Jaguar's troubles

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

Rahal was, and still is, good at what he does. He has the American guts to do something that others would think twice of... Such as go after Newey and offer Irvine to Jordan.

[nichosnz 0]

They were actually both good calls made by Rahal. Contrary to some Lauda's belief Irvine is not the teams greatest asset, nor was he ever.

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

Irvine is nothing but another person on the payroll for Jaguar. He hasn't achieved much except for the posium at Monaco last year.

[nichosnz 0]

And that is the way it is going to stay too. He is an ex nearly-DWC and thats all. And he is only even that much because someone else broke a leg.

[daz 0]

Very true. I always liked Eddie cause his outrageous comments were normally always good for a laugh. But I have to admit that for the "2nd best driver in F1" he hasn't really accomplished much. As nichosnz said - 2nd in the championship was only because of Schumies broken leg and Ferrari pouring all there resources behind him. Other than that whats he acheived???

I agree with Rahal's thinking that Jaguar would be way better off getting themselves a cheaper more motivated driver and ploughing all those saved $$$$'s into developing the car...

[nichosnz 0]

His knowledge and experiance of a top team may have been of some benefit in the early stages of year one, but F1 moves so fast that is long irrelevant now.

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

Well to be honest, Irvine could have been champ in '99. In the early season he had given Schumi points so MS could win the championship. Had he not given those few points to Michael, he would've won the championship. It was only a 2 point difference between EI and Mika.

[nichosnz 0]

Yes but in his 3 years at Ferrari that was only one time out of two he was in a position to give points in a team order situation. Conversly he received points through team orders on three occasions. If he had 1 more point, eg 6th at Nurburgring instead of 7th, MS would have made it four occasions by giving way in the final race for Irv to finish 2nd.

So if you want to argue he lost the DWC through team orders you must remember he was only still in with a chance at the last race because of team orders also.

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

Well Michael could have made way at Suzuka but that would only have meant a tie in the standings. Mika would have won the tiebreaker. Thing is, Irvine lost to the Minardi of Marc Gene in Nurburgring, which took that one point from him that he would have needed to win. Minardi have made some big impacts on F1...

[nichosnz 0]

They certainly have, and I hope than trend long continues.

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

Webber's two points from Australia also mean that Minardi may finish the championship in a spot other than last. HHF scored two sixth places for Arrows, which ranks behind one fifth.

[nichosnz 0]

Toyota is ranked between the two with two sixths but scored earlier than Arrows. So Minardi is 9th out of 11 teams.

Also I have noticed that since the current car numbering system started (1996) Minardi have only had the lowest numbers once. In 1998, every other year they either haven't come last, or a new team has come along to take the lowest numbers.

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

That is true, i was thinking that way myself... I think from now on the numbers stay the same, just that the championship winners get numbers 1 and 2. So Ferrari will be keeping their 1 and 2 and no changes will happen for next year.

[nichosnz 0]

That is the way it was from 1974 to 1995. Before this time cars and drivers could (and usually did) have a different number from one race to the next.

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

Too confusing for me if they had different numbers all the time...

[nichosnz 0]

I think that is why it was changed. As well as sponsors were getting more dominant on the cars, and it is harder to design a livery around an ever changing number.

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

I think TV influenced it too. Commercials with the cars appearing on them would be odd if it had one number but they raced with another.

[nichosnz 0]

Yeah probably.

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

That was the reason the FIA gave a year ago when the plan was to revert to the old system. But then Sauber wanted it to not change so they could get their well deserved number 7 and 8.

[nichosnz 0]

For two races in 1958 some cars even had different numbers from practice to the race, Spa (Belgium) and Ain-Diab (Morocco). Also in Spa 1966 Bob Bondurant changed his number for the race due to MGM's requirements.

[rodders47 2]

Jaguar's greatest prospects for the future is the retirement of the Leprechaun EDDIE

[nichosnz 0]

No doubt about that.

[rodders47 2]

I do not aggree that Niki Lauda is useless !!!

He has BUILT and run a successful airline.. that takes some beating in world politics.. I believe it is in the infrastructure and the drivers.. Like Eddie is, has not, and never will be a great driver to world championship status, he is, well in my opinion, a sort of watered down Nigel... all the same whining etc but a lack of the talent ..

[nichosnz 0]

But every kind of business is different, a good airline 'builder' does not necessarily maka a good GP team boss. Give us some examples of good things Lauda has done as boss of Jag, I can't think of any.

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

A good GP driver does not make a good team boss *alain prost*