Formula One Features — April 2001

They say that those who do not know history are condemned to make the same mistakes as those who went before them and one wonders if there is anyone in Dearborn, Michigan, the world headquarters of the Ford Motor Company, who remembers the story of Fordlandia.

A win, two second places and a third - all things considered it's not been a bad start for David Coulthard in 2001. Joint leadership of the World Championship after the fourth of the 17 rounds, and 22 points more than his team-mate Mika Hakkinen, left him feeling a warm glow after Imola as he faced his best-ever chance of succeeding Jackie Stewart as Scotland's first World Champion since 1973. But does DC really have what it takes to put it all together over a long, long season?

Motor racing has, from its very inception, been intended to sell cars. You and I are supposed to thrill to the sights and sounds of our chosen sport, then toddle off down to the local dealership to order a little bit of that sporting pedigree to put on the drive. Presumably therefore BMW's sales have rocketed since San Marino and a batch of Ralf Schumacher stickers and gear knobs are being prepared to shift the some base model 3-series as this year's dark horse makes his title bid. The car market has preoccupied me of late, as the swanky motors of my salad days are put up for sale as parenthood rolls over the horizon and sensible shoes are required.

When Ralf Schumacher accelerated across the line to win the San Marino Grand Prix, the Williams F1 team sent out a firm message which should offer a degree of hope to at least a handful of rival Grand Prix outfits which have yet to win their first race.

He's led his first GP, made his first passing move on Michael Schumacher, and shown that he is fulfilling all of the expectation heaped upon him when he joined BMW Williams. Small wonder that everybody is still talking about Juan Pablo Montoya long after his ill fortune in the Brazilian GP has been consigned to history.

The scene is Silverstone, just four days after David Coulthard won the Brazilian Grand Prix. Rain is teeming down to the point where the Scot has abandoned traction control testing on the near-flooded track. Instead, he is sitting clutching a cup of coffee, pondering on his success at Interlagos which stopped Michael Schumacher's winning streak which extended back to last year's Italian Grand Prix. Coulthard looks back on Interlagos on a particularly satisfying win, reflecting on the fact that he ran from the start on compromise chassis settings which only paid off when the rain started to fall. "Compromise chassis settings meant that the car was not quite a sharp, a little softer, than usual," he said. "But I managed to keep in touch and it all paid off. But the speed of Montoya's Williams-BMW was certainly impressive. They will be a factor for the rest of the season, no question about it." David has always been a realist. Six years into his career with the McLaren-Mercedes team, the Scot understands be

A front-end aero problem is hurting the turn-in of McLaren's new MP4/16 and preventing it from offering the expected challenge to Ferrari's all-conquering F1-2001. But how soon can the former champion team incorporate the changes to make the car fully competitive?