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Wrap

Text File | 1995-02-25 | 21.1 KB | 498 lines

12th May 1994 I cannot actually see the screen. I am watching the news while typing this. The Austrian driver Karl Wendlinger has had a serious crash in practising in Monaco. He is reported to be in a serious coma. Earlier, Erik Comas escaped from a serious crash. A few days ago I heard that Gerhard Berger, a friend of both Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger, will almost certainly be retiring. Losing four talents in less than one month is too much. The 1994 season will be remembered as the most tragic in the history of motor racing. The news on BBC 1 has now ended, the ITN news will be on in a few minutes. The problem is that due to the news of the death of the Labour leader John Smith, all news programmes have hardly any time for anything else. After the events in Imola, the FIA announced new safety reguluations for the pit lane. These mean that there will be chicanes at the start of the pits. This is ridiculous. As Damon Hill said, it does nothing to slow down the cars once they're in the pits - if the FIA wanted to really reduce the speed of the cars, they'd need to fill the pits with chicanes. These chicanes will merely slow down pit stops without making anything any more safe. I am now tuned in to ITV. Adverts, then news. Of course, we won't have any new stuff, but I may as well try and find the most information possible. It looks like I will have to wait a long time, waht with all the news of John Smith and Rwanda. I think I'll take a look at what I've written - It'll be completely awful it'll be a terrivle thing - spelling mistkaes, errors, grammatical mistakes... Only a moment ago, I wrtote 'EWrrores'.... (That previous sentence has not been edited. And neither has this one I'm writing now.) Let's take a look... Well, there was just one mistake in the first paragraph... Four in the second. Five in the third. Three in the fourth. Etc. In fact, I didn't write 'EWrrores'. I thought I wrote 'Errores' but actually I wrote something else. Can't remember what it was, though. And I also spelt 'grammatical' as 'grammatickal'... Let's go back to the news now. I am going to go to the loo and then go downstairs to see the news while eating my supper. (Note from about twenty minutes later - all the text below has not been edited. I thought it might be slightly amusing. I mean, I called Northern Ireland 'Northern Island'... If you want a translation, write to me...) Well, it is now 10:24 amnd I am not actually downstairs (it would be rather difficult to type from that distance). I am watching the adverts - the first part of the ITN news has finished. After the news of John Smith has finished, there will be news of Wendlingers crash (before teh BBC , unwhoops, before the news of Rwanda - unlike the BBC) (it's rather difficults typing like this)... What? It's now talking about Rwana FIRST. T When he said , bwefore the adverts: NAfter the break - he said it in this order, John Smith, Formula One, Rwnana. Well, I suppose that the lives of millions of people are more imporatant the n one, but you need to put .. You need to put it on a personal basis. How many people like F1? Around 400 million. How many people in this country know anyone in Rwnaa? Apart from charities and teh UN and stuff. Ayway, it won't be long now. I don't expect any extra information. I will watch the news tomorrow monting. WHAT? Now they're talking about trade... This isn't godo enough... Now they'retalking about Northern Island. Millions of people .... WHAT? FOOTBALL NOW... Theyre' talking about clubs being relegated. I am considering This it. (Note - end of bits written while I couldn't see the screen...) No extra news, but we were shown one strange incident where a Pacific car crashed, while the commentator was saying something about Comas crashing... Was he referring to this earlier event, or had he got his cars wrong??? Well, I seem to have kept spelling 'Rwanda' wrongly... Anyway, this is the only news I can give you. We still do not know who, if anyone, will be taking the places of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger. If anyone - maybe Williams and Simtek will keep the places empty as a mark of respect. Obviously, Nicola Larini will take the place of Gerhard Berger. I bet Berger won't be coming back ever again - Wendlinger is also a fellow Austrian. Austria must be feeling nearly as devastated as Brazil (where the entire country practically stopped working, as millions (tens, hundreds of millions possibly) were devastated by the death of Ayrton Senna. As one Brazillian told a member of the Williams team: "Brazil has not lost a hero. Brazil has lost a saint". There has been speculation over