Melbourne 1998>... a fix?

[mansellmania]

Every newyear i dig into a considerable mountain of f1magazines to read what the big stories where a few years ago.
While reading the season revieuw from autosport 98 written by nigel roebuck it does leave a bad taste in my mouth both on what mclaren did with DC in the first race of the championship and the way it was reported by the various journalists including roebuck.

Many will remember austria 2002 but for me, not just as a ferrari fan and supporter of f1 as a whole, thought that melbourne 98 left a big dent in the reputation of F1 as a sport.
"at jerez the previous year, dc was forcibly instructed to move over for hakkinen, enabling the fin to take his first win' writes david tremayne leading into an intervieuw with dc.

'after melbourne, peole actually sent him their betting slips, expressing their anger that he had gifted the win to hakkinen.DC:"but people who have never been in the situation in wich i found myself this year naturally find it difficult to understand why any racing driver would give a win away.After all,theyl say, a real racer would never do that.The reality is the championship represents everything we are racing for as a team.Going against such requests would be a quick way out of it.
I've had the chance to drive for the best team, but in any case you need an engine and you need a car.i'd look pretty silly sitting on the grid with just my pyjamas and no car to race! if you like, I was investing in the future..""

Investing in the future he says.To me it smells more that ron dennis threatened him with the sack if he didnt move over.
Not a word from him about a so called pre-raceagreement that was said just after the race.
Personally i never understood why Dc had to make way for mika at jerez either.'forcibly'...

It wasnt just the mclaren/dc/mika farce that upset me and most others, a lot of the melbourne audience was booing all the way just like austria2002.
The press was quick to shoot down ferrari for what they did race 6 in a championship while shumi was 20+ points ahead of rubens.
This is a piece of what roebuck wrote in that 98 season revieuw about melbourne:

"...teamboss ron dennis' perfect day was marred only by a screw up after half distance.Hakkinen misheard his radio, and dived into the pits for what he thought was his second stop-only to find his crew waving him on through.Clearly, dennis felt some responsibility for what had befallen Hakkinen.He got on the blower to coulthard, suggesting he stick by an agreement made before the race; that wichever of the two led through the first corner would win.The scot thought it through, and accepted.What he wasnt prepared to do was give the impression he couldnt hold his teammate at bay.Very obvious, in front of the pits, he let him by.
Afterwards, it was as if the storms of hell had been unleashed upon mclaren mercedes.
Cries of'FIX' were heard-all of them from people with litle or no knowledge of GP racing.
It may not have pleased race promoter ron walker and others that the team chose to not risk cars in an unnecessary batle, but they were missing the point.

Dennis and his operation were under no obligation to entertain.

Their object in melbourne,as at any gp,was to win, and to do it as consumately as possible.Mercedes benz was doing the same 60 years ago and more."

I think nigel roebuck invented the part of the scot not prepared to give impression he couldnt hold hakkinen.. ive never heard dc state such a thing.
Nor have i seen anything remotely looking as a batle in that particular race,nevermind 'unnecesary'
But him stating that people with no knowledge all screamed 'Fix' was a bit denegrating imo.
"no obligation to race' is another weird point.

Roebuck loves to accuse shumi and ferrari of having no passion for the sport but here he defends mclaren and says literarly wins should come as 'consumately' as posible.
This being the first race of the season that sounded a bit strange.
All the european F1 fans got out of bed for nothing.
Curious to know what the verdict on this forum is.

[Damon]

Before I start, for the record, I'm fully aware that this is another mansellmania post to insight an argument, but I'm going to put my two pennies worth in and leave it at that...

DC's a gent (and for that reason he'll never ever be WDC) and he and Hakk, totally away from team intervention, and knowing that they had the best car, decided that whomever got to T1 first would be allowed the win. I disagree with what they did that day and always feel that the race should be won by the guy that's leading when the chequered flag is waved, however what they did was not even in the same league as the farce that Ferrari instigated at Austria.

In Aus '98 Hakkinen well and trully had DC's number, he was the better driver across the whole weekend and deserved the win despite the mistake. At Austria, the opposite was true. Barrichello drove the race of his life and beat Schumacher outright across the whole weekend on merit. That type of thing doesn't happen very often for any of Schumachers team mates and to take it away from him was just plain wrong.

[Mr V]

I can understand why DC did it, there was a miscommunication between the team and Hakkinen after all. Had that mis-communication not happened Hakkinen would have won and DC would have come second..... end of story.

Imo, it's totally from Austria 2002, but thats for another thread.

Would DC do it again, not matter what the reasons or misunderstandings? I doubt it.

[ralf fan]

as suggested above, Hakk was the better driver on the day and wouldve probably won....
in Austria Rubens was the man... theres the difference.

[BootsOntheSide]

The two races were completely different. Rubens was the rightful winner in Austria, although not for most of 2002. Mika was the rigthful winner in Australia, and the superior McLaren driver for most of the season. Mika was behind DC because the team messed up, Michael was behind Rubens because he wasn't fast enough.

McLaren are only really obliged to race as well as they can. They did that by dominating every practice and qualifying session, and tearing away from the field at an embarassing rate.

