Formula One Features — January 2002

Formula 1 teams were tugging at their commercial seat belts yesterday as the turbulent after-shocks of the Prost $35m bankruptcy rippled out through the sport. Desperately, they were trying to read the tea leaves to understand the long-term implications for the sport.

Willy Rampf does not go around making a lot of noise. Unlike some technical directors he can walk into the paddock without having to have an oompah band walking ahead of him. He believes that results speak for themselves.

No Frenchman needs to be reminded that his country was the original home of motor racing. The first motor race was held there in 1894. The first Automobile Club was founded in Paris the following year and all the early races were between Paris and other European cities. The French racing industry was way ahead of the rest of Europe in the early years of the Twentieth Century with firms such as De Dion Bouton, Panhard, Mors, Renault, Peugeot, Darracq, De Dietrich and Richard-Brasier. Delage, Ballot, Bugatti, Salmson and Delahaye took up the challenge after World War I and it was not until the 1930s that the French had been eclipsed by the Italians and the Germans.

Listening to various members of the Ferrari F1 team, Michael Schumacher included, it is quite clear that the Italian squad is extremely confident it can hit the ground running at Melbourne on March 3 and get its title hat trick bid off to a spectacular flying start.

Nowadays Formula 1 consists 11 teams (22 cars). Next year if everyone turns up there will be 12 teams. All of them qualify if they can lap the track with 107% of the time set by the pole position man. But it was not always that.