber announced that they had signed him to a three year contract to replace Mika Salo who will be moving to a testing role at Toyota.

Posted: Monday, August 28th, 2000

Hakkinen Wins 2000 Belgian GP

Mika Hakkinen won the Grand Prix of Belgium today with a great display of driving, a brilliant pass and an unforced error.

Hakkinen, who was starting his McLaren from the pole, had his start made much easier than usual when the stewards decided to start the field behind the pace car. Although the track was wet the rain had virtually stopped by the time they started and all of the drivers followed the pace car over the line in single file.

The pace car pulled off at the end of the first lap and by the sixth lap enough of a dry line had started to form that the drivers began to pit to switch to dry weather tyres. Hakkinen stayed out one more lap and his teammate David Coulthard was left out for another lap after that. He later complained about this strategy as he felt that he would have been better off just waiting a few more seconds in the pit lane for the mechanics to finish with Hakkinen’s car instead of having to drive another complete lap on the wrong tyres. The fact that a lap at Spa is over four miles long did not help matters.

Jarno Trulli (Jordan) and Jenson Button (Williams) had qualified second and third respectively which was not only better than usual but also put them both in front of Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) who started from fourth place on the grid. Schumacher had passed both of them by the fifth lap and when Button tried to follow him past Trulli he collided with the Jordan causing Trulli to spin and retire from the race. Button did not damage his own car but Ralf Schumacher (Williams) and Coulthard both got past him during the incident.

Hakkinen was building up a comfortable lead over Schumacher when he spun on one of the damp patches of the track on the 14th lap. Schumacher was able to pass him but Hakkinen managed to keep his engine running and avoid hitting anything and was soon back on course and heading after his main rival for the Drivers’ Championship.

Rubens Barrichello (Ferrari) ran out of fuel on the 34th lap as he entered the pit lane. The marshals pushed him some way towards his pit and then his mechanics took over. He would almost certainly have been disqualified for this assistance from the track workers but it was a mute point as his car would not restart and his race was over.

Schumacher was having problems of his own and he moved off line every lap to cool his tyres down in the wet patches on the straights. In the post race interview he denied that this cost him time and even claimed that it was saving him some time — which may have been true in the long run if it meant that he could avoid an extra pit stop — but it still helped Hakkinen to slowly close the gap on him as the laps went by. On the day Hakkinen’s car seemed to have been set up for a lower downforce configuration than Schumacher’s and so he would eventually have caught him anyway.

Hakkinen caught up with Schumacher on lap 39 and made an attempt to pass him on the following lap which saw Schumacher appear to weave a couple of times to defend his position. Such a move would have been illegal but it was marginal as they were approaching a corner and the argument could have been made that he was simply moving over to get on the correct line for the turn.

The following lap they came up behind the BAR of Ricardo Zonta and Schumacher overtook him on the left thinking that Hakkinen would get held up behind the back marker. Instead Hakkinen shot past him on the right getting enough of a tow off of him to get in front of Schumacher as well. Once back in the lead Hakkinen was able to stay in front for the last three laps to win the race.

Ralf Schumacher followed his brother home in third place followed by Coulthard, Button and Heinz-Harald Frentzen (Jordan) in sixth place.

The next six places were made up exclusively of three teams. Jacques Villeneuve was seventh in his BAR with his teammate Zonta in 12th. The Jaguars of Johnny Herbert and Eddie Irvine were 8th and 10th and the Saubers of Mika Salo and Pedro Diniz were 9th and 11th.

Today’s win for Mika Hakkinen moves him six points clear of Michael Schumacher at the top of the Drivers’ Championship table, combined with David Coulthard’s fourth place finish it moves McLaren eight points ahead of Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship.

Belgian GP results.

Posted: Sunday, August 27th, 2000

Michael Schumacher Wins 2000 United States GP

Michael Schumacher won the inaugural United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis today with his teammate Rubens Barrichello in second place to complete a perfect result for Ferrari.

Schumacher had started from the pole but was beaten to the first corner by David Coulthard who clearly started his McLaren before the lights had gone out. For several laps Schumacher fought to get past Coulthard who had slowed his pace once it was clear that he would soon be penalized. Schumacher finally managed to get past and Coulthard immediately moved over to let his teammate Mika Hakkinen set off in pursuit of the Ferrari. Soon after Coulthard was called into the pits for a 10 second stop-and-go penalty.

There had been rain before the race started and all but Johnny Herbert opted to start on wet tyres however the track soon began to dry and after only a few laps the first of the pit stops to change to slicks began.

