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Who Deserves To Win

After the Monza race a friend commented that Hakkinen was not weeping because he missed a gear while in the lead – he was weeping because he still had a chance to win the championship after losing 30 points, in one season, because of his own mistakes. He was in tears because winning the championship was meaningless because there was no realistic competition.

Much as I sympathise with Baha’s reasoning I simply think he was in tears because he had a chance to stitch up this year’s championship and he blew it. A momentary lack of concentration and the high that he is on is replaced by a strong sense that he has just embarrassed himself in front of half the world.

The more I thought about it the more I realised that there are few drivers and even fewer teams that deserve to win the championship this year.

McLaren certainly do not deserve to win it. Allowing their drivers to fight it out in the beginning of the season is admirable, allowing in-team competition this late in the season is stupid. I find it frustrating to see Hakkinen having to drive defensively against his own team when he is the only McLaren driver with a realistic chance of winning the championship..

Hakkinen is a good driver, but has made too many mistakes this year to justify world championship status. He crashed in San Marino when he was not under pressure, he lost second place in Monaco when he spun and Sunday’s mistake was all his too. In total that adds up to 22 points and if we assume that the tyre failure in Hockenheim cost him 10 points and the retirements in Australia and Brittain another 10 points between them, he is 42 points down from where he should have been. In any other season that would have been enough to eliminate his chances altogether.

Coulthard has shown brilliance a couple of times by winning (Britain and Belgium) and came second to Hakkinen in a couple of races, but the rest of the time he appeared to be on Ferrari’s payroll. Only in Spain and Hungary did he split Hakkinen and the Ferrari drivers, the rest of the time he was in his own race. I am not suggesting that McLaren should have unsporting team orders but surely Hakkinen should be able to count on Coulthard when it is apparent that Coulthard does not have the points or consistent ability to mount a credible challenge for the world championship.

Ferrari does not deserve to win on two counts. Firstly I am appalled at the haphazard progress they made this year taking into account their budget and resources. They keep on looking as if they are about to get it right, but never follow through. Secondly, in hindsight, they made a big mistake building the whole team around Schumacher. It is obvious that without him in the driving seat they are unable to develop the cars or set them up for a race. They keep on promising radical improvements but instead they have now lost so much ground that both Jordan and Williams are starting to overtake them.

Michael Schumacher does not deserve to win simply because he had an accident. Up until then he was looking good for the championship and if he did not have his accident I am sure that he would have capitalised on the misfortunes of McLaren far better than Irvine.

Irvine, on the other hand, is getting there by default. Irvine is a reasonable driver, but I would not rate him in the same class as the two Schumachers, Hakkinen, Frentzen, Barrichello and Fisichella to name but a few. At Monza his performance was not spectacular and I would not blame those that concluded that he was not even trying.

Williams can also not be regarded as a team that should win. I know it is difficult to get the right motor but if you don’t you can’t expect to win. Williams, like always, produced a great chassis but have suffered from too little power and probably will continue to struggle for the balance of the season.

Ralf Schumacher is very good and deserves every point that he has earned. He seems to have totally overcome the wild, unpredictable driving style that we saw last year but has retained the flair and speed. It is unfortunate that this year Williams can’t give him the power he needs. Next year may be a very different story.

Zanardi obviously does not deserve to do well this year. For most of the season he has struggled to come to terms with the modern F1 car. It must have been a very frustrating time for him, knowing that he was unbeatable 12 months ago in the CART series. Fortunately it appears that his struggle is over. He was very impressive at Monza and I was even more impressed when he moved over to let Ralf through.

Jordan have gradually caught up with the leaders over the season. I would not be surprised to see them do even better in the three remaining races, but they are unlikely to get even near either Ferrari or McLaren in the constructors points.

Frentzen appears to be somewhat laid back and not aggressive. On the other hand he has been in the points consistently this year and unless one can claim that he could have avoided spinning off in Irvine’s oil at San Marino he did not make any mistakes this season. Michael Schumacher rates him as the best of his competitors – and it is showing!

Frentzen is currently 10 points behind Hakkkinen and Irvine and has a real chance at the championship. I think he has a better chance than Irvine.

Benetton have been a real disappointment this season. Fisichella, a driver with real promise, must feel very frustrated at the lack of speed of the Benetton car.

I predicted some time ago that Stewart will not improve until close to the end of the season, but I did expect them to be quite a bit better than where they currently are. All the potential and promise we saw at the beginning of the season was never realised and I now think that we will not see it until next year when they come back as Jaguar.

Barrichello drove an immaculate race and finishing in 4th was a good result for him.

BAR. Well, they are a new team so we can’t expect results in their first season. On the other hand we can expect them to finish at least one car in most if not all of the races. Instead they just kept on breaking, and breaking, and breaking.

Villenuve achieved two milestones last Sunday: he finished and he finished in the top 10.

So there you go. If Irvine wins the championship he must feel that he did not really win it fairly. He must know that if Schumacher did not break a leg he would not have won it. He must know that if Ron Dennis did not stubbornly adhere to his principles of no team orders, he would not have won it. He must know that if Hakkinen did not throw away the winning points from two races by making careless and fundamental mistakes he would not have won it. So how good will he feel if he wins it?

If Hakkinen wins it, he can’t exactly feel that he deserved it. He must feel that he was lucky that Michael Schumacher was out of action. He must feel that there was no real competition.

If Coulthard wins, unlikely as it will be, I will feel that there is no God. Coulthard’s only claim to fame is that he is in a superior car and he can be very fast in a spasmodic sort of way. He is not a consistent performer.

Frentzen could feel satisfaction at winning the championship. The same satisfaction the tortoise must have felt when he beat the hare.

Michael Schumacher must already feel that he would have won the championship with the greatest of ease if his brakes did not fail at Silverstone. At that stage he was 6 points ahead of Irvine, and he must feel that he would have done better than Irvine since then, adding say another 6-10 points, which would have placed him more than 12 points ahead of Hakkinen today. With that lead he would have had a very good chance at the championship.

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The Heretic