The Belgian Grand Prix has been dropped from next year’s F1 schedule because of Belgium’s new ban on tobacco advertising which is being implemented three years ahead of the Europe-wide ban which starts in 2006. It was apparently up to the teams to agree to run without tobacco advertising on their cars and they were unable to do this.
Several other European events are already run without tobacco company sponsored teams being able to use their sponsor’s names on their cars but they were contractually bound not to take part in any more such races.
There will not be a replacement race next year and so there will be just 16 races on the F1 calendar in 2003. It does not look likely that the Belgian GP could return to the schedule later as races in China, Bahrain and, possibly, Russia are going to be added in 2004.
Posted: Wednesday, October 30th, 2002
A meeting of Formula One team principals in London has approved several rule changes to improve competition and, hopefully, revive flagging fan interest in the sport.
Most notable in light of several controversial Ferrari finishes this year is the ban on team orders whereby a team’s management would decide that one of their drivers should give way to the other. Team orders have been an acknowledged part of the sport for years but Ferrari’s blatant last-corner antics in Austria and the United States brought the matter to a head when disappointed fans booed and jeered the result.
After Ferrari won 15 out of 17 races this year the FIA Formula One Commission was under pressure to find a way to make the races more interesting as race attendance and TV viewing figures went down when the results appeared to be a foregone conclusion and all of the championships were decided with several events still to run.
The teams rejected some radical proposals including a handicapping system to add ballast to the fastest cars and a ludicrous idea to have drivers switch teams for each of the first 10 races of the season.
The commission did approve some changes to the way qualifying will take place and how championship points will be awarded. Next season points will be awarded to the top eight finishers instead of the top six with less of a gap between the race winner and the other places in the hope that the championship will be less of a walkover. Points will be 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 instead of the current 10-6-4-3-2-1.
After problems with some drivers being held up by slower cars in qualifying F1 is switching to having each car qualify alone on the track similarly to the way that CART and the IRL do now on ovals. Qualifying sessions will now be held on Friday as well as Saturday with the Friday results inverted to decide the running order of the cars on Saturday so that the fastest cars on Friday will run last on Saturday when the track will presumably be faster since the earlier cars will have cleaned the track of dust and laid down more rubber for the later drivers to benefit from. The new qualifying process will also address some team and sponsor complaints by ensuring that all of the cars are shown on TV instead of just the more successful teams.
Posted: Tuesday, October 29th, 2002
If all goes according to plan Formula One will race in China for the first time in 2004 at a yet-to-be-built circuit in Shanghai. The track is not scheduled to be completed until March 2004 so they are not leaving themselves much of a cushion should there be any delays.
Once completed the new Shanghai track will have to be approved by FIA’s World Motor Sports Council before the event will be allowed to proceed. An earlier attempt at running a Chinese Grand Prix at Zhuhai in 1998 was cancelled because the track did not meet F1’s strict safety standards.
Posted: Sunday, October 20th, 2002
In a result that mirrored their season Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello scored another Ferrari one-two to win today’s Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka. This time there was no mistaking the intended result as Barrichello tucked neatly in behind Schumacher when he slowed down to provide the perfect team photo opportunity.
Round 17: October 13, 2002 - Suzuka, Japan
| Position |
Driver |
Team |
Points |
| 1 |
Michael Schumacher (D) |
Ferrari |
10 |
| 2 |
Rubens Barrichello (BR) |
Ferrari |
6 |
| 3 |
Kimi Raikkonen (FIN) |
McLaren Mercedes |
4 |
| 4 |
Juan Pablo Montoya (COL) |
Williams BMW |
3 |
| 5 |
Takuma Sato (JAP) |
Jordan Honda |
2 |
| 6 |
Jenson Button (GB) |
Renault |
1 |
| Fastest Qualifier: Michael Schumacher (D) |
Complete GP of Japan results.
It was Schumacher’s 11th win of the year, Ferrari’s ninth one-two finish — their fifth in a row — and Schumacher is also the first driver ever to stand on the podium after every race of the season with 11 wins, five seconds and one third place. To add insult to injury Ferrari’s 221 championship points is equal to the points scored by all of the other teams combined.
Ralf Schumacher had been the “best of the rest”, running behind the Ferraris in third place for most of the race but when his Williams retired with engine problems with just five laps to go Kimi Raikkonen inherited third for McLaren. Juan Pablo Montoya scored fourth place and three consolation points for Williams.
Local favourite Takuma Sato scored his first ever world championship points with a fifth place finish in his home race which was as good as a win for the Japanese fans and press. His result in a Honda powered Jordan moved them ahead of Jaguar and BAR in the constructors’ championship and secured a larger share of the FIA TV money for Jordan next year. The Suzuka circuit is owned by Honda and as the other three Honda powered cars all had engine failures his result was probably a great relief to them.
Jenson Button took the final point with a sixth place finish in his last race for Renault.
Once again the Arrows team were not present at the race and today the starting grid was even smaller than usual as Allan McNish was advised not to race after crashing his Toyota heavily in yesterday’s qualifying session. This would probably have been McNish’s last Grand Prix as — like his teammate Mika Salo — he has been dropped by Toyota for next year.
Posted: Sunday, October 13th, 2002
FIA President Max Mosley is reported to have said today what many F1 fans have been thinking for quite a while, that Formula One has become boring. Mosley apparently attributed the lack of excitement to Ferrari’s total dominance this season but added that it was not Ferrari’s fault but rather the fault of the other teams that weren’t as good.
This fan, for one, believes that it goes back a while further than that to the time when the races became virtual processions with most significant lead changes taking place in the pits but that’s another issue.
To cut costs Mosley is apparently considering restricting testing, practice, qualifying (both time and laps allowed) and the number of changes made to the car.
To make the races more interesting the FIA is considering a handicapping system where the winner of a race — or perhaps the championship points leader, the details are not yet clear — would be given a weight penalty in future races to avoid them running away with the series.
This “punish the winner policy” is an idea that has been tried in several other series and while it can make for some close racing in the short-term it can also lead to the better teams and drivers quitting the series in favour of other events where their innovation and superiority will be appreciated so I would suggest that the FIA thinks long and hard about this before they start dumbing the series down.
Formula One as the world’s premier racing series is supposed to be about technical innovation and since dominance in F1 has always tended to go in cycles it would be a shame to see them mess with the rules just to bring the current Ferrari era to an end a year or so sooner than it would have naturally happened.
Posted: Monday, October 7th, 2002
