Are we on the verge of an acrimonious two-driver struggle on the lines of the Prost-Senna wars of the late 1980s? The rivalry between Michael Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya has all the ingredients for a contest that goes way beyond the rivalry between Schumi and Mika Hakkinen in recent years, comments CAR deputy editor John Bentley.
Are we on the verge of an acrimonious two-driver struggle on the lines of the Prost-Senna wars of the late 1980s? The rivalry between Michael Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya has all the ingredients for a contest that goes way beyond the rivalry between Schumi and Mika Hakkinen in recent years.
The Michael-Mika rivalry generally took place within the traditional Formula One rule of no contact. It’s a fact that banging wheels and tangling bodywork in open-wheeled single-seaters is a dangerous game. In the days when the structure of cars was less safe than it is now, wheel-tangling was regarded as suicidal, something to be avoided at all costs. Overtaking (admittedly easier in those days of less efficient aerodynamics) was a game of cat-and-mouse, of out-thinking your rival and wrong-footing him into a corner.
Then came a man whose will to win went far further than that of his rivals. Ayrton Senna changed the face of Grand Prix racing with his uncompromising attitude to overtaking.
"Get out of my way, or we’re coming together," was his attitude. Those of an older generation, with a different attitude to self-preservation, such as Alain Prost, gave way to the charger, surviving to fight another day, and scoring valuable world championship points by staying on track instead of crashing.
Michael Schumacher learnt in the wheeltracks of Senna, but the Brazilian’s untimely death prevented the expected wheel-banging showdown. He did show the lengths he was prepared to go to, however, when he collided with Damon Hill at Adelaide, winning the 1994 title, and with Jacques Villeneuve at Jerez in 1997, losing the battle for that year’s title as a result.
With Mika Hakkinen, there was a return to the "Queensberry rules", but Schumi’s latest challenger is a different kind of driver. And the world champion cannot afford to back off as Prost did for Senna in the early days of their rivalry. So more of what happened in Malaysia is inevitable…
Never say never…
The phrase is particularly apt when applied to Grand Prix racing. After Michael Schumacher’s dominant performance in Australia, the purveyors of doom and gloom immediately began playing down the possibilities of the 2002 World Championship.
Another Ferrari whitewash, they said. We were in for a boring year.
But Schumacher’s own predictions at the Melbourne post-race press conference, when he predicted that his rivals would be a lot closer in Malaysia, proved correct.
Race day at Sepang saw Williams-BMW in dominant form. In fact, even had he not had the first-corner coming together with Montoya, it’s doubtful whether the Ferrari ace could have managed better than the third place he was gifted by the troubled Renault of Jenson Button on the final lap.
Of course, the most dramatic turnaround was for Ralf Schumacher. After flying out of contention at the first corner in Melbourne, Michael’s younger brother was superb in Malaysia, having opted for a one-stop strategy that made him an almost certain victor from the moment the start lights went out.
The big question is whether Ferrari will now fast-track the debut of the F-2002, running it in Brazil in a fortnight’s time, now that the F-2001 has been found wanting. And has its suspect reliability been corrected by the Fiorano test team of Luca Badoer and Luciano Burti? Roll on Interlagos…
