One F1 Change Won't Happen

By SHAV GLICK

March 7, 2003 12 AM PT

Sweeping changes have been made in Formula One this season, but none figures to make any difference in the results of the races.

Michael Schumacher and his Ferrari will continue to dominate and the only question, as the Grand Prix season opens Sunday (Saturday here) with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, is, how many races he will win, or how many will Ferrari allow teammate Rubens Barrichello to win.

A dominating Ferrari was an embarrassment to motor racing last year when team manager Jean Todt ordered Barrichello, who was leading, to stop short of the finish line in Austria so that Schumacher could win and pad his series lead. Later, at the U.S. Grand Prix in Indianapolis, it was Schumacher, by then the champion, slowing to give Barrichello the victory. It was not only embarrassing, but humiliating to the other teams.

The biggest change will be in qualifying. Instead of running for an hour, with each car permitted 12 laps on the track with other cars, each will run one at a time. The new single-car rules allow only one flying lap on Friday and another on Saturday.

The catch is, however, that between Saturday’s qualifying lap and the start of Sunday’s race, no work can be done on the car -- not even adding fuel or changing tires. Normally, drivers qualify with the least amount of fuel possible, but the new rule should make for some unusual strategies. Do you qualify with a light load and then pit early in the race? Or do you take a full load in qualifying, possibly get a poor starting position but then be able to race longer before refueling on Sunday?

“It is as though, instead of a 60-lap race, it’s a [62-lap] race,” said FIA President Max Mosley, who masterminded the rules changes. “The first laps are the qualifying, and then you do the 60-lap race. It’s just that there’s a bit of a gap in between.”

Schumacher, on www.f1.com, said he would reserve his opinions on the change until after the race in Australia.

“The [changes] won’t alter my attitude toward the race weekend, but will undoubtedly affect the preparation, in particular because Friday is now more important,” he said. “I would like to get a better idea before giving my verdict on the changes. On the other hand, I think I know enough about the world of racing to know that it is nonsense to worry about the implications of events before they have even taken place.”

Other major changes, which will not go into effect until the British Grand Prix on July 20, include the elimination of traction control, which prevents the rear wheels from spinning as the car exits a corner; launch control, used to start the cars from a standstill with a minimum of rear-wheel spin, and automatic gearboxes.

Two British teams, McLaren and Williams, have challenged the changes, claiming the FIA has exceeded its authority.

Mosley said the changes were made to prevent more teams from going out of business. Two, Prost Grand Prix and Arrows, have folded in the last year and several others are on the brink.

“The public is interested in drivers and sport, not electronics,” Mosley said in defense of his plan.

Cristiano da Matta, last year’s CART champion, will be making his F1 debut at Melbourne’s Albert Park in a Panasonic Toyota. The Brazilian said his biggest problem was adjusting to the weight difference between his CART car and his F1 car.

“The [F1] car is 600 kilos, the champ car weighs 800 kilos,” he said. “That’s a big difference, 25%, in weight. The Formula One is a more fragile car.”

Two other former CART champions and Indianapolis 500 winners, Juan Montoya and Jacques Villeneuve, are also in the 20-car field. Montoya drives for BMW Williams, Villeneuve for Lucky Strike BAR Honda.

Goodguys Are Back

Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield wasn’t the first drag racing strip in Southern California, but it was the first to gain nationwide interest when the U.S. Fuel and Gas championships were held there in 1959. It was where Don Garlits came from Florida and stirred interest in an East vs. West competition for bragging rights.

It was called the March Meet, and this weekend the Goodguys Rod & Custom Assn. is keeping its memory alive with the K&N; Filters/Goodguys 44th March Meet for vintage cars. It is the first of a 21-event nationwide season for such classes as top fuel, A/fuel, pro supercharged, A/gas and nostalgia eliminator.

Tony Nancy, who left Hollywood High to become a drag racer in the 1960s, is grand marshal of the three-day event. In 1970, Nancy was the last driver to win the March Meet in a Hemi-powered front-engine dragster. Shortly after that, he left drag racing to focus on his custom upholstery business.

More than 500 cars will participate in time trials today and Saturday with eliminations starting at 8 a.m. Sunday.

Pook and Cart

Promoters are usually full of hyperbole, but you still have to listen when Chris Pook, founder of the Long Beach Grand Prix and now president of CART, speaks. Among his comments during a visit to The Times this week:

* “Sebastien Bourdais, the French kid who drives for Newman-Haas, has more potential than Juan Montoya had when he came to this country.”

Montoya won the CART championship in 1999 and the Indianapolis 500 in 2000.

* “The St. Petersburg Grand Prix could become larger than Long Beach, the way the people in Florida responded to our race there [two weeks ago].”

Long Beach has been CART’s No. 1 attraction for nearly 20 years.

* “The Indy Racing League padded attendance at last week’s Homestead race with free tickets and alienated the folks in Florida who paid for their tickets.”

A practice they perhaps learned from Pook, who used to give away Friday-only tickets at Long Beach.

Last Laps

Ventura Raceway opens its season Saturday night with VRA sprint cars and pony stocks, but the seaside track’s big league opener is scheduled next week when U.S. Auto Club midgets open their national championship series on the one-fifth-mile oval. Among those driving will be two-time defending champion Dave Darland of Lincoln, Neb. USAC Silver Crown champion J.J. Yeley will be Darland’s teammate.

The Sprint Car Racing Assn.’s main event, rained out last Saturday night at Perris Auto Speedway, will be held March 15 before the start of that night’s scheduled SCRA program. Mike English will be on the pole. All preliminary races were completed before the rain came down last week.... Mike Kirby, 1993 CRA sprint car champion, will drive a super stock in Saturday night’s stock car program at Perris.

Chip Ganassi filed the first two entries for the May 25 Indianapolis 500 for Target team drivers Scott Dixon and Tomas Scheckter.... The National Hot Rod Assn. has already granted a sanction to the Mopar Drag Strip, a 10,000-seat facility now under construction in Banning. It is scheduled to open in October.

When Don Prudhomme was winning funny car races a few years ago, he lobbied for a spot in the International Race of Champions but was turned down because he was a drag racer, used to running only in straight lines. Now, however, Prudhomme’s driver, Ron Capps, has been invited to test an IROC car at Talladega with the possibility of racing one next year.

This Week’s Races

*--* WINSTON CUP: Atlanta 500

*--*

* When: Today, qualifying (FX, 8 p.m., tape); Sunday, race (Channel 11, 9:30 a.m.).

* Where: Atlanta Motor Speedway (oval, 1.54 miles, 24 degrees banking in turns).

* Race distance: 500.5 miles, 325 laps.

* 2002 winner: Tony Stewart.

* Next race: Carolina Dodge Dealers 400, March 16, Darlington, S.C.

*--* FORMULA ONE: Australian Grand Prix

*--*

* When: Today, qualifying (Speed Channel, 7 p.m.); Saturday, race (Speed Channel, 6:30 p.m.).

* Where: Albert Park Circuit (3.28 miles), Melbourne.