The 2000 Formula One season is well underway with four of the 17 races already completed. The teams have literally been all the way around the world as they traveled from their bases in Europe via the Far East to the season opener in Australia. From there they continued east to Brazil for round two, and then they flew west again back to Europe for the San Marino and British Grands Prix.
In this, my first Formula One column for RacingOne.com, I thought I'd recap how Ferrari and Michael Schumacher are setting up for a championship charge, and also introduce myself to those who log on and read all the racing news on the site.
I work as a journalist covering the Formula One beat. I've been doing this since 1984 and have not missed a Grand Prix since 1988. One of these days I will have to sit down and try and figure out how many Grand Prix races I've attended over the years - I know I've been to over 225 of them. For years I have been the only American journalist to cover the full Formula One circuit.
For the most part it is a wonderful job, but when I'm sitting in a cramped seat in the back of a Boeing 747 with 300 people on a 14-hour flight to Australia, it does become wearisome. And when it's 11 pm Sunday and I've been sitting in the same seat in the pressroom for 10 straight hours and I still have work to do...
But I do enjoy watching the world's best drivers battle it out around the globe. Like many F1 observers, I expected this year's championship to be a duel between the two powerhouse teams: Ferrari and McLaren Mercedes. But I didn't expect the McLaren team to be so unreliable, and that has let Michael Schumacher and Ferrari to pull out a healthy lead in the points table.
With three victories and a third place in the first four Grand Prix races of this season, Schumacher has already racked up 34 points and is on his way to accomplishing something that no other Ferrari driver has done since 1979: win the Formula One World Drivers Championship.
Ferrari is the only team to have participated in every Formula One season since the modern championship was started in 1950. Since then Ferrari has started over 620 Grand Prix races and won 128 of them. The last two decades, however, have been lean ones for the famous Italian team with the prancing horse logo. The team went winless in 1986, for example, and scored only single victories in 1994 and 1995.
In 1996 Ferrari hired the best driver in the world - Michael Schumacher - for a reported $25 million a year. That figure has now risen to $30 million a year, and that is just his salary. He makes that much again on endorsements! The investment started to pay off immediately. Schumacher won three times in 1996, five times in 1997 and six times in 1998. In 1997 and 1998 he challenged for the title right up to the final race but lost out to Jacques Villeneuve and Mika Hakkinen respectively.
Last year Schumacher had to sit out half the season after breaking his leg when he crashed on the opening lap of the British Grand Prix. His teammate Eddie Irvine did a superb job as he took over as team leader and, thanks to some bumbling on the part of Mika Hakkinen and McLaren, Irvine actually was in the hunt for the crown right up to the season finale. Hakkinen held on to win his second consecutive championship.
All this has led up to the 2000 season and it seems like Ferrari finally has everything in place to win the title. After testing this year's Ferrari, Schumacher called it "the car I have been dreaming of," and proved it by winning the first three races of the season. His new teammate, Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, quickly found out what Schumacher's old teammate Irvine kept saying during the past four years: Schumacher is awesomely fast.
The McLaren car itself is actually faster than the Ferrari. Hakkinen won three of the four pole positions this season (Barrichello won the other one), and Hakkinen led in at least some of the laps in the first three races. Engine problems knocked Hakkinen out of the first two races, while an electronic glitch caused by a broken bolt slowed him just enough so that Schumacher could win round three. Hakkinen finished second in that race and second again, this time behind his McLaren teammate David Coulthard, in round four.
So, after four races, Schumacher has 34 points while Coulthard is in a distant second place with 14 and Hakkinen is third with 12 points.
Do not, however, count out Hakkinen and McLaren Mercedes. They will fight back. It is going to be a fascinating season as we watch them do just that. When it is all over, however, I predict Schumacher will have become the first Ferrari driver to win the championship since Jody Scheckter in 1979.
