Here is my blow-by-blow rundown of Jos Verstappen’s F1 season in 2001. He was entered by the Orange Arrows Asiatech team, in car number 14. The chassis was an Arrows A22, and the engine an Asiatech 001 V10.
For the first time in his Formula One career, Jos stays on in the same race team for a second year. This season, the Arrows will be powered by the Peugeot engine that Prost had used in 2000, albeit further developed and renamed Asiatech. A late change involves the choice of Enrique Bernoldi as team-mate. Passed over by Sauber, the Brazilian is drafted in to replace Pedro de la Rosa. The main reason for this is related to the respective corporate backing of the two drivers, and de la Rosa is left with no race seat. Jos finds himself the number one driver, and will be aided in development terms by the recruitment of Johnny Herbert as test driver. Pre-season testing form looks reasonably promising, although this has never been a wholly reliable guide. The major sponsorship package is largely unchanged, although the final livery is only unveiled at the first event in Melbourne.
Australia
A very good start to the year comes with sixth best time in the first Friday
practice session, almost four seconds ahead of Bernoldi. However, Jos is
demoted to fourteenth by the end of the day, and Saturday goes less well. With
restricted running due to gearbox electrics problems, Jos is only twentieth in
practice. His best lap in qualifying (which includes one red flag incident) is
disrupted by traffic, so he will line up fifteenth which is five places behind
his original aim. In qualifying, the best straightline speed falls to Jos, with
a reading of 311.7 km/h. For the race warm-up, Jos records an excellent time
for third position. At the race start, Jos makes a typically good getaway. He
darts to the centre between Kimi Räikkönen and Jean Alesi, but the
Frenchman cuts left in front of Jos, so he goes towards the inside and a gap
between Alesi and Jenson Button. Here, he finds himself squeezed out, so that
Giancarlo Fisichella gets alongside on the inside of turn one. Jos wins this
fight for fifteenth place, and at turn three he goes inbetween Button and Alesi
for thirteenth place. On the exit, he gains two more places because of Eddie
Irvine and Juan Montoya coming together and getting delayed. Jos immediately
pulls away from Button, and he completes the first lap in eleventh position.
When Heinz-Harald Frentzen gets spun by Rubens Barrichello, not long
afterwards, the German is passed by the whole field, and so Jos moves up to
tenth. In fact, both Olivier Panis and Jos also get past Nick Heidfeld on this
lap, apparently under a yellow flag. This is for the race ending crash of
Bernoldi, rather than the Frentzen incident, but it will have consequences
later. Not long after this, a spectacular collision occurs between Jacques
Villeneuve and Ralf Schumacher. Jos is in the second car following when it
happens, and finds himself suddenly seventh. Sadly, some of the excessive
debris from this incident causes fatal injuries to a track marshal, and the
safety car is sent out for quite a number of laps. Towards the very end of this
period, Jos is brought in for the first of his two stops. Although he drops to
seventeenth and last place, he re-catches the tail of the pack within a couple
of corners. As the race pans out from this point, following the restart, it
transpires that virtually everyone is on a single-stop plan, or has saved
enough fuel during the caution period to switch to one. The safety car has
probably negated any advantage of running the car light early on, so Jos is set
for a straight fight within the rear half of the field. A stop-go penalty for
Jenson Button, for switching cars on the grid, allows Jos one place gain, and
he also passes Fernando Alonso in the Minardi. When the two Italian drivers,
Giancarlo Fisichella and Jarno Trulli, drop back with technical problems, this
elevates Jos further, and both Mika Häkkinen and Juan Pablo Montoya retire
from the race. Strategy has allowed Jos past Eddie Irvine and towards the end
he passes Alesi on the track to earn himself ninth position. A protest from
Sauber, however, means Jos, along with Panis, earns a time penalty that
relegates him back to tenth. In the case of Panis, this costs him a drop from a
strong fourth to seventh. For Jos this is a partially encouraging performance,
particularly recording a finish, but progressive development will be
needed.
Malaysia
For the second time in three Grands Prix, the Sepang track is the host circuit.
For Arrows, the practice sessions are heavily disrupted by technical
difficulties, and in qualifying this is represented by eighteenth for Jos, with
Bernoldi just one place behind. However, the Brazilian’s car is found to
infringe the front wing regulations, so he will start the race from last
position. In the warm-up, which begins in wet conditions, Jos drives strongly
to the fifth best lap time. On the grid, Jos’ mechanics continue to work
on the car very late, and this is later investigated by the stewards, although
no penalty is apparently applied. On the parade lap, Frentzen limps round at
the rear with a misfiring engine. However, he is let off as Fisichella gets his
car stuck in the centre of the road, having missed the turn-in point for his
grid slot. This leads to an aborted start, with Frentzen resuming his position
but Fisichella relegated to the back. For the second parade lap, Montoya stalls
and has to switch to the spare car in the pitlane. For the start, then, Jos has
two less cars ahead of him, and this becomes three when Räikkönen
fails to get going. Jos makes a fast getaway and immediately pulls past a
couple of cars on the central line. Once clear, he cuts right and ducks to the
inside of Irvine, tight to the kerb on the apex of turn one. The two cars
touch, and Irvine is spun around. Ahead of this, Barrichello has also spun Ralf
Schumacher in a similar incident, and the following cars have to take avoiding
routes - roughly half and half going to each side. Jos stays on his tight line
and can then cut right over onto the turn two apex. Just ahead, Villeneuve,
Frentzen, Häkkinen and Panis all manage to block each other into going a
bit wide, and Jos swings in to the inside of this group. Frentzen manages to
keep ahead into the next bend, and in turn three Jos runs alongside Villeneuve
on the outer line. In the braking zone that follows, Jos brakes ahead of the
BAR, and he is now following only Schumacher and Barrichello, in the Ferraris,
Trulli, Coulthard and Frentzen. From eighteenth on the grid, he is already
sixth. Although this is an excellent position, it seems likely that Jos will be
on a two-stop strategy and other contenders may not be. Before there is time
for this to become apparent, though, quite a lot of chaos breaks out. Rain has
begun to fall, and at about this time the two leading Ferraris hit the oil left
by Panis’ expiring BAR. They both go off, putting Trulli into the lead
and, although Barrichello rejoins third, Michael Schumacher loses several more
places and Jos is up to fifth. As the rain quickly gets significantly worse,
Jos passes Frentzen for fourth and all the drivers will have to opt for
tyre-change pitstops. At this point, Trulli manages to spin off, and David
Coulthard follows him into a spin, although with less of a time loss. The
safety car is sent out now, as four drivers have all spun out in the tricky
conditions. Following a run of stops, the leaders circulate in the order
