Youngest Winner Yet
Grand Prix of Hungary, August 24, 2003

By Erik Nielsen
Photos Courtesy of Ferrari Media

By leading the race from beginning to end, Spaniard Fernando Alonso became the youngest person yet to win an F1 race. At just over 22 years, he surpassed the record established by Bruce McLaren. The Renault driver made it look easy as he out-drove the entire field and had as perfect a race as is possible. “I have said it a lot this year, but this is the best day of my life. The car was perfect, the strategy too, and I managed to drive a consistent race. We had some problems on Friday, but the team worked hard to overcome them.” Flavio looked like the proud papa all weekend.

The other result of the race is that there are three drivers separated by only two points at the top of the leader board with only three races to go. The FIA wanted it to be closer season, but this is turning into a nail biter. Juan Pablo and Kimi are now only one and two points behind respectively, but gaining quickly. Schumacher only finished in 8th, which would not have scored any points under last year’s rules. What’s worse for the reigning world champion is that he actually finished a lap behind. Is Ferrari’s most recent domination of the sport finally at its end?

The race, as always was sorted practically at the start. Sir Frank’s boys both got jumped and were left behind. With Schumacher ahead of Juan Pablo and Ralf spinning, it looked like there would not be a change in the points race. Kimi ended up stuck behind Mark Webber’s Jaguar (nobody still can answer what he was doing that far up the grid) and couldn’t get a line around him. This allowed Alonso to leave the field in the dust. When he did make it by, there was a 25 second gap between first and second.

Rubens ran wide at the start and had to settle for 4th for a while. He kept ahead of his team mate and actually looked like he would pull his share for the constructor’s championship until his right rear suspension failed in a Jordan fashion, leaving carbon fiber bits littering the main straight. Michael kept getting passed by everyone during the pit stops. Ferrari predicted that they weren’t going to be in top form this weekend, but 1 point? That’s only 33% of what Jaguar managed. Merda!

Montoya spun Schumacher style with only seven laps to go. Maybe he is getting into world championship form. Ralf followed up in fourth allowing BMW-Williams to pass Ferrari in the constructor’s championship. David Coulthard drove an unimpressive race and finished 5th. Jaguar seemed to turn things around putting Mark Webber in second during qualifying leading everyone to believe that the car was on fumes. His 6th place finish meant that the team just might start getting some credit.

With the titles coming down to the wire, the red machine really has its work cut out for themselves. Michael summed it up with “the championship is now really close and at least I am still leading. Now we have an important test session coming up at Monza, where I am confident we can improve our total package. All we can do now is work hard, with a team which I know is capable of doing exactly that and look forward to the final three races of the year.”

Time will tell if they can pull it off. There is a three week break until Monza. You can be sure that everyone’s going to be working late into the night until then.