Formula One Features — February 2001

F1 is notoriously impatient. If a driver doesn't make it in his first year, it can be the end of the road. But Nick Heidfeld smiled broadly as he faced the media during the launch of the new Red Bull Sauber Petronas C20. It was a sign that he is safe from such problems for at least another season, probably more.

This time last year Jenson Button was still reeling from his selection by Sir Frank Williams to be Ralf Schumacher's partner at BMW Williams. Now, a year on and already halfway to being a seasoned pro, Britain's great new hope isn't getting carried away by the pre-season hype.

When it comes to F1 sponsorship, nobody has ever come close to matching the hefty impact made by the Philip Morris cigarette brand, Marlboro. Reports reverberate around the F1 world that Marlboro's time in F1 may be finite. That's a real thought provoker, when you consider it has been a sponsor longer than Arrows, Benetton, Jordan, Sauber, Prost, Minardi, Jaguar and BAR have been in business.

David Coulthard is attacking the 2001 World Championship season with even more confidence and assurance than he has mustered before. This, he believes, can be his season. Yet this mind-set reflects no fundamental change of emphasis on the part of the 29-year-old Scot - nor a strategic shift in his sense of on-track priorities.

In 2000 Olivier Panis voluntarily turned down a Williams-BMW race drive for a chance to rebuild his psyche and his reputation as a test driver for McLaren. Now, that gamble having paid off handsomely, the winner of the 1996 Monaco GP has his sights set on further race successes as Jacques Villeneuve's partner at BAR-Honda.

It's now about three weeks short of 30 years since I first bumped into Niki Lauda. The buck-toothed 22-year old Austrian was in the paddock at Mallory Park, the tight little circuit near Leicester, where he was just about to have his first Formula 2 race in a March 712 he'd leased for the season for the princely sum of 8500 pounds.

Rest assured, dear reader, that not once throughout the coming months shall I bemoan the return of traction control to Formula 1. If I were so to do then I would indeed be the biggest hypocrite since those funny fellows I heard about in my Religious Education classes who went around the Gaza Strip disapproving of Jesus.

Have you ever wondered why Britain is the center of the world's motor racing industry? It hasn't always been the case in fact Britain was a latecomer to the sport when compared to France, which was the cradle of the sport.

Continuing our look at Formula One in the new century, we ask: Will grooved tires ever be replaced by slicks?