Coulthard, Frentzen, Verstappen, Häkkinen and Trulli. The safety car
remains on track for several laps, enough to clear away some of the water, and
for about six laps worth of fuel to be saved by the drivers. This will help the
two-stoppers in particular. The Ferraris have been delayed for over a minute in
the pits, but their choice of intermediate tyres will prove significant, as
everyone else has gone for full wets even though the track is still dry in some
sections. At the restart, Jos soon pressures Frentzen, and is able to get ahead
on the inside of the final hairpin. Before long, Häkkinen has also passed
the German, but is faced with a bit of a gap to Verstappen. At this stage, Ralf
Schumacher and the two Ferraris have moved right into contention again, and
Frentzen soon falls prey to these three as well. Jos manages to get to within
about a second-and-a-half of Coulthard, but by now it is Michael Schumacher who
is up behind him in third. With the conditions getting drier again, the
Ferraris are well placed to take on the wet-tyred runners, and Michael is soon
pushing to pass Jos. Although he takes several corners to manage this, he
finally makes it through at turn nine and begins to pull away. Soon, he is into
the lead and pulling clear of Coulthard, whilst Barrichello is the next to take
on Jos. The Brazilian finds a path around the Arrows at turn five, and goes on
to follow his team-mate past Coulthard. Jos is now fourth, but continues to
stay close to the Scotsman for a fair number of laps, while the track remains
wet in places. Although the rain is seen again on brief occasions, the early
shower is the only significant outbreak. After several people have already made
their swap back to the slick tyres, Michael Schumacher not included, Jos makes
a 7.6s stop that keeps him in fourth place. He begins to come under attack from
Häkkinen, but is able to hold him back, thanks in part to what seems like
better straightline speed from the Arrows. At one point, Jos has a major wobble
on the brakes at the final hairpin, but still manages to keep it together and
fend off the Finn’s attack. Right after this, Jos gets a good run through
some traffic, as Gastón Mazzacane manages to hold Häkkinen up and
give the Dutchman another breathing space. This lets Ralf Schumacher get right
up to the McLaren, and before long he has taken the position. Ralf then pushes
Jos, who is able to hold him off for a while, and is soon heading a four-car
train, with Häkkinen and Frentzen right behind them. Ralf is able to take
fourth place from Jos with a forceful late-braking move at the final hairpin,
and he then pulls away, but still the McLaren and Jordan remain stuck behind
the Arrows. When Häkkinen is able to get through on Jos at turn fourteen,
the Dutchman fights back and squeezes back ahead with another late-braking pass
at the final hairpin, turn fifteen. This forces Häkkinen out wide and lets
Frentzen get inside to have a run at Jos on the exit. Jos is still able to
maintain position, but with the pair behind now reversed. When Ralf makes his
second stop, Jos finds himself fourth again. Häkkinen makes his own stop
next, leaving Jos with just Frentzen behind and less than fifteen laps
remaining. Jos is in turn due to make his second stop at this point, and by the
time he comes out, after seven seconds stationary, both Ralf and Mika have done
enough to stay ahead. Jos is seventh now and, with the Ferraris long gone, it
turns out that both Coulthard and Frentzen are planning to run through without
another stop. This means that Jos has just dropped out of the points, and the
pace of the Williams and McLaren in the dry means he is now not in contention.
Although some of the leaders, particularly Frentzen, drop off the pace in the
final stages, the order is unchanged from now on. Jos finishes seventh and
unlapped, but it is poor reward after defending a well-earned prominent
position for most of the race. Commentator Murray Walker talks of “an
absolute blinder of a race,” whilst at least one member of the ITV team
names Jos the driver of the race. Two finishes in a row is a good sign for
Arrows.
Brazil
The chances of Jos matching his last peformance in a dry Brazilian race seem
slim, and in qualifying he finds himself seventeenth, despite one of the
highest straightline speed readings (313.8 km/h). He is one place behind
Bernoldi, who has beaten him by 0.047 seconds. On the parade lap, Irvine is
attended by mechanics beyond the statutory time limit, which means an automatic
penalty. At the start of the race, Häkkinen stalls and remains on the
grid. Meanwhile, Jos has got away well enough to immediately pull past
Bernoldi. He then has to cut onto the central line, to avoid the McLaren,
before moving back right. There is no room that way, as Luciano Burti has moved
the same way, so Jos cuts inside the Jaguar and gets alongside for turn one. By
the back straight, after the Senna S, Jos is ahead of Burti, and he proceeds to
try and attack Panis. At the end of lap one, Jos is fourteenth, but with no
chance to try another passing move at turn one. This is because the safety car
has come out, whilst Häkkinen’s McLaren is removed from the grid.
After one lap, the restart brings two place gains for Jos, when Barrichello
crashes into the back of Ralf Schumacher at the Subida do Lago (or Descida do
Lago) corner. Although the Williams continues, it has a slow trip to the pits
for a long stop and a new rear wing. Jos is twelfth. That is improved by one
when Irvine serves his stop-go penalty. Panis is able to pull out a gap to Jos
as he improves his own standing. Ralf Schumacher is seen passing Jos next,
although he is several laps down at this stage, so it is not for position. When
Villeneuve pits with a puncture, Jos reaches tenth position. As the race
develops, Jos is pushed by Burti in the Jaguar, and Fisichella’s Benetton.
Although they appear faster in places, Jos is able to keep them behind. This
enables him to inherit ninth when Alesi makes a stop, and before long there are
signs that rain is on the way. When Burti also makes a stop, Fisichella remains
tight on the tail of Verstappen. Juan Montoya, leading the race, laps the
Benetton, and it looks like Jos will get a brief respite from the pressure.
However, he immediately moves aside for the Williams, who goes ahead into the
corner where the earlier collision had occurred. Unfortunately for all
concerned, when Jos moves back into line behind Montoya, he manages to ram his
Arrows up onto the rear of the Williams and put both cars out of the race. For
Montoya, leading for the first time, and in only his third GP, this is
particularly bad news. It looks as if perhaps Jos was sucked in by the
slipstream, and evidence is later provided to show that the Arrows braked
earlier than normal, and from a lower speed. In fact, this is the third
incident of the season involving a Williams hit up the rear, making an
interesting talking point. Montoya doesn’t appear to be particularly
angry, and Jos expresses his regrets and apologies, although he is later fined
a hefty amount. Were Jos to have continued on, he would have soon encountered
the rainfall which meant most drivers went over to intermediate tyres.
Retirements for Räikkönen and Frentzen allowed Fisichella up to sixth
place at the finish, having come out ahead of Alesi in the strategic battle.
Jos could therefore have possibly scored a second successive seventh place,
allowing for Montoya finishing as well.
