Mentor and manager is former champion Keke Rosberg, which helps.Car rating10 Sharp design by Adrian Newey has superior aerodynamics to anything else, and more compliant suspension. We will see.”Hakkinen, meanwhile, is aiming to clinch his first title in style “If everything goes normally, I think I will win,” he said. Now he is far more comfortable with his back, which in the last two races caused him big, big problems.”Above all, I want fair attitude. “There is no point in thinking about second place.” But that’s the trouble with Suzuka. Of course the pressure in Suzuka is really for Schumacher, but also for Hakkinen. I want, as they might say in football, a masculine match, but without fouls I expect from Eddie a strong opposition, but sporting. But what if Irvine should account for Hakkinen, whether by design or malchance?”We have to finish in first and second places,” the Ferrari president, Luca di Montezemolo, said last week.
“Of course we need Schumacher to win, and I think Eddie has got a very challenging race. He is very good in Suzuka, and he has driven some good races this year. But as he proved in France earlier this season, he is quick enough to race and beat Hakkinen, and to back Ferrari in the one-two it desperately needs in order to crush the McLaren challenge. It is not enough for Schumacher to win, because if Hakkinen makes it home in second place he would match the German’s points score. Both would have won seven races, but Hakkinen would take the title via a greater number of second places.”I’m cool,” Irvine told the Italian press last week, where at one stage he was quicker than Schumacher round Mugello. “I know what I have to do, and I’ll give it all I’ve got.”Cynics who watched Schumacher’s thuggish attempt to take Jacques Villeneuve out of the title-deciding Grand Prix of Europe last season smirk at the thought that, with a four-point deficit this time around, the wunderkind must keep his nose clean.
Five years on, Irvine is ready to win, and last year showed at Suzuka that he has the pace to run at the front as he helped Schumacher to a crucial victory.Irvine’s detractors – Jacques Villeneuve and Damon Hill among them – dismiss him as little more than Schumacher’s lackey. It was at Suzuka in 1993 that he made his debut, finishing fifth and later collecting a punch in the mouth from the late Ayrton Senna, after angering the Brazilian by racing him as he was being lapped and then later upsetting him further with his insouciant refusal to accept any blame. Hakkinen’s stable-mate, David Coulthard, has won only one race, at Imola, while Eddie Irvine has yet to win at all But the Ulsterman is the more likely to spring a surprise. But McLaren have also done a great deal, and we are not underestimating the challenge of Bridgestone on their home ground.”Since Melbourne, where his engine broke, Schumacher has not suffered a mechanical failure, something that doubtless keeps McLaren’s Ron Dennis awake at night.Equally critical will be the role of the respective team-mates, neither of whom looked remotely impressive as their partners fought for victory last time out. After the manner in which McLaren have led the championship all season, a last-race stumble would be unbearably embarrassing, while Ferrari still has ringing in its ears the pre-season remark of the Fiat chief, Gianni Agnelli, that it would be the team’s fault if they did not win their first title in 19 years.”There are many, many scenarios, aren’t there?” Brawn inquired with his trademark owlish expression “I’m sure it’s going to be very tough.
After the technical delegate of the governing body, the FIA, had given the nod to McLaren to use a fancy braking system in Australia, Ferrari succeeded in having his ruling overturned in time to have it banned by the next race. Goodyear have done a huge amount of work since the race at the Nurburgring, and so have we. McLaren later hit back with thinly veiled accusations that Ferrari’s engine management system behaved like a form of traction control, which was outlawed five years back. “We have even made pit-stop practices where the crew have simulated dealing with a stalled engine.”All World Championship showdowns are intense but there is an extra agenda this year, following protracted sniping between McLaren and Ferrari over mutual interpretation of the complex technical regulations. At times the team has even taken to flooding sections, both here and at Ferrari’s other test track, Mugello, to simulate conditions should there be a repeat of 1994’s downpour at Suzuka.
“We are not leaving anything to chance,” Ferrari’s technical director, Ross Brawn, admitted with a cheerfulness that was a marked contrast to everyone else’s underlying nervousness.