the last two weeks as to who will drive for Williams. Some of the more, er, stupid, said that it might be Alain Prost - but I doubt he'd really want to come back. And he isn't going to come back. I would have heard about it if he was. Spike thinks that maybe Derek Warwick or Riccardo Patrese will drive for Williams... Warwick??? Well, his guess was based merely on the fact that neither of these drivers had got a seat in the 1994 season. However, if Pacific didn't want them, I doubt Williams would. I'm just joking. Warwick and Brundle took the decision to wait and see if McLaren would need another driver - it was Brundle who got the place, and Warwick was left behind. As for Patrese, I doubt that he'd actually want to drive for anyone other than the top teams - look where Michele Alboreto is... My guess would be that maybe David Coulthard (or however you spell it) will drive for Williams - he is their young test driver, and I hear that people have said that he is better than Damon Hill...???>>? Erm... Well, that's obvious, isn't it. I mean, even Paul Belmondo is better than Damon Hill. No, only joking. (Why did I bother to say that? I mean, isn't it obvious? If you can't remember who Paul Belmondo is, don't worry, your memory isn't like that of Stephen in Neighbours at the moment. The reason you've never heard of him is that he has yet to qualify...) Anyway, I will see you in the morning when I bring you the news. I hope it will be good. I doubt that it will be. Good night. (Or bad.) Friday 13th May 1994. 18:38 This morning I got up at just after 7:00 to see the news. To someone who knows me, this would prove that I am very concerned about Wendlinger's condition - I usually get up at 8:20 on school days and about midday on weekends. However, the morning new reported him to be in a stable critical condition... What? Critically stable? I think we've found an oxymoron... Well, I watched the news when I got back from school, but I had missed the main news, and it was just South Today reporting on cows. I have just watched the Six O'clock news and it has given no information at all on Wendlinger's condition. However, it did tell us about several new measures designed to slow down F1 cars: Firstly, cars will have to use normal petrol... Just like the petrol we put in our Ford Escorts. Hmmm, I wonder what Sasol Jordan will do now? Secondly, they're going to put limits on the amount of downforce cars will be able to use. This means that all corners will have to be taken more slowly, and so drivers crashing on corners will hopefully be in less danger. However, less downforce does increase straightline speed. Ayrton Senna crashed at Tamburello, which is a top speed 6th gear corner at Imola. If he had had less downforce, he would have crashed faster. Not that it would have made any difference, in the end. In fact, these downforce regulations will probably not have much useful effect, since most tracks are low downforce tracks anyway. Thirdly, the cockpits of the cars will be made larger - apparently this will mean that drivers don't hit their heads as hard if they crash. If it works, it will be a welcome change - Senna suffered serious head injuries, and now Karl is as well. The drivers, who are all angry with the FIA for some of the ridiculous new regulations, have formed their own 'Drivers Association'. Hopefully, this will be useful, although I'm not exactly sure how... Sounds familiar, all this. FOCA, the Formula One Constructors Association was created sometime in the 1960s (or the 1950s, I don't know) because half the teams didn't turn up to some of the races. Maybe this 'GPDA' (Grand Prix Drivers Association) will help sort out all this confusion and chaos which is going around the sport at the moment. Tomorrow I will bring you information on qualifying times, and I am also going to be watching all the news programmes all the time to find out any more information about Karl Wendlinger's condition. Now, as promised, the results of the San Marino Grand Prix. The race was restarted, and things were rather confused - positions were on aggregate, which meant that the previous positions of the drivers had been taken into account - this meant that Berger managed to lead the race for a while without actually passing Schumacher... 