San Marino
Technical problems during practice mean that track time is seriously reduced
for Jos. This also affects the running in of a new front suspension system. In
qualifying, Jos falls from fifteenth to seventeenth at the last minute, when
his car fails and he has to switch to the spare. Two Brazilians leapfrog him as
a result, one being Bernoldi, who gets ahead by 0.19s and one place. Things
look up in warm-up, when Verstappen is eleventh fastest. At the start, Jos is
not away particularly well, partly as the car ahead, the Jaguar of Burti, is
slow to move. This lets Fisichella come from behind and go straight around the
outside of Jos. At the first turn, however, Jos is level with his team-mate on
the outside line, and they go through the Tamburello chicane side by side. They
are still together on the next straight, but Jos just nips ahead into the
Villeneuve chicane. This puts him seventeenth, a position he holds onto for the
end of the lap. In the second half of lap two, or perhaps at the start of lap
three, Jos finds a way past Burti and is clear ahead by Tamburello. He then
proceeds to go after Fisichella and, somewhere on lap four, he gets past the
Italian. These early stages have seen Jos start making up for his qualifying
problems, and he is now fifteenth, behind Irvine and Alesi. Sadly, that is
about as far as it goes for Jos. With only seven laps complete, problems with
the exhaust lead to terminal overheating. In the final analysis, Jos would not
have been on target for any points, realistically. However, speculation had
suggested he might be going for a three stop strategy, which could have been
interesting. Whether this was true or not, he would have probably stood a good
chance of beating Alesi home. With retirements, the Frenchman was up in ninth
position by the end, and for the Arrows that would have been the best position
available.
Spain
The race at Barcelona marks the return of controversial hi-tech electronics
sytems, including traction and launch control, and automatic gear changes. All
the teams have been developing systems of this sort, but there are still
questions about how effective and how reliable they will be. Arrows are one of
the teams that opt not to run with their systems at all times during the
weekend, and onboard pictures from Jos’ car in qualifying show that he is
using the standard manual gear-change flippers as he laps the circuit. Traction
control is not used by him during this session. It is a troubled qualifying for
the Dutchman, and troubles with the brakes lead to him spinning off at turn
four and damaging the plank under his car. This means he can do no better than
seventeenth, although this is only four hundredths behind Bernoldi, who also
knows the circuit very well. The usual hope is that Jos can make a good start,
although the advent of legal launch control is a worry, as it threatens to
diminish Jos’ usual first lap advantage. In the event, the start proves
difficult for some. Coulthard has to start at the back after stalling on the
parade lap start, and then Frentzen stalls at the actual start. Jos makes a
fairly good initial getaway and has some weaving around to do to find a good
line, because of cars avoiding the Jordan. He first moves briefly left, where
the way is blocked by Alesi, then cuts to the middle and slots between Alesi
(on the left) and Burti and Alonso (on the right), who are already ahead of
Bernoldi. Jos then pulls ahead and to the inside, which gives him the line to
challenge Alesi for twelfth at the first corner. He wins this battle and chases
after Panis as the early race develops. Very few place changes occur in the
first third of the race, and Jos is still in twelfth position when he pits on
lap nineteen. When the order shakes out again, following the pit stop period,
Alesi has leapfrogged Jos, who is now thirteenth. The second stops see
Alesi’s new team-mate, Luciano Burti, pull the same trick, and Jos falls
to fourteenth on lap forty. He stays on course, however, and the retirements of
Irvine and Barrichello allow him back up to twelfth place. As the race ends,
Jos is two laps behind the leaders, and this means he doesn’t benefit from
Häkkinen’s last lap clutch failure. In a race with sixteen cars
classified, twelfth is a reasonable finish, but considering he had reached that
position on lap one, it can hardly be described as a satisfying
performance.
Austria
After promising form for Arrows at the A1-Ring race in 2000, this year’s
meeting begins with troubled times for Jos. A suspension failure on Saturday
morning means a switch to Bernoldi’s car, and lost set-up time. When on
course to improve at the climax of qualifying, the number 14 Arrows spins off
at the end of its final lap, just beyond the Jochen Rindt Kurve. Whilst this
incident, due to an undiagnosed technical problem, causes Michael Schumacher to
go off track as well, it doesn’t cost him pole position. Jos, however,
remains in sixteenth as a result, when he had felt somewhere closer to twelfth
would be possible. For the fourth race in succession, Jos is just one place
behind Bernoldi, but the gap of 0.364s is the biggest advantage the Brazilian
has yet had. The race start is one of the most chaotic for a while, but not for
reasons of any major collisions or off track incident. As a result of software
problems in the new launch control devices, four drivers fail to move away from
the grid as the lights go out. The men left behind are Trulli, Heidfeld,
Häkkinen and Frentzen, and that effectively elevates Jos to twelfth
instantaneously. As if that isn’t enough, Jos puts in a familiarly strong
first lap himself. His start involves moving right, across to the pit wall, to
avoid the two stalled cars on that side. When he clears them, Jos cuts across
to the left behind Bernoldi’s car, which is placed eleventh at this stage.
In turn one, the Castrol Kurve, Jos goes around the outside of both his
team-mate and Pedro de la Rosa - driving his second race for Jaguar - and onto
the tail of the two BARs. On the run into turn two, the Remus Kurve, these cars
run three abreast, with Jos on the inside. He moves ahead of both for eighth at
the corner, forcing Villeneuve to yield on the turn in. A good run out of turn
three, the Gösser Kurve, allows Jos to drive around the outside of
Räikkönen in the next bend. He is now seventh. By the end of the
initial lap, he is right onto the tail of Irvine’s car, at which point the
safety car comes out due to Häkkinen’s McLaren remaining stranded on
the grid. The restart comes on lap four, and Jos is tight up behind the Jaguar.
He pulls ahead on the outside line in the run up to Remus, and takes sixth
position. He then closes up on Coulthard’s McLaren, and makes another move
stick at turn two, going round the outside of the Scot. To cap this, his fifth
circuit also sees Verstappen set the fastest lap of the race so far. He now
proceeds to close up to Barrichello in the lead group. All the indications are
that Jos has a light fuel load and will stop twice. Most other drivers are
expected to make only a single visit to the pits, so he will need to take
advantage of his early speed. Content to keep pace with the pairs of Williams
and Ferrari cars ahead of him, Jos sits in behind these four fast men at this
stage. Montoya has opened up a gap in the lead, but a braking problem drops
Ralf Schumacher out of the equation on lap ten. Jos is now fourth. The next
development is that Montoya's Michelin tyres begin to suffer, and he is caught
by the three men following. Soon it appears that he is in trouble, and as
Michael Schumacher puts him under pressure, the Colombian is slowing the pace
so that Coulthard and Räikkönen, fifth and sixth, catch the train of
leaders. It is plain that Montoya is not about to yield to Schumacher, and on
lap sixteen the German tries to get past on the outside run into Remus. The
Williams man defensively edges the Ferrari out and they both end up braking
fractionally late and sliding off the track on the outside, with Schumacher
having nowhere else to go. Although these two can both rejoin the circuit, the
five men following all go through thanks to this incident, and Jos is now
second only to Barrichello. He has every reason to feel satisfied with having
settled in behind the battling leaders. After eight laps in P2, Jos makes his
anticipated first stop at one-third distance. He has done enough to resume in
seventh place at this stage, with the drivers ahead including the recovered
Schumacher and Montoya, fourth and sixth respectively. By lap 40, the top six
are Barrichello, Coulthard, Schumacher, Räikkönen, Montoya and Panis.
