September 3, 2002

by Erik C. Nielsen
Pictures courtesy and copyright Ferrari Media

In another dramatic example of how far ahead of the competition Ferrari has become, Michael Schumacher broke one of the few remaining records that he does not yet hold. The Ferrari driver drove away from everyone and slowed dramatically at the end so that his 20+ second lead over his teammate would enter the record books as being just under 2. This broke the previous record that he tied last year with Nigel Mansell’s performance in the early 1990’s.

Michael proved that he really is worth the money and put another exclamation point on his championship. Rubens did not get the best out of the car in qualifying, and only came up second in the race, thus increasing the gap between his rivals for second in the driver’s points. The two red cars from Maranello lead after the first lap till the finish, with the Brazilian unable to keep up with Michael’s softer tires.

The other teams were just left in the dust. Montoya fought a good race with an out matched car and was rewarded with the last spot on the podium. While he battled early with the Flying Finn Jr., the latter stage of the race saw him being pushed by Coulthard. The Scot split the Williams pair and was the last of the somewhat middle pack.

The last point was captured by fast Eddie. That can’t be right; there must be a mistake in here somewhere. No, never mind, its perfectly explainable. Only 11 cars finished and the Hondas seemed to keep blowing up in Eddie’s face. A point is a point, but somehow this one can be categorized more as luck than skill. Let’s just hope that the Ford board members slept in, and only got the results to keep this $158 million project alive.

Mika Salo finished just outside of the points in his first race after the announcement was made that he and McNish would not be returning. Expect to see the slide that Stewart Racing (now Jaguar) made over the last three seasons effect the hopefuls from Japan. This definitely wins the bone head decision of the week. Toyota fans should start praying that Yoong doesn’t get one of the slots.

In the case of McNish, if being a test driver for years and helping you almost win le Mans results in being let go at the end of the season, then you really deserve to slide back to keep Minardi company. By the way, Karen is specifically not replacing her Lexus with another Toyota product because of this move. Never ever piss off a red head. Especially not one that I have to live with.

As for the other Japanese player, Honda introduced a new step motor that was billed to have more horsepower. Unfortunately, the power advantage came with the cost of reliability. No less than five of the new motors went Kaplooy this weekend, with the highlight coming with the best engine failure seen in years. Fisichella’s motor let go with not only smoke, but flames and engine components. Needless to say, Honda engineers have a lot of work to do in the next two weeks before Monza. There is hope, however, in noting that the failures came within minutes of each other indicating a similar mechanism for failure. Should be easy to figure out what happened, maybe not so easy to figure out how to fix it.

Speaking of Monza, there is a slight chance that I’ll be at that race. For those of you that have not been the biggest fans of this column, please feel free to throw tomatoes at the Bill Gates look-a-like. Ciao. (But, make sure you don't hit the short red-head that might be with him. See comment about red-heads, above. - Karen)

Race Results

1	M.SCHUMACHER	Ferrari	1h21m20.634s
2	BARRICHELLO	Ferrari	+1.977s
3	MONTOYA	Williams BMW	+18.445s
4	COULTHARD	McLaren Mercedes	+19.357s
5	R.SCHUMACHER	Williams BMW	+56.440s
6	IRVINE	Jaguar	+1m17.370s
7	SALO	Toyota	+1m17.809s
8	VILLENEUVE	BAR Honda	+1m19.855s
9	MCNISH	Toyota	+1 lap
10	HEIDFELD	Sauber Petronas	+1 lap
11	SATO	Jordan Honda	+1 lap
12	PANIS	BAR Honda	+5 laps
13	FISICHELLA	Jordan Honda	+6 laps
14	DE LA ROSA	Jaguar	+7 laps
15	MASSA	Sauber Petronas	+7 laps
16	RAIKKONEN	McLaren Mercedes	+9 laps
17	TRULLI	Renault	+9 laps
18	DAVIDSON	Minardi Asiatech	+27 laps
19	BUTTON	Renault	+34 laps
20	WEBBER	Minardi Asiatech	+40 laps