Ferrari: The Passion and the Pain. Jane Nottage

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      Ascanelli was as disappointed as anyone. ‘Canada was a race to forget,’ he said afterwards, the disappointment still etched on his face as he went on to say, ‘Canada should have been one of our best circuits, but we had four or five silly problems which, quite frankly, were all foreseeable. We have to improve our reliability. Schumacher deserves better. However, there are only 24 hours in a day and we will keep on with the learning curve. I have to say that overall I’m happier with the car and happier in general with the team. We still lack confidence and tend to panic, which is what we did when we had the problem with Irvine’s car. The most likely explanation for the broken push rod was impact with a foreign object, but we still tended to go into panic. We haven’t got it together yet.’

       NEVER SAY NEVERS!

       THE FRENCH GP DIDN’T HAVE THE MOST AUSPICIOUS START

      The French Grand Prix is held at Magny-Cours, just outside a small town called Nevers, an appropriate name for the coming weekend, which didn’t have the most auspicious of starts. Giorgio Ascanelli looked as if he had been three rounds with Mike Tyson. He had in fact been washed off a rock and hit his chin and face during the recent violent floods that had hit Italy.

      Ascanelli’s mood matched his physical state. The pressure was on and there hadn’t been time to assemble the cars before leaving for the circuit. This was something that would cost the team dearly when Irvine’s front turning vanes were found to be illegal after qualifying. It was all very much a case of wait and see, caused in some part by the lateness of the car.

      Effectively, Ferrari was being forced to try out various important new modifications either at tests just before the races or at the races. It was causing huge reliability problems. As Ascanelli says, ‘Problems occur when you are trying to do something different and you push your luck. First you have to fix the 300 kilometre problem, then the 500 and then the 800, then the thousands. Everything is new this year and so we are bound to have teething problems.’

      The good news was that John Barnard and his team had already started to design the 1997 car, and that would mean valuable extra testing time. It was difficult to be specific about what was wrong with the 1996 car, but lessons had been learnt. As John Barnard says, ‘We did something with the aerodynamics that, when the car was in the wind tunnel, indicated its improved efficiency. We had a double floor area underneath the forward part of the side pod. The aerodynamics maps, which measure how sensitive the car is, appeared to be very similar to the 1995 car, which was driveable and comfortable. But on the track it gave the symptoms of being much more sensitive. The floor gave us aerodynamic problems which I am not going to go into, as it is useful information that we found out the hard way.

      ‘By the time you discover this type of problem during the season, you are already behind. Naturally you try and fix the problem, which means forward development is difficult. Add to that the pressure of being a part of Ferrari and if you don’t stay cool things can get out of hand.’

      Eddie Irvine, as is his wont, managed to produce a few lighter moments. The Friday Five at Five press conference, when the gathered media are unleashed on five nominated team members, was a little less ‘dry’ than normal. The big discussion was whether nose plasters, as seen on rugby and football players, improved breathing. It was suggested that they could be useful in motor racing. Olivier Panis, winner of the Monaco Grand Prix, confessed to having tried them and found they did improve his breathing if not his speed, at which point Irvine turned towards him and said with understatement, ‘But they just make you look like a dick.’

      Things turned serious when qualifying for the French GP got underway on the Saturday. It was an electrifying session; Schumacher claimed pole position after Hill, with only a few minutes left, tried to claim it for himself. He was faster than Schumacher over the first two sectors of the track, but lost time during the last third. The German domination of Europe was complete when its national football team reached the finals of Euro 96. Schumacher joked, ‘We have quite a few injuries, I may have to step in.’ His parting shot was that the new clutch (German, of course) on the car was proving to be reliable and efficient.

      Irvine lost his sense of humour when the front turning vanes on his car were proved to be illegal after a complaint from a rival team member to Charlie Whiting, who investigated the complaint and upheld it. Schumacher’s car was passed. But just how do you spot a 15 millimetre difference in a racing car in the space of a few seconds? And how did it happen?

      Although this turning vane was a Maranello development, John Barnard had his own theory on the first question. ‘I suspect that there was a picture somewhere in a magazine which had a front shot of the car. There are always set pieces on a racing car which act as reference points. You know the width across the front wheels, the size of the front tyres and so on, so you can very quickly scale up the other parts of the car. If you look at enough Formula One cars you tend to know where everything finishes. If something looks high you tend to get a rule out and start measuring it and you scale it and then you say, “I think that front turning vane is illegal.” The next stop is to go to Charlie Whiting and ask him to check it. If it is outside the legal limit, you’re in trouble and that is what happened.’

      Ascanelli was his usual blunt self concerning the second question. ‘The fact is that before going to France, the car was never put together at Maranello, it was put together in France and it was never checked. It shouldn’t have happened, there were many mistakes from many points of view and you pay for it on the circuit. In 12 years of motor racing, I’ve faced many legality problems and this wasn’t the worst, but it still shouldn’t have happened.’

      On race day, there was the unusual event of having a Ferrari on pole position and a Ferrari last on the grid, due to Irvine’s disqualification for the illegal turning vane. That wasn’t to last long. On the warm-up lap, Schumacher’s engine blew up in a puff of smoke and his race was over before it had even begun. He didn’t even have time to pull over before the Italian media picked up their poisoned pens and went to town. It was a black day for the Italian racing giants. Schumacher climbed out of the car with a thunderous expression on his face. He later admitted, ‘When I got out of the car, I was so angry I could have hit someone.’

      To make matters worse for Ferrari, Irvine dropped out after five laps with gearbox problems. The Italian paper La Gazzetta dello Sport called the French Grand Prix a funeral procession, rather than a race. True to form the media soon started to call for heads to roll, and at the top of their list was Jean Todt. However, unlike in the past Ferrari was determined to keep its problems in house and not make public sacrifices. Ferrari Chairman Luca di Montezemolo was hot on the phone to Todt as soon as the Ferraris were out of the race. He was bitterly disappointed, but reconfirmed his faith in Todt and the team. They would sort out their problems by working hard and sticking together.

      Back at Maranello, the inquest started. It was found that the engine problem was caused by incorrectly machined piston heads. Of course, it wasn’t to be found only on that engine and the mechanics had to work day and night to check all the other engines. There is an inspection department at Maranello which makes spot checks on all items. It would be impossible to check every single part and would require at least 40 people working full time. This would cost a fortune and would be impractical. The pressures in Formula One mean that things can and do go wrong. The problem was that things were going wrong in a fairly catastrophic manner.

      Ascanelli was as pragmatic as ever. ‘Every time I wake up I struggle because we are not winning. But the important thing is to keep on trying. I believe that if we concentrate on doing the best job and don’t worry about the pressure, sooner or later we will win. Personally, I’d like to achieve it sooner!’

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