Two laps later, Jos is back in the points when the sole remaining Williams goes
out - Montoya’s race ended with hydraulic problems. With all the drivers
having just a single stop to make at this point, it looks good for Jos. Sure
enough, his second pit visit comes on lap 45, around the same period that the
top seven one-stoppers come in. Although he emerges eighth, Villeneuve and
Irvine have yet to come in, and Jos is back up to sixth after they both stop.
The race is now seventy per cent run, and all Verstappen has to do is hold his
place for a point. With ten to go, he is lapped by the leader, now Coulthard,
and from here he holds enough of a gap over Irvine to beat him reasonably
comfortably. They are separated by four seconds at the flag. This represents
the team’s first point of the year, and although BAR protest
Räikkönen’s fourth place, saying he overtook under yellow flags,
it looks like the best they could have hoped for in this race. An added note:
Jos was the tenth fastest driver in the race.
Monaco
Following a tyre test at Valência, Arrows arrives at Monte Carlo with a
novel approach to gaining downforce. On Thursday, Jos’ car is run with a
high mini-wing mounted above the nose cone. Although he feels this device helps
with grip, it is soon banned by the FIA. His progress is further hindered on
Saturday morning, when he suffers a blown engine. For this reason, Jos is the
first man out in qualifying, but his initial lap time, with a high speed
reading of 282.8 km/h, is disappointing. Although he later improves, Arrows
have their worst grid performance of the year so far. Jos beats Bernoldi by a
place, into nineteenth position, but is just edged out by Alonso’s
Minardi. The margin that Jos achieves over Bernoldi is about half a second, as
his team-mate seems wary of fully attacking the course, and getting close in to
the barriers. The race day starts promisingly for Verstappen, when he sets
eighth best time in the warm-up. As was seen in Spain, Coulthard’s car is
once again left behind on the parade lap. This time the Scot is the pole
sitter, but he now has to start from last, and this means Jos will have one
less man ahead. What with the tight streets of Monaco, there isn’t much
room for passing at the start. The backmarkers need to do a bit of weaving as
they get going, and Alonso moves in front of Jos. Bernoldi then goes alongside
his team-mate to pull ahead and challenge the Minardi man at Ste Dévote.
Jos keeps Burti from getting the inside ground at the corner, and as the field
streams up the hill, the Dutchman is nineteenth - the place lost to his
team-mate balancing the gain over the relegated McLaren. As they go through the
highest section of the track, Burti also manages to get ahead of Jos, although
unseen by the television cameras. At the Mirabeau corner, Heidfeld tries to
attack on the outside of Alonso, but has to back out of it. On the drop down to
the famous Loews Hotel hairpin, there is a bit of a bottleneck, as Heidfeld is
now going slower than those behind. Bernoldi moves to the inside, with Burti
behind trying the same, and they are caught up with nowhere to go. This lets
Jos, who has gone to the outside, get the jump and draw level with the Sauber.
He stays there as they round the bend, looking to move ahead for sixteenth as
the road switches round to the right again. At this point, however, with Jos
bumping off the inside kerb, the two cars touch lightly. Heidfeld goes straight
into the barriers, sustaining terminal damage, whilst Jos loses momentum as he
tries to avoid further contact with the Sauber as it bounces back a little bit.
The three men behind, Bernoldi, Tarso Marquès and Burti, all whip by on
the inside, and Jos goes from sixteenth place, almost, to twentieth. As the
first lap ends, only Coulthard is behind, of the twenty-one left running.
Before long, however, Verstappen’s position is gradually improved.
Firstly, Montoya crashes out when fifth, and then Burti makes an unplanned pit
visit. Also, the last two make short work of passing the Minardi of
Marquès. With the order settled down, and the field spreading out, Jos
sits in a mini-queue with Bernoldi ahead and Coulthard behind. This
doesn’t last too long, as Bernoldi appears to back off slightly on the
start-finish straight, and Jos nips ahead on the outside, into sixteenth. It
seems likely that this was a team tactic, as Jos looks pretty racy and proceeds
to pull away fairly rapidly. Coulthard, however, remains stuck behind the
second Arrows for a hefty section of the race, and only gets through as and
when the Brazilian pits. After clearing the other Arrows, Jos goes after
Alonso. Before long he gets past the Spaniard, and next he chases down Button,
who he attacks around the outside of the hairpin. A few moments later,
Räikkönen slows drastically at the chicane, and several cars are
bunched by this. The end result is that Jos gets ahead of both the Benetton and
the Sauber, which heads round to the pits for an extended stop. With both
Häkkinen and Panis having pitted in difficulty, eventually retiring, Jos
now finds himself eleventh. De la Rosa’s retirement is followed by the
same fate befalling Trulli, so Jos is now ninth. He tries to close the gap to
Frentzen ahead, but isn’t quite able to make the difference, especially
when the German closes up to seventh-placed Alesi. Although Jos makes his
scheduled pit stop at around 60% distance, his is the first of the planned fuel
and tyre visits. Unfortunately, a fuel pressure problem causes Jos to stall his
engine, and this is a fairly costly delay. When he eventually returns to the
track, he immediately gains back a place, as sixth-placed Fisichella manages to
crash into the barrier even as Jos is about to let the Benetton lap him. With
Bernoldi stopping not long after Jos, Coulthard is released and his pace takes
him well clear and more towards the front. Jos is tenth, but his delay means
that Button is able to stop and rejoin the track without losing out to the
Arrows. In a race that usually tends to have fairly few finishers, Jos sees
himself elevated in the order again, as both Frentzen and Ralf Schumacher
retire. The Minardis also fail in this period. At this late stage, only four
cars are circulating on the lead lap, and the order of the remaining runners is
Alesi, Coulthard, Button, Verstappen, Bernoldi and Räikkönen - the
Finn multiple laps down. The only change left now is when Alesi makes a late
pit stop for tyres, due to a puncture, and loses his fifth to Coulthard. This
is how they finish, with Jos eighth. In truth, although his problem in the pits
costs Jos a place to Button, there isn’t much hope that he could have
stayed ahead of Coulthard. However, it is just possible that he might have been
within range of Alesi when the Frenchman stopped, giving him a slim chance of
going for sixth place. Nevertheless, Jos records his fifth finish in seven
races, and his third in a row. If he can make the flag in Canada, it will be
four in a row - a first for the Dutchman. Another point to note is that Jos has
proved - on a circuit he doesn’t particularly enjoy - that passing at
Monaco can be done.