Remember that McLaren weren't sure of their reliability, so they wanted to protect the cars. Mika and DC felt the best way to do this was to not go to any unneccessary risk - just as any professional would do.

People who bet on DC shouldn't've been stupid enough to think he was ahlf as talented as Mika in the first place.

[Knowlesy]

When I saw the thread title on the homepage, I wondered who had started it....

Have to agree with everyone else here. I think the DC moving over thing was justified at Melbourne 1998 - the McLaren team made a terrible error with the pit-call and wanted to amend things, so DC moved over and restored that races rightful order.

Austria 2002 was cynical. Combined with various events in that season (Indy, Hungaroring and, to some extent, Nurburgring) it just stunk bad. Rubens was the rightful winner that day, and the days before that, and he knew it - slowing right on the line to show his dissatisfaction and make the whole thing look as bad as possible, and I bet he revelled in the stick Schuey and the team got afterwards (albeit privately!!!).

No, the events don't even really compare do they?

[Knowlesy]

Although having said that, the jerez incident was a little less acceptable.

For me, that was the moment DC confidence in his team was rocked, and he hasn't seemed the same since. Psychologically, he must have felt that despite turning in a good 1997 season, he was being mucked about with. If DC had won at Jerez that year, Mika wouldn't have got that confidence release he so desperately needed and the start of 1998 could have been quite different.

[BootsOntheSide]

Forgot to add that Jerez 1997 wasn't clear-cut either. Jacques was driving cautiously as he knew he only had to finsih 3rd to be champion, and he wasn't sure if his car was 100% after Schumacher attemtped to ram him off the road (hilariously failing of course).

DC had several laps running behind Jacques, but made little imrpession, so teh team asked DC to move over and give Mika a chance to challenge.

Mika had lost 1 surefire win (Nurburgring and two likely ones (Silverstone and Austria) through no fault of his own, and was long overdue some glory. It may be that the agreement was for Mika to move back voer once DC passed JV, but that didn't happen until the final corner (Jacques appeared to let him through, by the way) so there was no time.

[Sato san]

I agree with Knowlesy !

[Knowlesy]

How do Jay!

[Dani Filth]

this rightful winner .. i think it s#cks .. who was the rightful winner of the 1976 WDC ???? .. so either both are acceptable or both are FIXes ...

[Knowlesy]

James Hunt, because he didn't crash at the Nurburgring. That's the somewhat harsh reality of it, despite Laudas superiority.

[Dani Filth]

reality was that hakkinen was behind DC cause HAKKINEN misheard a radio .. it wasn't DC's fault

[Knowlesy]

Well, you're entitled to your opinion.....

[Dani Filth]

and btw . it;s their own business and the team decides their tactics even if i don;t agree .. i was just making a point that people shouldn't not judge the two things (austria and Melbourne) different ...

[Knowlesy]

But they are very different!

[Dani Filth]

every one is entitled to their opinion

[Knowlesy]

*silence*

[avsfan733]

Originally posted by mansellmania
Dennis and his operation were under no obligation to entertain.

This is the exact reason I have no problem with either, I just have a problem with people who criticize Ferrari while events like this that shine poorly on other teams are neatly and nearly continuously forgotten

[Yoong Montoya]

Originally posted by avsfan733
This is the exact reason I have no problem with either, I just have a problem with people who criticize Ferrari while events like this that shine poorly on other teams are neatly and nearly continuously forgotten

Hint - McLaren are British

[Damon]

Nationality has absolutely nothing to do with it.

[jetsetter]

Being one of the spectators at Melbourne that day i didn't see anything wrong with what they did as Hakkinnen had dominated the race & deserved to win anyway, as for the crowd booing, there was a few upset fans but most of the crowd accepted that what happened as being part of the sport.

[Sato san]

Anyway...they were both sandbagging as the Mclaren had miles more pace than they wanted to show .....But that all went out the window when Hakkinen decided to push hard to catch DC....

and how anyone could say that Austria and Melbourne were simular must be blind....I still feel like a cheated fan when i think of the farce that was the Austria race .....i bet Rubens does too..

[Yoong Montoya]

Originally posted by Sato san
and how anyone could say that Austria and Melbourne were simular must be blind....I still feel like a cheated fan when i think of the farce that was the Austria race .....i bet Rubens does too..

Anyone that didn't think Rubens would move over in Austria is naive. Unfortunately I was the only one out of 6 billion that knew he would.....

Hakkinen didn't deserve the win at Melbourne 1998 after going into the pits like that. I'm sorry, but I think that race should have been won by DC, not Mika. DC just bowed over for Mika and McLaren. It could also explain why he was playing with MS at Spa the same year in the rain when he was about to be lapped...

[Phoenix1]

DC and MH had a gentlemans agreement - everyone seems to side with Villenuve when Pironi over took him and one because GV died a week after. Pironi was unsportman like as Ferrari, GV and Pironi had agreed not to fight if in a one-two formation so would it also not be unprofessional to go back on a gentlemans agreement in the case of DC? They where in the same team and as far as the team is concerned they had 16 points when DC lead and 16 when MH lead so their intreast was zero basically. I'd like to know therefor those of you who condone DC also feel GV was unjustified in his compliant and angry which some see as leading to his death.