Mika Hakkinen had lost a lot of time to Schumacher when he changed to slicks and then got stuck behind several others who stayed out longer. When the field finally cycled through their stops and Hakkinen regained his second place he quickly began to catch the leader when suddenly flames appeared around his rear suspension and he had to retire.

Schumacher was so far in the lead that his team told him to slow down and not take any risks but a loss of concentration with only a few laps to go caused him to clip the grass and spin around. He flicked his Ferrari around and continued without losing a place.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen (Jordan) was third having held off a strong challenge from Jacques Villeneuve (BAR) who actually passed him once only to spin off and rejoin the race behind him again.

David Coulthard made his way back through the pack after his penalty and finally finished in fifth place with Ricardo Zonta (BAR) in sixth.

The Ferrari one-two combined with Hakkinen’s retirement and Coulthard’s penalty gives Schumacher an eight point lead in the Drivers’ Championship with just two races left. The Ferrari team fared even better and now leads McLaren by 10 points in the Constructors’ competition.

The general consensus was that the race had been a great success with a capacity crowd that was the largest ever at a Formula 1 race. The hybrid track provided sections both for speed and handling and, this time at least, the feared first-corner collision did not happen. If the United States Grand Prix is to continue we must hope that this interest will continue and that the fans will return in following years.

United States GP results.

Posted: Thursday, August 24th, 2000

Toyota Confirms Test Drivers For 2001

Toyota announced today that Mika Salo and Allan McNish will be sharing test driving duties next year in preparation for the team’s entry into Formula 1 in 2002.

Yesterday it was confirmed that Salo would be leaving Sauber at the end of this year.

Posted: Thursday, August 24th, 2000

Button Goes To Benetton

Jenson Button has finally announced that he has signed a two year deal with Benetton. This had been rumoured for several weeks as his seat at Williams-BMW has apparently been earmarked for defending CART World Champion Juan Montoya who looks set to make his Formula One debut next year.

Button will replace Alexander Wurz who has been under increasing pressure from his new boss Flavio Briatore ever since the Renault buyout of Benetton was announced earlier this year.

Posted: Friday, August 18th, 2000

Panis Signs With BAR

Olivier Panis has signed a two year contract with the British American Racing team. Panis will replace Ricardo Zonta and drive alongside Jacques Villeneuve who recently announced that he will stay with the team for another three years.

Panis was formerly with the Prost Formula 1 racing team but has spent the last year as the test driver for McLaren after losing his ride at the French team.

Posted: Thursday, August 17th, 2000

Hakkinen Wins 2000 Hungarian GP

Mika Hakkinen (McLaren) made a superb start from the second row of the grid, passing pole-sitter Michael Schumacher (Ferrari) and David Coulthard (McLaren) on the way to leading the field into the first corner. Apart from a brief lead change after his first pit stop that was how the race finished.

Schumacher, who was understandably cautious at the start after two first corner accidents in the last two races, owes much of his second place finish to a well timed pit stop which got him out in front of Coulthard. The Minardi which hindered Coulthard enough to let Schumacher get in front of him was also a factor.

Rubens Barrichello (Ferrari) was fourth followed by Ralf Schumacher (Williams) and Heinz-Harald Frentzen (Jordan).

Today’s result moves Hakkinen and McLaren to the top of their respective Championship tables, this is the first time since the start of the season that Michael Schumacher has been out of first place in the Drivers’ Championship.

Hungarian GP results.

Posted: Sunday, August 13th, 2000

Lotus To Buy Prost?

A report in today’s Sunday Telegraph stated that David Hunt, brother of the late former World Champion James Hunt and current owner of the Team Lotus name, was making a bid to purchase the Prost Formula One team. If successful Hunt would almost certainly rename the team to bring the Lotus name back to F1.

On the face of it buying Prost, currently one of the least successful teams in Formula One, might not make much sense but there are several underlying reasons that might make it a good move:

• Buying an existing team is less expensive and quicker than building a team from scratch and also gets the new owners a share of the lucrative TV royalties sooner.
• Under the Lotus name Hunt would be able to move the team to England where there is a larger pool of F1 talent to draw from, something that Alain Prost has been unable to do with the former Ligier team.
• Next year the team will not be using Peugeot engines!

This is not the first time that a Lotus revival has been rumoured — last year they were supposedly in talks to buy the Arrows team — as various stories have been circulating ever since the team closed its doors at the end of the 1994 season. Check out some more Team Lotus rumours.

Posted: Sunday, August 6th, 2000