Canada
Although the qualifying session is red flagged at one stage, due to crashes,
Jos achieves his best grid position of the year on one of his ‘form’
tracks, taking thirteenth position. Bernoldi is seventeenth, and almost seven
tenths slower in the second Arrows. At the race start, firstly Jos has to jink
onto the central line and follow Heidfeld past Villeneuve, who is delayed off
the line. Next Jos passes the slower moving Sauber by immediately nipping onto
the left hand line for the stretch to the first corner. There is a bunching up
of cars as many drivers sweep round to take to the inside for the imminent
right-hand hairpin, and Jos finds plenty of room on the outside of this bend to
gain position on Montoya and Häkkinen. His greater momentum draws him
level with, and then ahead of, the number eleven Jordan, today in the hands of
Ricardo Zonta, and as they follow through onto the next straight, Jos is in
eighth position. Not satisfied with this, he presses on and re-creates a move
he has executed successfully in the past, overtaking Räikkönen into
the final chicane, for seventh at the close of lap one. He soon pushes right up
onto the tail of the two leading Honda runners, Trulli (ahead) and Panis, and
the usual suspicion is that he is planning two stops. Although unable to
overtake, Jos soon inherits sixth position when Barrichello spins his Ferrari
and loses a great deal of ground. Jos stays as close as he can to Panis in the
BAR, and at one point he gets close enough out of the final corner to really
attack around the outside at turn one, but without success. Despite his good
placing, Jos starts to hit trouble when the safety car is sent out. This
happens as a result of Montoya crashing, which also forces Barrichello to spin
off in avoidance. While the pace is slowed to clear this incident, Jos is
desperately trying to communicate with his pit, but the radio system is not
working. He wants to make his first stop at this opportune moment, but
doesn’t want to risk the fact that the team may not be prepared for him.
They finally use the pitboard to get the message over that they are expecting
him, but this means he has to pit just as the race is restarting. Jos is not
happy to lose more ground than was necessary, in dropping to fifteenth place of
fifteen. Nevertheless, still with a lower than maximum fuel load, he is able to
charge back into the race, and soon passes Marquès. Pit stops for de la
Rosa, Burti, Zonta, Trulli, Räikkönen and Alesi, plus the retirements
of Bernoldi, Villeneuve and Panis (when his second stop is for good), mean that
Jos has moved all the way up to fifth. This turns into an incredible fourth
when Coulthard visits the pits, and his 47th lap second stop leaves Jos only
back in ninth position. As he continues to charge on, Jos gains a place when de
la Rosa stops again, and another when Coulthard’s engine blows up. When he
is lapped by the two leaders, both named Schumacher, Jos looks to be in trouble
with worn brakes, as plenty of dust is shed in the main slowing zones.
Regardless of this, Jos moves up into a points position when Trulli’s car
slows dramatically and has to stop. On his 63rd lap, and with five more to go
in the race, Jos only has to bring it home and he will be sixth. Unfortunately,
it doesn’t work out like that. On his 66th lap, Jos suffers a sudden exit
when his left front brake explodes and causes him to spin off at turn six. This
bad luck means the Dutchman is classified tenth in the final results, and he is
fairly outspoken with his team about how let down he feels. Apart from the
bothers with the radio, which could have cost him a run to fourth place, he has
already been stressing the importance of improving the car’s brakes, and
feels no progress has been made. To demonstrate his good form today, he comes
away as the fifth fastest driver in the race.
Europe
Arrows come to the Nürburgring with the feeling that their car is unlikely
to be particularly suited to the track, in contrast to the situation in Canada.
Nevertheless, there is always a chance that the weather will be wet at this
venue, which would considerably boost the team’s prospects. Rumours
continue to circulate that Arrows will be using the Cosworth engine to power
their 2002 car, this being the existing Jaguar powerplant. In fact, Jos
Verstappen has renewed his contract with Arrows and signed on with them for
next season, and the suggestion is that he has been assured of an improved
engine deal. For the present, qualifying is not a major success. After Jos and
Enrique set identical lap times on their first runs, the Brazilian ends up the
faster and claims eighteenth position. Jos is one place behind but has
struggled with power steering difficulties, which see him off track at one
point. A good start will help Jos, but it is a long way to the front from here,
and he is forced to drive the spare car. He makes an excellent getaway, moving
straight into the centre and then looping round Burti and back out to the left
hand side. This also takes him past the slowish Alesi and brings him up to try
and challenge his team-mate on the outside. As they approach turn one, Jos
dives across to the right, behind Bernoldi and de la Rosa, and onto the inside
line for the apex of the corner. This brings him past Bernoldi and round the
outside of the Jaguar in the following left-handed bend. He then draws level
with Panis, going to the outside at turn three so as to get the inside run onto
the downhill section. He is ahead before the hairpin and up to fourteenth
place. Unfortunately, after this the Arrows drivers are largely anonymous
during the race. Initially Jos pushes Fisichella in the Benetton, but begins to
drop away. When the Italian takes a trip across the kerbs at the chicane, he is
forced into a pit stop, elevating Jos another place. However, the Arrows is on
a two-stop strategy and after taking a first pit visit Jos runs sixteenth. When
he has made his second stop, and all other cars have completed their own pit
stop sequences, Jos finds himself fourteenth. As the two Jordans have now
retired, this doesn’t represent any positions gained. When Heidfeld goes
out towards the end Jos moves up to thirteenth, but a few laps later his engine
fails. Although he stood to inherit twelfth place at the flag, it is hardly a
disappointment not to finish in such a lowly position.
France
The Magny-Cours circuit is another one where the two Arrows appear to lack
overall pace. Jos drops from sixteenth in the Saturday morning session to
eighteenth in qualifying, whilst Bernoldi is back in twentieth position. As the
field is taking off for the pace lap, Häkkinen stalls his car and is
eventually pushed into the pits. In addition, de la Rosa is a late starter, as
his car only manages to crawl round, and he does not make the grid proper. Now
effectively sixteenth, Jos makes a solid getaway. He immediately moves left,
which means the inside for the first corner, and is straight past the Benettons
of Button and Fisichella. Following through the right hand curves, he is right
onto the tail of Burti and attacks down to the hairpin. There is a possible
opportunity to go past on the inside of the Prost when, as the corner looms, it
jinks sideways and the brakes lock up, but the path through is blocked by Panis
in the BAR, and the order is maintained. Jos continues to harry the Brazilian
to the end of the lap, but remains in fourteenth. As the early laps unfold, the
gap ahead begins to grow. With one retirement and some pit stops, Jos briefly
rises to eleventh before making his own first stop. Unfortunately, a fault with
the refuelling equipment causes a twenty second delay, and he falls back to
seventeenth as a result. Although he overtakes Alonso in the Minardi, Jos can
make no further headway from hereon in. It is only because of three late
retirements that he is finally classified in thirteenth, two laps down on the
winning Ferrari of Michael Schumacher.
Britain
At Silverstone, there is confirmation that Arrows will indeed have the Cosworth
engine powering their 2002 car. And it will be an up-to-date version, rather
than the more usual deal to run a year old unit. Estimates suggest that
Cosworth are currently matching Mercedes-Benz for power output, indicating that
the Jaguar R2 has serious aerodynamic difficulties. In a chassis as good as
Arrows seem to have, this could prove a seriously interesting proposition. For
the moment, the situation is less than encouraging. Although improving over his
qualifying positions at the last two rounds, Jos can do no better than
seventeenth. Bernoldi is over half a second away in twentieth place. Jos makes
a good start to the race, going straight to the middle of the track, alongside
Irvine (to his left) and past Burti (to his right). At the first corner, Copse,
Panis goes off the track after contact from Villeneuve, whilst up front Trulli
and Coulthard have also touched and the Jordan joins the BAR in the gravel.
