Formula One Features — November 2000

Imagine the scene. There is an incident in a Grand Prix which would, in today's terms, would have required the deployment of the safety car to check the field. Instead, at a pre-agreed signal, the entire field suddenly is suddenly slowed by an unseen hand to a maximum of 80mph. Welcome to the world of adaptive speed control, the "electronic chauffeur" activated automatically with the safe control of motorway traffic flows as its original objective.

Ralf Schumacher says he is ready for the battle in 2001, but his recent actions suggest that he is nervous about the prospect of fighting with much-touted team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya. If he proves quicker, the Colombian could be the man who punctures the balloon of the young German's career.

If you look at the progress the motor car made in the last century - and the progress of Formula One in just half that time - peeking into the future can be an undertaking rife with danger.

Ferrari and McLaren are about as similar as chalk and cheese. And yet, they have each produced a Formula 1 car that, in the hands of the two most skilled racing drivers in the world, perform on average within less than half a percent of each other. To achieve this level of precision between two products from such different organizations, is in engineering terms, remarkable.

There are not many countries which can claim that their most famous racing driver was a woman but in the case of Czechoslovakia there is no doubt. Eliska Junkova - who was known in the West as Elizabeth Junek - was probably the greatest woman racer there has ever been.

Rightly or wrongly, I was always impressed with David Richard's capacity for lateral thinking during his year's stewardship of the Benetton F1 team. More fool the Benetton family, in my view, for ditching him simply because he didn't cosset the dynasty's heir Rocco enough for everybody's taste. His departure cleared the way for Flavio Briatore's reappearance on the scene, so we'll never know quite what David might have managed had he been left in control of the reins for another few years.

Kimi Raikkonen awaits an FIA decision on the superlicence that could launch his F1 career, but he isn't the first comingman to ride the waves of anxiety. Back in 1992 Perry McCarthy had his superlicence in his hand in Brazil, until the FIA decided to take it away again.

Ferrari won the FIA Formula 1 World Championship for the first time since dinosaurs roamed the earth. Well? Yes - and no. When you sit down and look back at the 2000 season you have to conclude that it was more a case of McLaren losing the title than Ferrari winning it.

We have a habit of going on about a man called Thomas Haffa and a company he owns called EM.TV. By why should race fans care about him? And who is he anyway?

The statistics show that of the drivers in the top four cars in F1, Rubens Barrichello finished fourth (and therefore last) in the 2000 World Championship. But after his first season as World Champion Michael Schumacher's team-mate at Ferrari, the Brazilian says he is going to do a lot better in 2001.

Wim Wemders' film Wings of Desire is, to me, the greatest couple of hours that cinema has ever delivered. In case you haven't seen it, the story is that of an angel who chooses to forsake eternity in the sky above Berlin for the chance to feel the wind on his face, to know the difference between green and red and to say 'now' instead of 'forever' whilst walking the most soulful streets on earth.

There has been talk for some time of a Formula 1 race on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. And it was a serious enough proposal for F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone to visit the city in 1998 for a meeting with Mayor Willie Brown.

Let's think about this for a minute: Monza is the greatest living stage upon which Grands Prix are played. Since 1922 it's been sweeping majestically through the old royal park. Its long, long straights and corners such as the Curva Grande, the Lesmos and Parabolica - not to mention the ghostly, Titanic-like banking that lies beyond - ooze charisma like few circuits ever built.

Niki Lauda knows better than most that making the F1 front line depends not only on talent, but being able to judge the right place to be at the right time as you climb the ladder towards the sport's most senior category. For that reason alone, Lauda is impressed with Jenson Button whom he believes could take over the role as the next superstar from Michael Schumacher in F1 racing's next generation.

Motor racing people have always been folk who get things done - and not always by conventional means. This has been going on since the very early days of the sport and there have been some wonderfully eccentric people and events as a result.