FORMULA ONE: Ferrari Hopes to Reverse Recent Title-Fight Trend at Silverstone
9 July 1999
INDIANAPOLIS-- This weekend's British Grand Prix, the eighth of 16 races in this year Formula One World Championship, marks the midpoint of the season. It's a season that's seen a duel for the crown develop between West McLaren-Mercedes driver Mika Hakkinen and Ferrari's Michael Schumacher.Hakkinen, with three wins, leads with 40 points, while Schumacher, with two wins, has 32. But in the last three races, Hakkinen has racked up two victories and a second place while Schumacher has only managed a third and a fifth-place finish. Ferrari, however, still heads the Constructors Championship with 58 points to McLaren's 52.
"At the beginning of the season we managed to win races even though the car wasn't quite right," Ferrari's technical director Ross Brawn said. "Now I believe that the car is quite good, but we are managing to lose races. That is a trend we have to reverse."
Schumacher, who won at Silverstone last year, is hoping for a repeat victory.
"I love the challenge of high-speed corners like Copse, Becketts and Stowe," Schumacher said. "We had quite a satisfying test in Silverstone last week, so I hope we can do well again. The atmosphere in the race weekend is unique. The fans are just great. It's a pity that the weather is often cool and wet."
The weather forecast for the weekend, however, is hot and dry, and that's good news for the huge crowd. The organizers limit Sunday's attendance to 90,000 fans, and all tickets were sold out a month ago.
Located north of London, near Oxford, the Silverstone circuit played host to the first British Grand Prix in 1950. Two-time CART champion Alex Zanardi calls the circuit "the temple of British motor racing." The track takes its name from the nearby village of Silverstone, which is named after the early English word for "wooded" area.
Built in 1948 on the site of a World War II British bomber base, the Silverstone circuit has undergone several major changes in recent years not only for safety reasons but to improve spectator viewing.
This is the home race for seven of the 11 F1 teams. Jordan has its factory just outside the main gates of the track. Williams, British American Racing, Stewart, Benetton and Arrows all have their bases nearby, and McLaren is located south of London.
It's also the home race for four drivers from Great Britain -- Damon Hill, Johnny Herbert, Scotland's David Coulthard and Northern Ireland's Eddie Irvine. The latter is third in the championship.
"I'm happy to be coming to Silverstone as the leading British driver in this year's championship," Irvine said, "and I would be even happier to leave the circuit as a winner. I have a lot of support from the fans, and it's nice to meet many friends from my early days in racing."
While his McLaren-Mercedes teammate Hakkinen leads the championship, Coulthard has had a string of mechanical failures -- including an electronic glitch that knocked him out of the lead in France -- and has only finished in the points twice this season.
"Although I haven't won a race this year and I haven't won a world championship yet, my motivation is as high as ever," Coulthard said. "To win my home Grand Prix would be fantastic."
Hill has been in the news often in the past two weeks. Will this be the last Grand Prix for the son of the 1966 Indy 500 winner Graham Hill? Damon Hill announced two weeks ago that he would retire at the end of the season ... or sooner if he was unhappy with his performance or that of the car. Now Hill has said he will race in the British Grand Prix and make a "clarification" regarding his future after the race.
Hill's teammate at B&H Jordan Mugen-Honda, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, who won the recent French Grand Prix, is still suffering from several tiny fractures in his right knee -- a legacy of his accident in the Canadian Grand Prix a month ago.
"I am very optimistic about the race," Frentzen said when asked if he could score back-to-back victories. "Technically we are doing a great job, and I think we can still be up there again at Silverstone."
1995 Indy 500 winner Jacques Villeneuve, former teammate of Hill at Williams, won the British Grand Prix in 1996 and 1997. This year he's just hoping to finish the race. Villeneuve joined the new British American Racing-Supertec team this year but failed to make it to the checkered flag in the first seven races.
"I knew it was going to be difficult to start a new team," Villeneuve said, "but I did think that we would have achieved some better results by now. It's easy for people to forget that we are a first-year team and that we are quicker than first-year teams have ever been.
"If you look at it that way, the situation doesn't seem so bad for a newcomer team, but we are way below our own expectations, and that's why its frustrating. The thing is, we came in as a big team so we are not seen or judged as a new team. I have a strong feeling that everybody in the team is working together, so I'm confident."
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