Both the Honda powered cars are out on the spot, but the McLaren regains the
tarmac after spinning to the rear of the field. That accounts for three more
place gains for Verstappen, who takes the inside at Copse to move past Irvine
and then uses this trajectory to pull level with de la Rosa on the straight. He
just makes it ahead into Maggotts and pushes right onto the tail of Villeneuve
through Becketts. Although he slightly loses ground as they come to Chapel, Jos
pushes the Canadian through to the end of the lap and is into a strong
eleventh. On lap three, he passes the BAR, and he does the same thing to Alesi
one tour later. He proceeds to pull out quite a big gap over the following
train of cars, and has the road pretty much to himself now. Of course, this
suggests a two-stop strategy, which turns out to be the case, but ninth
position represents an impressive eight place gains in four laps. When the
Saubers make their first stops, Jos is briefly up to seventh, but then he makes
his own pit visit and drops to thirteenth after being stationary for 9.0s. At
two thirds distance, after Ralf Schumacher has retired and most of the
remaining drivers have completed their pit stops, Jos is back up to eighth
position. He stops again at this point, resuming ahead of Alesi but having lost
out to Villeneuve and Irvine. The Jaguar man has yet to make his second stop,
but he does enough to stay ahead on returning to the track. Jos is placed tenth
at this stage, but any thoughts of attacking Irvine have to be forgotten when
an engine problem forces him to slow the pace. He maintains the position to the
flag, beating six more drivers home, including the fourteenth placed Bernoldi.
A relatively strong performance is underlined by being twelfth on the fastest
lap table.
Germany
At the high speed Hockenheimring, Jos starts off by going nineteenth fastest on
Saturday morning. In qualifying, the Arrows-Asiatechs are relegated to the
penultimate row, ahead of the two Minardis. This time, Bernoldi is ahead of
Verstappen, with a two-tenth margin. Better form is demonstrated in the
warm-up, with Jos eleventh. As the field lines up to take the start, both of
the Minardis have been pushed into the pitlane with leaking fuel. In
Alonso’s case this has caused a fire, and means he will drive the T-car in
the race. Jos is effectively last on the grid. The start proves decidedly
hectic, and Jos is lucky to avoid any trouble. He seems to be slow away, but
soon moves to the right hand side, by the pit wall, and streaks past the very
slow moving Alesi. He also passes Bernoldi in this manoeuvre, and almost gets
up the inside of Button as they approach the first corner. At this point,
Burti’s Prost crashes down behind Verstappen’s Arrows. Michael
Schumacher’s Ferrari gearbox has failed as he gets underway, and his
slowing car has been rammed by the unsighted Brazilian. The second car is
launched spectacularly, shedding a wheel (which thumps onto Bernoldi’s
sidepod), and careers along the road into the tyre barrier. Thankfully, no
other cars are hit after the Prost’s violent touchdown, and even better
news is that no drivers are hurt. Meanwhile, Jos has come out of the first turn
behind Button’s car, and stays in close company on the next two straights.
An opportunist move at the Ostkurve chicane, thanks to some bunching, sees Jos
drive around the outside of both Button and Panis. He is fourteenth. As the
drivers set off on the return leg, the safety car is despatched. At the start
line, the cars weave carefully through the carbon fibre debris, but very soon
after this the red flag is flown. The restart allows all drivers involved in
the first incident to get back into the race, and also gives the Minardis the
chance to take to the track this time around. At the second attempt, Jos gets a
pretty good start and again goes down the right hand side of the straight,
taking himself ahead of Bernoldi, Burti and Alesi, and inside Fisichella for
seventeenth place at turn one. He then drafts Panis down the following straight
and draws alongside, to the left, as they approach the first chicane. A few
places ahead of them, de la Rosa locks his brakes and careers into the rear of
Heidfeld, putting both cars out. The bunching this causes gives Jos a good run
at Zonta (driving the Jordan again after Frentzen’s sacking), Button and
Panis. Jos’ momentum takes him past the BAR and the Benetton into what is
now twelfth position. When Zonta runs deep into the first part of the Ostkurve
chicane, Jos gets better speed through than the Jordan, and closes up enough to
go to Zonta’s right on the next straight. He then edges in front at the
Senna chicane for eleventh place. As the lap ends, the Arrows has clawed toward
Villeneuve’s BAR, and gets very close initially. Villeneuve is able to
pull away a bit, but Jos maintains good speed in the early laps. On lap five,
Zonta cuts the third chicane, and possibly closes on Jos as a result. The next
lap sees Jos make a small mistake and so Zonta tries to pass at the Clark
chicane. He moves to the inside, but barely gets the front of his Jordan level
with the rear of the Arrows. As Jos turns in, Zonta hits him, gifting Panis a
way past both of them. For Zonta, this results in retirement after a couple of
further laps, but Jos is also forced into the pits because of damage to his
right rear tyre. When he returns to the action he is nineteenth and last. From
here, the best Jos can do is fight his way up to, and past, the Minardis. A
high retirement rate, particularly among the front men, means he is up to
eleventh before taking his second pit stop, which comes at sixty per cent
distance. Two more retirements give him ninth towards the finish, by which time
he has caught right back up to his team-mate. The two cars embark on a fairly
robust tussle, with Bernoldi apparently working very hard to keep Verstappen
behind. At one point, the Brazilian manages to miss out a chicane, and so Jos
does the same thing to even out the gap again. Jos is finally able to make a
passing move at Senna, but it doesn’t stick as his exit speed is
compromised and gives the advantage back to Bernoldi. Jos therefore finishes
ninth, less than half a second from the other Arrows. Although it seems likely
that the team were due to employ a two stop strategy, in fact Jos is running
with a single stop planned. This makes the early damage repairs particularly
costly to him. All of the fourth to sixth placed finishers were one-stoppers,
and Jos had been ahead of them during the initial stages. He may have lost some
pace to the Michelin runners, but nevertheless a points finish was certainly
achievable and it seems he would have easily had the beating of Bernoldi. It
later emerges than the Brazilian isn’t entirely popular within the team,
and especially with Verstappen. The feeling is that he isn’t really
working for the good of the team, and has a more self-serving agenda. His place
in the team for 2002 is under threat, with Giancarlo Fisichella a rumoured
alternative. Jos’ result is disappointing, but given how good the 2000
chassis was at the high speed Monza track, the team can only look forward to
the improvement that the Cosworth engine will represent.
Hungary
At this track, Arrows turn up with a new front wing, designed to improve their
form through the tighter corners that make up much of the circuit.
Unfortunately, Jos then loses a lot of set-up time, as newly raised kerbs
(which no-one has been told about) cause him to damage his car during practice.
