“In general,” said Michael Schumacher, “we were very competitive all weekend.”
You could say that. On Saturday, Schumacher took the 66th pole position of his Formula One career, thereby beating Ayrton Senna’s long-held record. And on Sunday he took his 85th Grand Prix win; Alain Prost, previously the most successful driver in F1 history, has 51 to his name.
Imola marked the end of a long drought for Schumacher and Ferrari. Apart from their “win” in the fiasco of Indianapolis last summer, Schumacher and his team had been winless since October 2004, and he admitted his motivation had suffered through the long haul of last summer.
These things being so, his future plans have recently been the subject of intense speculation. He celebrated his 37th birthday in January, and his Ferrari contract expires at the end of the year. Will he retire, re-sign—or even contemplate a move to another team?
His answer is always the same. He will make up his mind by the middle of the year and not before. Much, he has admitted, will depend on how his season is progressing. That in itself tells us nothing: Will a competitive car incline him to continue, or persuade him to go out on a high?
After a middling start to 2006, Schumacher was always confident Ferrari would be much more on pace at Imola, a circuit that has always suited Ferraris. In particular, he said, there had been significant progress from Bridgestone. “It’s not too much of a surprise, really,” was his comment when he took the pole.
It was to others. In the first three races, Jenson Button’s Honda qualified third, second, first, and he had started from the pole at Imola in the past. This time around Button lined up second and said he was confident Honda had solved some of its problems with race pace.
Renault has tended to be the other way, putting the emphasis on Sunday. Fernando Alonso comfortably leads the world championship but has yet to start from the front row this year. It seems not to bother him, and you can understand why. At Imola he qualified fifth and was unconcerned. “We’ll be okay,” he said.
Alonso is an ultraconfident young fellow but not an arrogant one. At present he is riding on a cloud of serenity, driving beautifully, arriving at every circuit expecting to win.
Then there were the McLarens. After an indifferent start to the 2005 season it was at Imola that the team first gave true notice of intent, Kimi Raikkonen disappearing until a driveshaft let go. At Barcelona and Monaco, he was subsequently unstoppable.
Somehow though, the latest McLaren-Mercedes isn’t inspiring the same sort of optimism. It’s as if everyone in the team is trying to be upbeat, but whereas last year Raikkonen and Juan Montoya knew they had a fundamental world-beater, which needed only sorting, this year you don’t sense that.
Throughout the meeting there was glorious spring weather at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, and a sizeable crowd arrived Sunday morning hoping to see a Ferrari rebirth. Schumacher, quiet but plainly elated at being back at the sharp end, was in a particularly determined mood. “He really wants this one,” said Ross Brawn, Ferrari’s technical director. “You know Michael—losing doesn’t suit him.”
When the lights went out, everything was orderly, with Schumacher leading away, followed by Button, Felipe Massa, Alonso and Rubens Barrichello, who had qualified third and at least seemed to be getting to grips with the Honda.
Halfway around the lap, though, there was a serious accident at the tail of the field. Japanese rookie Yuji Ide, who looks frankly way out of his depth at this level, drove straight into the back of Christijan Albers, and the Dutchman’s MF1 was pitched into a series of barrel rolls from which he was mighty lucky to escape uninjured.
“When I was exiting the second chicane,” said Ide, “Albers was the one on the racing line, and I could not avoid contacting his car.” One wondered how much consideration he had given to braking.
The accident brought out the safety car, but only for a single lap, after which Schumacher easily cleared off again, pulling away from Button every time around, with Massa third, and Alonso seemingly content to sit in fourth. His time would come later.
As expected, the Hondas were first to stop, but it was the start of a chapter of disasters in the pits. The nozzle failed when they tried to refuel Barrichello’s car and that meant switching to the other one. And Button’s first stop was slow, too, for they had trouble getting the right rear wheel on.
Worse was to come later in the race. At Button’s second stop, the chief mechanic raised the lollipop before the fuel hose had been disconnected. Button, of course, went to move off, whereupon the mechanic, having realized his mistake, lowered the lollipop again, clouting the driver’s helmet in the process.
Fortunately, the consequences were rather less serious than for poor Lloyd Ruby, who lost the lead of the Indy 500 years ago when he let in the clutch before the fuel hose was out and pretty well ripped the sidepod off his car. Button’s car was undamaged, but the hose knocked down crew members, and it was fortunate that none was seriously hurt. All in all, this was not Honda’s shining hour.
While the drivers enjoy Imola as a piece of racetrack, they find its lack of overtaking opportunities endlessly frustrating, and until the pit stops began in earnest, there was precious little in the way of order changes. When the Ferraris made their first stops, Alonso took over the lead, and made the most of his five laps’ extra fuel.
Alonso himself pitted on lap 25, and rejoined in second place, 11 seconds behind Schumacher. Very quickly, though, that gap began to come down and the San Marino Grand Prix began to come alive. Within eight laps, the Renault was right on the Ferrari’s tail, and for a time Alonso’s speed advantage was so obvious he seemed almost to be taunting Schumacher, giving the impression he could pass any time he wanted.
Actually, though, he couldn’t. Twelve months ago, it was Alonso leading, with a much faster Schumacher trying to find a way by, and now, their roles reversed, it was the same story.
“I tried to pressure him into a mistake,” said Alonso, “but of course he didn’t make any. So we changed our strategy, and probably it was a mistake.”
Probably it cost him the race. Renault decided to bring him into the pits several laps early, fuel him up, and get him back out on a clear track, figuring he would make up easily enough time on Schumacher to snatch the lead when Schumacher made his own final stop.
But the Ferrari came in only one lap later—lap 42—and one lap wasn’t enough for Alonso to get the job done. Had they left him out, he would have had several clear laps after Schumacher’s stop, and that, surely, would have been enough.
As it was, he could only shadow and feint, duck and weave behind the Ferrari, and it stayed that way to the flag. Montoya was a worthy third for McLaren, with Massa able to hold off Raikkonen for fourth.
On the podium, Schumacher and Ferrari boss Jean Todt hugged each other, happy and also relieved that the dry spell had come to an end. As Brawn had said, Schumacher really did want this one.
“I think now,” he said, “we’ll be competitive everywhere.” If the Ferrari, and its Bridgestones, is on the pace at the Nürburgring in two weeks’ time, everyone should be very afraid. Except, perhaps, Fernando Alonso.
RACE RESULTS IMOLA 3.065-mile road course April 23
1. Michael Schumacher, Ferrari, 62 laps at 125.717 mph avg. speed; 2. Fernando Alonso, Renault, 62; 3. Juan Pablo Montoya, McLaren-Mercedes, 62; 4. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 62; 5. Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren-Mercedes, 62; 6. Mark Webber, Williams-Cosworth, 62; 7. Jenson Button, Honda, 62; 8. Giancarlo Fisichella, Renault, 62; 9. Ralf Schumacher, Toyota, 62; 10. Rubens Barrichello, Honda, 62;
11. Nico Rosberg, Williams-Cosworth, 62; 12. Jacques Villeneuve, Sauber-BMW, 62; 13. Nick Heidfeld, Sauber-BMW, 61; 14. Vitantonio Liuzzi, Toro Rosso-Cosworth, 61; 15. Scott Speed, Toro Rosso-Cosworth, 61; 16. Tiago Monteiro, Midland-Toyota, 60; 17. David Coulthard, Red Bull-Ferrari, 47 (driveshaft); 18. Takuma Sato, Super Aguri-Honda, 44 (spin); 19. Christian Klien, Red Bull-Ferrari, 40 (hydraulics); 20. Yuji Ide, Super Aguri-Honda, 33 (suspension);
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