Formula One Features — November 1998

The Goodyear Formula 1 team of engineers had every right to be down-hearted after the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka. They had lost the World Championship to their rival Bridgestone - and in the worst possible way, a high-speed tyre failure.

Benetton did not have a good year in 1998 but it was always going to be a difficult season because for much of the 1997 season former team boss Flavio Briatore was fighting to keep his job rather than planning for the future. In the end Briatore was removed as head of the team and when his replacement David Richards joined the team it was too late to change very much.

Last Christmas I fell asleep in front of the fire after a large dinner, and dreamt that the FIA had decided on a radical rethink of the Formula1 rules for introduction at the start of the new millennium.

The most astounding thing about the 1998 Formula 1 World Championship was not that McLaren produced a scintillating car - which was spectacularly dominant in Australia in March - but that it took until the Japanese GP in November for Ron Dennis's team to win the World Championship.