As it is, the Arrows does not seem particularly convincing at the Hungaroring,
and Jos only manages to outpace Marquès during qualifying. Bernoldi is
only one place better off. Jos, of course, makes an excellent start, rising to
fifteenth place on the first lap. He makes a fairly strong getaway, instantly
outpacing Marquès, and pulling level with Bernoldi on the
Brazilian’s left. He then closes down the ground to Burti (left) and
Alonso (right), on a central line, and as turn one approaches, Jos has cut
right over to the right, and got inside, and ahead of, both Frentzen (now
driving for Prost, as Alesi has gone to Jordan) and Button as well. Meanwhile,
Irvine spins off round the outside of this curve. There is a bit of bunching at
the next corner, and this allows Jos to consolidate his position. He is soon
pushing the fourteenth placed Fisichella. Unfortunately, by the time Jos is
first lapped by leader Michael Schumacher, on lap twenty, he has dropped well
away from the Benetton. The Italian soon makes a first pit stop, but Jos comes
in not long after this, and then finds himself behind Frentzen, who has
regained positions despite making his own first stop. Jos is now sixteenth, and
runs in a tight group with the German ahead and Button behind. Jos pushes
Frentzen hard, and is further helped when Button makes a stop and disappears
from behind him. As the final third of the race begins to play out, thirteenth
placed Fisichella has a slow pit stop, but still stays ahead of Frentzen and
Verstappen, who are now not so close. The Prost driver stops a lap before Jos,
but maintains position as Jos pits for twelve seconds on his turn. It
doesn’t look like Jos can challenge for a decent finishing position from
here, but late retirements for Trulli, Panis, Frentzen and Fisichella elevate
him to twelfth place at the flag. In fact, this is actually last position, but
five cars he had been leading also fail to complete the race.
Belgium
After largely wet and foggy practice sessions, the qualifying hour is held in
drying conditions, meaning that the best lap times are made towards the very
end. Some drivers, principally those on Michelins, even switch straight from
wet to dry weather tyres, missing out intermediates altogether. The Arrows team
has a very disappointing session. Bernoldi’s car runs out of fuel before
the end of his final quick lap, whilst Verstappen is sent out marginally too
late and he just fails to start his hot lap before the chequered flag is waved.
As a result, the two Orange cars join the Minardis in failing to meet the 107%
qualifying mark. Due to the circumstances of the session, all four cars are
allowed to race, and Jos will start nineteenth, with Enrique twenty-first. The
starting sequence is all action today, as firstly Alonso fails to get away for
the pace lap. For some reason, he is not relegated to last for this, although
he is only twentieth to begin with. As the start proper is being counted down,
Frentzen stalls his Prost on it’s highly creditable fourth placed slot,
and the abort signals are engaged. The German’s hard work in qualifying is
ruined, as he now has to join the tail of the field for the restart. There is a
further pace lap as a result of this, but the delays seem to contribute to the
next drama, as pole sitter Montoya now stalls his Williams. For the second
start attempt, we now have two of the top four cars right down at the back of
the grid, leaving the two Schumachers in prime position. Jos, now effectively
starting seventeenth, is positioned with almost a clear view down the middle of
the track, as he is situated on the curve just beyond the finish straight. He
makes a good getaway and stays on the right-hand line all the way for the
inside of the hairpin, gaining places over Burti and Trulli. He then runs
side-by-side with Heidfeld down to Eau Rouge, for fourteenth, and gets the
place. But it seems the Sauber driver gets back ahead, up at Les Combes, and by
the end of the lap, the superior power of Trulli’s Jordan has also moved
the Italian back past the Arrows. Jos is sixteenth. On the second lap, he is
passed by the recovering Montoya, who almost breezes past out of Raidillon,
thanks to his BMW engine. Jos tries to stay in touch in the traffic, but is
also passed by Burti, into the Bus Stop, on the same lap, and this puts him
under pressure from Frentzen. Now he is eighteenth. On lap four, there is a big
accident when Burti attempts to overtake his former team-mate, Irvine, and ends
up slamming hard into a tyre wall. The safety car is brought out for a lap, but
then the race is stopped. Thankfully, the Brazilian proves to be largely
unhurt, but the race will now be restarted from scratch, based on the positions
after the fourth lap, and without aggregate timings being employed. Although
Jos gains two places from the cars that are out, he is classified seventeenth,
as Frentzen had passed him on the same lap as the crash. However, as
Räikkönen’s car has failed on the fifth lap, and he will not
resume, Jos lines up sixteenth for the restart. In a slightly more bizarre
incident than previously, Ralf Schumacher fails to start the new pace lap, as
his car has been left up on jacks. This means he is another driver to go to the
back for a start, and Jos gains another place. He doesn’t have such a good
start this time, but stays on his line, now to the left, and draws himself
beyond Frentzen. A skirmish at La Source allows him to gain more places, as
Heidfeld rams his car down the inside at the last minute, pushing de la Rosa
into Montoya, and sending all three wide. Jos’ Arrows is one of the cars
to get by in the incident, and he also tries to go around Villeneuve at the
hairpin. He isn’t able to manage it, and as Heidfeld tries to come back
onto the racing line at the exit, he then clips Jos’ rear. The resulting
damage to the front wing soon puts the German out of the race. Jos is eleventh,
and when Panis runs wide at the exit of Les Combes, the Dutchman follows
Villeneuve past, so that he will finish the new ‘first’ lap in tenth
position. The BAR soon pulls away from Jos, and he is left to hold off the
sister car of Panis and the two Williams cars, which he does for several laps
(although Montoya’s engine doesn’t last fully two laps of this
‘second’ race). The pit stop sequence gives Schumacher the chance to
break clear of the other two in this battle, and Jos also drops a position to
Frentzen, the only man on a one stop strategy. When everything sorts itself
out, after the final stops have been made, Jos is running eleventh. His only
place gain at this stage has come from Button’s retirement, as the
Benetton driver has crashed out. The late failure of Trulli’s Jordan puts
Jos into a final tenth position, beating Panis (who has served a stop-go
penalty for crossing the line marking the pit exit), Bernoldi and
Marquès. The disappointing truth is that the Arrows has just not got the
pace to be competitive on this type of track.
Italy
After unflattering results in the previous two rounds, Arrows have a more
promising race at Monza, but sadly this time both cars fail to finish. Practice
begins poorly, with a big spin for Jos, as a result of some kind of failure.
Qualifying sees Jos pipped for eighteenth place by his team-mate, with Bernoldi
0.067s ahead. Any straight-line advantage from the slippery A22 chassis seems
to have been negated by an under-developed Asiatech engine. However, momentous
world events in the preceding week, plus the death of a marshal at the 2000
race, have invaded the atmosphere of this event. This is added to by news of a
terrible CART racing accident in Germany on Saturday, and the resulting serious
injuries to Alex Zanardi. There is a twitchiness affecting some of the F1
drivers, especially Michael Schumacher, and this leads to race morning discord.
A suggestion is made that the drivers don’t attempt to race each other
until they have cleared the second chicane, so potential accidents can be
avoided. Apparently, there is fairly strong support for this idea, but it is
not unanimous. Sensibly, therefore, it is decided that this is an unworkable
idea, and it is discarded, although caution is agreed upon. Regardless of the
fact that this could have brought new dangers into play, it also seems unfair
on anyone towards the rear of the field who might be counting on a good start.
