EXCLUSIVE TACH COVERAGE
European Grand Prix
at Nurburgring
"Invincible" Hill sets the pace (again)
Championship leader and favourite, Damon Hill, set the early pace here today for the Friday session. His Williams Renault still out performing the rest of the field by a clear margin, retaining the fastest lap time of 1.20.853, and finishing the day nearly half a second in front of arch rival Micheal Schumacher.
" It was obviously a good first day." announced Hill in his pit. "We are setting up the car and making improvements. It's a quick track and good to drive on, there is still work to do, but I am happy."
Despite this continued domination by Williams, the defending World Champion was in a typically confident mood. Buoyed not only by the performance of the newly revised F310 which is now fitted with a revised '96 spec gearbox, but also a vocal crowd, who have traded in their old blue Benetton flags for a sea of brilliant red ones. However, no amount of fireworks will make his V10 engine rev higher, and Schumacher accepted that despite a vast amount of testing last week, the performance improvement was in the 10th's of seconds not whole units themselves.
"Our goal has always been to win in the middle of the season and by then it will be to late for the Championship" said Schumacher. "I know what we are aiming for and the team know where the improvements will be made, maybe at Monaco we can be successful. There you don't need huge horsepower, just a big heart".
If the Ferrari No1 is happy, spare a thought for the man driving car no.19. Chances are you'll have to look it, but I'll save you the effort. With a new owner and the prospect of real results Jos Verstappen isn't wasting any time. He finished 3rd with the Hart powered V8 Footwork Arrows (now owned by TWR) in the first session and despite dropping down to a final 8th spot, is clearly enjoying giving the big names something of a fright.
" I got held up a bit by Alesi on my quick lap and I am a little disappoint
ed by our lack of performance in the 2nd session but tomorrow I think we could be in the top five".
Another of the young guns, on rather a more significant budget, was finding the going a lot tougher. As expected Villeneuve was slow.
" It was better than Brazil and Argentina for a first day. But I am not happy with the set-up, so for tomorrow their is some gain to be made. Of course it's going to be tough, there are a lot of corners that need working on, but most of the track is fairly straight forward and there are no bumps!!"
The Canadian Indy champ ended the day down in 12th place, one behind Mika Salo w
ho once again promised much from his heavily revised and apparently improved Tyrrell Yamaha, but delivered relatively little.
As for the rest, the only real improvement came from McLaren Mercedes, who you could say need it more than anyone. A new chassis is being readied for Monaco, and in the mean time Hakkinen and Coulthard are continuing to struggle with an understeer and balance problem. They finished 3rd and 5th respectively, although Ron Dennis admitted that they had used fresh tyres at the end of the hour - something neither Williams nor Benetton found necessary.
Friday's seem to be becoming something of a nothing. The results do not go toward qualifying times and the teams spend most their time trying to hide what exactly they're up to from the opposition. The only winner is television, whose ratings shoot up for the Saturday event. But if I were a sponsor, I would be trying to optimise my exposure as much as possible and give the paying spectators a show as well. Yes, I know the argument about rained off final qualifying sessions, but that's the way the rubber melts.
Best news of all is, that despite the global instructions to bring ski gear and Lang Laufing equipment, the weather here, in the Eiffel mountains, is fabulous. Not South of France stuff mind, but a very decent 20 C, with blue skies and beautiful rolling countryside. It's bound not to last, nothing this good ever does. Something Damon might want to consider too.
Nicholas Frankl
Auto Channel European Bureau
