I think my earlier comments were interrupted by an
electrical storm here in Indiana. Anyway, I agreed with most of your comments
on the Nurburgring this year, but wanted to suggest that the BMW is wound up
too tight in the Williams; it looked to me like Ralph was "nursing"
it after the last pitstop. I think they're trying to beat the Red machine with
sheer "grunt" (what seemed to work for them last year) and have run
up against the limits of their engine. I'm especially suspicious because they
keep saying the engine is O.K.
The other thing was that you overlooked a remarkable drive from Bernoldi (he
passed both Jags and both Toyotas and finished ahead of both Minardis (tho' he
started in front of one of them). He also beat J.V. Not bad for someone
driving a wholly out-classed machine with Cosworth (Cosworth!) power. Almost
might as well have been an Offenhauser [sorry, inside Indy joke]. And as long
as I'm on the subject of remarkable driving, let me throw in the following
thought: At Austria, Rubens qualified at 1.08.082 for the pole; Alex Yoong,
the "goat" the Qualifyer says "can't even drive" was 4.254
seconds behind Rubens (in 22nd place) almost a full second behind Webber. What
does this mean? That the other nineteen drivers arranged themselves inside a 3
second "window" on a course that is 4.3 kilometers ( or 2 & 1/2
miles) long. Given that, except for Rubens, all the other drivers find
themselves in "also ran" machines, this suggests -- to me at least--
that all speculation about who in the field is "championship
material" is pretty silly. We know, for instance, that besides Rubens,
Eddie Irvine can also win in a Ferrari; he did it when he used to have Rubens'
job. And at Austria Eddie was almost two whole seconds faster than Alex --and
he was driving a truck "prepared" (hahaha) for him by Nikki! In
short, pretty much anyone on the grid can win in a Ferrari --provided, of
course, the team orders call for him to. The only exception might be those
fellows (and we know their names) who can't seem to remember that the race
isn't won by winning every corner - Jim W - USA (Reference Heretic
4-19 - I don't mind being right...)
The Heretic replies:
Sorry for the late reply. Yes Bernoldi is good.
It is sad that to win a race today one must first drive
for the right team – hardly anything else matters.
I suspect that there are many drivers, like Bernoldi,
Webber, Raikkonen, Button etc that may prove to be brilliant but will never
get the opportunity. Even if the likes of McLaren recognise their ability,
like in the case of Raikkonen, it may be a bad time to join the team. Luck has
a lot to do with it.
