Formula One Features — April 2002

Doesn't time fly when you're having fun? Give or take a few percentage points, Imola marked the one-quarter distance point in the battle for the 2002 FIA Formula One World Championship and already there must be some team principals who must be approaching the point of despair. Their only consolation can be to take refuge in the obvious point that nothing lasts for ever and Ferrari's run of domination is probably not going to endure for more than another five years. So they seek succor from that. Just my little joke, you understand.

Jean Todt is the son of a Polish Jew, who escaped to France at the age of 17. He became a doctor and like many refugees did everything to ensure that his children had all the advantages possible. Jean was born in 1946 and was educated in Paris. He then went on to a commercial school in the chic Parisian suburb of Neuilly where he encountered a fellow pupil who was doing well in kart racing.

The boss of the TAG McLaren Group, the parent company of the West McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 team is Ron Dennis. Now 54, Ron was born and brought up in Woking, leaving school at 16 and becoming an apprentice mechanic at the famous Thomson and Taylor company at Byfleet.

Call me a cynic but isn't Formula 1 meant to be a sport? The last time I checked, it was the ultimate unison of man and machine, the awe-inspiring spectacle of heroes risking life and limb to prove beyond all doubt that they were the best within their chosen field.