10/07/2004
NEWS STORY
Today's farce at Silverstone, whereby drivers were actually competing to go slower than one another, is sure to bring about a response from on high.
All was going well during the first session with Michael Schumacher looking set to take provisional pole, when the German made a mistake at Priory, much to the delight of the crowd. The Ferrari star was able to continue, but posted a time that was clearly more than eight seconds off the predicted benchmark. Moments later, teammate Rubens Barrichello made a similar unforced error, but at least posted a realistic time.
The next two drivers, Jarno Trulli and Jenson Button, both improved on Barrichello's time, and for a while all seemed normal.
However, the next man out, David Coulthard, although running a hard pace, inexplicably slowed once he reached the stadium section, causing many to wonder whether it had begun raining. It hadn't. After the break, Kimi Raikkonen followed suit, pushing hard until he'd completed the second sector.
Over the next few minutes all became clear, the teams' weather experts had predicted rain for the end of the second session, when the fast cars would be on track. Therefore by going slow in the first session, drivers would go out early in the second session and thereby avoid the showers.
Perfectly legal, but hardly sporting, and certainly no fun for the crowds.
Certainly what we witnessed today, will only add to the outcry for a change to the current format.
"Undoubtedly, there will be much discussion about what happened in the first qualifying session," said Renault's Pat Symonds, "but it should come as a surprise to no-one. The rules have been like this for a long time, and the consequences were understood by the teams when they were first published.
"It only goes to reinforce our view that there is nothing wrong with single lap qualifying, but that the first session is unnecessary."
Ferrari's Ross Brawn caused widespread criticism when he revealed that his drivers 'mistakes' had been deliberate. "Our weather forecast predicted rain for the second half of the qualifying session," he revealed, "therefore we did not want to risk being among the last out on track. We tried to do it in such a way that the other teams would not understand our intentions, but they did the same thing anyway."
"Like other teams, we also took it easy in the pre-qualifying session in order to avoid our drivers having to qualify later in the session as there was the risk of rain." admitted WilliamsF1's Sam Michael.
Asked whether he thought such 'gamesmanship' is appropriate, when race fans have come along to be entertained, Kimi Raikkonen said: "I think the teams are not too worried about whether it is good for them because we try to do the best that we can and unfortunately sometimes it is not the best for the spectators, but that is part of the racing and you are allowed to do what you want."
"I think it is the end result of the qualifying format," added Rubens Barrichello. "I mean, that is the way it is. Sometimes we are going to come to a point where it is faster going right at the beginning so you have to be selfish and look after your strategy with everyone so I think the public will understand eventually."
Former Jaguar boss admitted that as a race fan he was appalled by what he witnessed, but admitted that if he'd been a team boss he would have done the same as the others.
A clearly angry Bernie Ecclestone was later seen visiting various motorhomes in an attempt to whip up interest in his proposed format. When asked about the team bosses failure to accept the proposal last time around, the F1 supremo referred to them as "like a bunch of little girls, and not like men".