FORMULA ONE: Schumacher, Ferrari ready to celebrate with Tifosi at Imola
Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
April 13, 2001IMOLA, Italy - After races in Australia, Malaysia and Brazil, the Formula One world tour continues with the first European round of the season - the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy. In all, this season consists of 17 events including the SAP United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis on Sept. 30.
The tiny county of San Marino, located in the mountains of Italy, does not have space to host a Grand Prix so it stages its race in Imola, Italy, at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, the track named after the legendary founder of Ferrari and his son.
As the name implies, this is Ferrari country. The Ferrari factories where both the road cars and Formula One cars are built are located near Imola in the community of Maranello, a suburb of Modena.
While there may be 22 cars and drivers competing in this weekend's San Marino Grand Prix, most of the sellout crowd of more than 100,000 will be cheering for only two - Ferrari teammates Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello. Known as the "tifosi," the ardent Ferrari fans turn the hillsides and grandstands of the Imola track into a sea of red with their Ferrari banners, flags, shirts and caps.
Schumacher says he really enjoys racing in front of such fans but during the race itself he is concentrating so hard he does not notice his surroundings.
"When you sit in the car you are pretty much alone," he said, "and you concentrate so much on the situation that you don't really realize where you are. I have said in the past that it (the fan support) gives extra motivation, but you always try your best."
Schumacher said the real enjoyment is when he celebrates a Ferrari victory with the tifosi, just as he has at the San Marino Grand Prix the last two years.
"That is the greatest moment," he said. "It's great to see the faces of the tifosi and celebrate together."
After winning six consecutive races, Schumacher finished second in Brazil two weeks ago behind the victorious West McLaren-Mercedes driven by David Coulthard.
"You can't win all the races," Schumacher said, "that's impossible."
While he has two wins and a second place in the first three races of the season, Schumacher said the competition between Ferrari, McLaren-Mercedes and Williams-BMW is close.
"Our performance in the first two races was not us being so strong," he said. "It's more that the others had not achieved the maximum. They had a step forward in Brazil, and we will see races where we look better and other races where we look not so good. Because the competition is so tight, it is all up to how much you maximize your car's performance."
Although he won in Brazil, Coulthard said that the San Marino Grand Prix is a completely new challenge.
"The only thing you can carry from another race is confidence," he said. "If you have had a good race then obviously you feel up. But there is nothing else you can carry in terms of momentum. It's a different track and a different challenge, and therefore the performance of all the cars relative to each other will vary slightly.
"It was clear in Brazil that the Williams are very strong and that the pace is still being set by Ferrari," Coulthard added. "We are still coming from behind. We have made some improvements (in recent testing), but just how competitive we will be here we will have to wait and see."
Between them, Ferrari and McLaren-Mercedes have won all of the last 22 Grand Prix races. The last time one of these two teams did not win was the European Grand Prix in September 1999 when Johnny Herbert took the victory in his Stewart-Ford.
After Ralf Schumacher qualified on the front row for the Brazilian Grand Prix and his Williams-BMW teammate Juan-Pablo Montoya led for the first half of the race, Williams-BMW proved that it is the closest team to breaking the domination of McLaren-Mercedes and Ferrari.
Asked of a win is possible, Montoya said, "If the car is capable, and we do a good job on a weekend, why not? But at the moment I have not even made my first pit stop yet. There is a lot more to come and a lot more to learn. I still make loads of mistakes, and there are still places to improve. One of the biggest things, for example, is the braking. You can say that it is quite good, but with these cars if you make a little mistake it costs you a lot of time and it's quite tough really."
Brakes play an important role in this particular race because with its long, high-speed sections of track interspersed with tight chicanes, the 3.065-mile (4.933-km) track places high demands on both horsepower and braking.
"It's a power circuit," said Willy Rampf, technical director of the Red Bull Sauber-Petronas team. "It is also very heavy on braking because of all the slow chicanes and it requires good braking stability for the down hill section braking into the Rivazza turn. High braking performance in these days means pulling more than 4G on deceleration for our drivers Nick Heidfeld and Kimi Raikkonen. In Imola, you can win or loose the race on the brakes."
Text provided by Paul Kelly
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