1) Micheal Schumacher (Benetton) 10 Points 2) Nicola Larini (Ferrari) 6 Points 3) Mika Hakkinen (McLaren) 4 Points 4) Karl Wendlinger (Sauber) 3 Points 5) Ukyo Katayama (Tyrrell) 2 Points 6) Damon Hill (Williams) 1 Point 7) Heinz-Harald Frentzen (Sauber) 8) Martin Brundle (McLaren) 9) Mark Blundell (Tyrrell) 10) Johnny Herbert (Lotus) 11) Olivier Panis (Ligier) 12) Eric Bernard (Ligier) 13) Christian Fittipaldi (Arrows) DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP TABLE: 1) Micheal Schumacher 30 Points 2) Rubens Barrichello 7 Points Damon Hill 7 Points 4) Gerhard Berger 6 Points Nicola Larini 6 Points 6) Jean Alesi 4 Points Ukyo Katayama 4 Points Karl Wendlinger 4 Points Mika Hakkinen 4 Points 10) Christian Fittipaldi 3 Points 11) Heinz-Harald Frentzen 2 Points 12) Erik Comas 1 Point CONSTRUCTORS CHAMPIONSHIP TABLE: 1) Benetton-Ford 30 Points 2) Ferrari 16 Points 3) Jordan-Hart 7 Points Williams-Renault 7 Points 5) Sauber-Mercedes 6 Points 6) Tyrrell-Yamaha 4 Points McLaren-Peugeot 4 Points 8) Arrows-Ford 3 Points 9) Larrousse-Ford 1 Point After Senna's crash I recorded no further information, other than retirements. These are the ones I recorded (I don't think I picked up all of them): Alboreto, Beretta, Berger, Brabham (who bravely took the decision to race after the death of his team mate), Brundle (possibly), de Cesaris, Fittipaldi, Gachot, Lamy, Lehto, Martini, Morbidelli, and Senna. I will come back to you with news when I have it. The news... It's all Labour at the moment... Nothing yet... Nope. No headlines. I expect this means that he is not dead yet. I'll go and watch Red Dwarf. Saturday 14th May Ben has just phoned with the first six grid positions. Looks like we've still got Berger at the moment - and Alesi is back. Shame about Larini. 1) SCHUMACHER (Benetton) 2) HAKKINEN (McLaren) 3) BERGER (Ferrari) 4) HILL (Williams) 5) ALESI (Ferrari) 6) FITTIPALDI (Arrows) 7) MORBIDELLI (Arrows) 8) BRUNDLE (McLaren) 9) MARTINI (Minardi) 10) BLUNDELL (Tyrrell) 11) KATAYAMA (Tyrrell) 12) ALBORETO (Minardi) 13) COMAS (Larrousse) 14) DE CESARIS (Jordan) 15) BARRICHELLO (Jordan) 16) HERBERT (Lotus) 17) LEHTO (Benetton) 18) BERETTA (Larrousse) 19) LAMY (Lotus) 20) PANIS (Ligier) 21) BERNARD (Ligier) 22) BRABHAM (Simtek) 23) GACHOT (Pacific) 24) BELMONDO (Pacific) As for Karl Wendlinger, it seems that things are getting worse.... NEWSFLASH... (I have just watched the race), it seems that things are getting better now - Wendlinger is in a 'controlled' coma, whatever that means, but the future is still uncertain. Neither of the Sauber cars started - Wendlinger, obviously, couldn't, and Frentzen didn't want to. The first two grid positions were left empty at the start of the race. This is because Senna was almost always on pole here - he won six times in his career at Monaco. The Brazillian and Austrian flags were painted on the track at those positions. Schumacher has got his first ever pole position, but not under the conditions he would have wanted to get it, i.e. with Senna driving. How on earth does he manage it? Damon Hill is FOURTH for the fourth (or is it third?) time... I still have no news on who will drive for Williams or Simtek - if I get any news I'll write it here: The news is that nobody new drove for Williams and Simtek in this race. According to the newspaper, Williams are soon going to be doing some testing to see who will take Senna's place - the drivers being tested are: Riccardo Patrese, Thierry Boutsen (???) and David Coulthard. Hopefully I will be able to pick up all of the grid positions tomorrow, because at San Marino, they had this new system of showing the grid positions which didn't zoom past at 200mph. Unfortunately, it was horizontally scrolling, which meant that I got a bit confused, since grid positions are traditonally shown vertically. This is why I hardly got any of the positions at San Marino. See you later. Okey dokey. Thankfully, we managed to get through the race without any helicopters landing on the track to take drivers away. Here's what happened: At the start, Damon Hill overtook Berger, only to hit Mika Hakkinen's back left tyre, putting both cars out of the race. Hakkinen had been extremely happy with his best ever grid position. A while afterwards, Derek Warwick talked to Mika in the pits - at this time Hakkinen didn't know who it was who pushed him off. He was really waxing wrath: "I don't know who it was but I have to say that it was really, really stupid"... Schumacher, meanwhile, got a massive lead - 3.7 seconds over Berger at the end of lap 1, and 4.3 at the end of lap 2. At the end of lap one, things looked quite different, the running was: 1) SCHUMACHER, 2) BERGER, 3) ALESI, 4) FITTIPALDI, 5) BRUNDLE, 6) BLUNDELL, 7) KATAYAMA, 8) ALBORETO, 9) COMAS, 10) DE CESARIS... We also received the news that Benetton has bought Ligier - this means that Eric Bernard may be losing his seat to Jos Verstappen. (Murray pronounced it as 'Vershtoppen'...) Well, during the race there were lots of pit stops and we were shown many of them. I have taken down loads of pit stop times. Here are the fastest ones... DE CESARIS, 7.1s... However, I think this is almost certainly wrong, it may be because the camera was taken off him - so don't count this one... BRUNDLE, 8.0s LEHTO, 8.2s BERGER (2), 8.3s SCHUMACHER (2), 9.3s ALESI, 10.1s HERBERT, 11.1s BERETTA, 12.3s LAMY, 13.8s BLUNDELL, 15.2s KATAYAMA, 20.8s BELMONDO, about 10 minutes... Yes, Paul Belmondo, driving in his first race this season, drove into the pits at one point and seemingly retired. Around 10 minutes later, he was seen driving out again... As Murray Walker said, he was in and out all the time, although he finished in (in the pits, that is, not in the race). Talking of Paul Belmondo, at one point the camera showed a shot of a pigeon sitting on a sort of spherical thing. Probably Belmondo's helmet. Well, when Mark Blundell left the race, he was ignoring all the health warnings, and smoking. A lot. Then he was sick and the oil went all over the track... I'm talking about the car, here. Second place Gerhard Berger (who hasn't retired yet, if you hadn't noticed) slid on the oil, spun, and rejoined, but third place Martin Brundle zoomed past and took his place. Due to the oil all over his tyres, Berger lost a lot of time - the oil was almost certainly what lost him his place in the end. Olivier Beretta, driving in his home town of Monte Carlo, was causing a lot of trouble to people trying to lap him - the worst case of blocking was when Andrea de Cesaris, pursued by Jean Alesi, tried to get past. It took a long time for de Cesaris to get past Beretta, and Alesi gained about half a second or so on de Cesaris - however, when de Cesaris did get past, Beretta made up for it by holding up Alesi, letting the gap between de Cesaris and Alesi go up to two seconds... I'm surprised nobody decided to give Beretta a stop-go penalty for that... Anyway, I couldn't be bothered to write all this boring shit, I'm sure only about 3 people will read this anyway, so here are the finishing wotsits. 1) Micheal Schumacher (Benetton) 10 Points 2) Martin Brundle (McLaren) 6 Points 3) Gerhard Berger (Ferrari) 4 Points 4) Andrea de Cesaris (Jordan) 3 Points 5) Jean Alesi (Ferrari) 2 Points 6) Michele Alboreto (Minardi) 1 Point 7) JJ Lehto (Benetton) 8) Olivier Beretta (Larrousse) 9) Olivier Panis (Ligier) 10) Erik Comas (Larrousse) 11) Pedro Lamy (Lotus) Alboreto scores his first point for ages (he finished second in the world championship in 1985)... As does de Cesaris, who will not be driving in the next race unless Eddie Irvine massacres all the other cars during the next practise session in Spain. Brundle's best ever finish. Brundle and Berger were the only drivers to finish on the same lap as Schumacher. DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP TABLE: 1) Micheal Schumacher 40 Points 2) Gerhard Berger 10 Points 3) Rubens Barrichello 7 Points Damon Hill 7 Points 5) Nicola Larini 6 Points Jean Alesi 6 Points Martin Brundle 6 Points 8) Mika Hakkien 4 Points Karl Wendlinger 4 Points Ukyo Katayama 4 Points 11) Christian Fittipaldi 3 Points Andrea de Cesaris 3 Points 13) Heinz-Harald Frentzen 2 Points 14) Erik Comas 1 Point Michele Alboreto 1 Point Well, already, 15 of the 28 (well, 25 at the moment) drivers have scored points - very different to last year when ... whoops, 14 drivers had scored points by the end of the fourth race... Hmm... So, really, it's not much different from last year... CONSTRUCTORS CHAMPIONSHIP: 1) Benetton-Ford 40 Points 2) Ferrari 22 Points 3) McLaren-Peugeot 10 Points Jordan-Hart 10 Points 5) Williams-Renault 7 Points 6) Sauber-Mercedes 6 Points 7) Tyrrell-Yamaha 4 Points 8) Arrows-Ford 3 Points 9) Larrousse-Ford 1 Point Minardi-Ford 1 Point Well, already, 10 of the 14 teams have scored points - very different to last year when ... whoops, 9 teams had scored points by the end of the fourth race... Hmm... So, really, it's not much different from last year... Those very nice men who did not finish the race were: Barrichello, Belmondo, Bernard, Blundell, Brabham, Fittipaldi (who had been doing incredibly well), Gachot, Hakkinen, Herbert, Katayama, Martini (we didn't see him at all), Morbidelli (same here)... Now we must turn our thoughts to Karl Wendlinger, who at this very moment is lying in a hospital in Nice. All those doctors seem to have coded all their information before they give it to the press. So we don't really know what the hell's going on. As for my fantasy F1 team, I did not include any results from San Marino. This is partly because all the grid positions were different when the race restarted, so I didn't know where everyone was. This race, I scored a mere 40 points (from Berger), since Barrichello had a mechanical failure and neither of the Sauber cars took part in the race. I will see you lot in the next thingybob - the Spanish Grand Prix in two weeks time. Hmm. By then, I will already have done two of my GCSE exams... Maybe I should start revising? - End of Sockument - @e