Therefore, Jos is not deprived of his best asset. He makes a fairly good start,
and with cars in front diving across the track, he stays on the left. He is
already past Panis as he pulls ahead of Villeneuve, in the other BAR. As they
reach the first chicane, Jos is on the outside of Alesi, who has Bernoldi on
his inside. Jos makes to go around the Jordan but, meanwhile, just ahead,
Button has streaked up the inside, braked too late, and put Trulli into a spin.
The Italian’s Jordan virtually blocks the left-handed second part of the
chicane. To avoid him, most cars have to cut across the green concrete inside
the apex. Räikkönen and Frentzen, however, have to go the long way
round, and Jos’ positioning means he not only gains on these two, but also
comes out ahead of both Alesi and Bernoldi. With Häkkinen having gone down
the straight-on escape road, and both Heidfeld and Fisichella having started
from the pits, this puts the leading Arrows in an astonishing eighth position.
Bernoldi is also well placed in eleventh, although he loses a spot towards the
end of the lap. Jos is placed between Irvine and Räikkönen, and the
Sauber man puts the pressure on as lap one ends. However, by the end of lap two
it is Jos who is forcing his attentions onto the rear of the Jaguar. By the
time they reach the second chicane, he is through, and he then presses on after
the sixth-placed car of de la Rosa. At the start of lap five, Jos passes the
Spaniard at the inside of the first chicane, and at this point the two Jaguars
seem to fade backwards into the field, possibly with tyre worries. When
Coulthard’s McLaren goes out on lap seven, thanks to a Mercedes-Benz blow
up, Jos reaches an incredible fifth position, albeit well behind the four
leaders. He maintains this place for several laps, despite the close attentions
of Räikkönen and Alesi. On lap fifteen, the Frenchman goes for the
inside at the first chicane, gets past but over-runs and cuts the corner. In
letting Jos back through, Räikkönen is also able to home in on them,
and he then cuts the second chicane to avoid tangling with the other two. The
order is maintained in all this shuffling, with the Arrows from the Jordan and
the Sauber. Alesi is not giving up, though, and he makes it by the orange car
on the following lap, apparently at chicane two. Räikkönen is not
being left out, and he lines up to go through into the Parabolica, putting Jos
back to seventh after lap sixteen. From here, things go wrong for Jos. It seems
he has begun to be troubled by brake problems, and he makes a pit stop on lap
eighteen. After resuming, he takes position at the tail of a queue stuck behind
his team-mate, as Bernoldi is now ninth and holding off Panis and others. With
Häkkinen’s retirement, Jos is now fourteenth, but he soon drops right
away, and fuel pressure difficulties take him out altogether as half distance
is approaching. This brings to an end a streak of five consecutive finishes,
which is the best run of Jos’ Formula One career, and this is the first
time in eleven races that he hasn’t completed at least 85% of the race
distance. Interestingly, Bernoldi, who will retire with just six laps left to
run, makes only one pit stop, which splits his race exactly in two, and this
means that Jos could have been in a genuine battle for a point or two had he
suffered no problems.
United States
After a good run in the 2000 Indianapolis race, there are high hopes that the
Arrows will again be well suited to this track. Unfortunately, practice sees
the orange cars performing poorly, and Jos is twenty-first on both days. He
improves by a place in qualifying, and is just a fraction, or 0.009s, behind
Bernoldi, who is twentieth. Undeterred, Jos is a stunning fifth in the warm-up,
hopefully pointing to a good race set-up. As usual, Jos’ start works out
very well, and we learn from the commentators that he has actually made up
eighty places during starts so far this year, which is rightly described as
“an amazing statistic.” It doesn’t seem to be so good an initial
getaway today, although he does go straight ahead of two cars, as Bernoldi has
to dodge around the slow starting Alonso. With a gap ahead, Jos is able to pick
a good line, and he moves to the outside of Villeneuve (on the right) and
Frentzen (in the centre) to pass them both at turn one. He then lines up for
the inside of turn two, passing de la Rosa, and is placed to go around the
outside of Panis on the long curve that follows. This puts him up to
fourteenth, and he holds position in the middle of a bit of a train for the
first half of the race, going on to hold a steady gap over Panis. Apparently,
Jos has blistered his tyres in the early stages, and his progress is not helped
by a spin on his pit-in lap, which drops him to virtually last position. By lap
39 he is sixteenth of seventeen, helped forward by three recent retirements.
Unfortunately, after problems for Villeneuve have moved Jos up another place,
an engine fire puts an end to the Dutchman’s race. Ultimately, had there
been no problems, it seems that a finish of ninth place is about as good as he
could have achieved, so a disappointing weekend all round.
Japan
As the Formula One teams reach Suzuka for the final race of the year, new
rumours are surrounding the 2002 Arrows driver line-up. It is now thought that
support for Jos has waned within the team, perhaps due to his unnecessary spin
in the USA. The talk says that maybe he is now going to have to make way for a
‘pay driver,’ with Bernoldi being the man who will be retained. This
seems to be at odds with earlier statements, although it is certainly true that
the Brazilian has been able to maximise his qualifying laps more satisfactorily
than Jos, usually by pretty small fractions. A good race could help
Verstappen’s position, but unfortunately he doesn’t really manage to
impress. Again, the practice and qualifying sessions don’t show the Arrows
in a positive light, and they scrap with the Minardis for the minor placings.
Jos qualifies last but one, with Bernoldi 0.088s and one place ahead. Before
taking to the grid, Jos has to swap to the T-car, due to a power steering
failure. He is gifted a position when Bernoldi stalls and has to be pushed into
the pitlane, to start from there, and the Brazilian is joined by Minardi’s
Alex Yoong, from last place. Then, on the formation lap, Jos overtakes Prost
driver Tomáš Enge, when the Czech driver almost stalls his car at
the hairpin. Jos stays with the main field and fails to notice that Enge has
been able to make it round to the grid, and therefore lines up ahead of the
French car, in Enge’s nineteenth place. The Czech starts from directly
behind. Jos’ start immediately takes him ahead of Alonso, and then he
dives right, onto the inside of Panis. For turn one, this takes him past the
BAR, and then Jos goes around Frentzen as the track switches back to the left.
This takes him into sixteenth place, right behind de la Rosa, but he ends the
lap seventeenth, with Frentzen having found his way back past. On lap three,
Jos regains the slot, as Frentzen has to pit for a new nose section, from
contact with de la Rosa. After a spectacular lap six crash involving
Räikkönen and Alesi, this becomes fourteenth position. In the early
stages, Jos is pushed by Panis, Alonso and Enge, but he is able to keep them
behind for a good many laps. His stop at one-third distance, however, drops Jos
behind both the BAR and the Minardi, and their better pace means that they both
manage to stay ahead through their own pitstops. Jos moves back into fifteenth
with the retirement of Irvine’s Jaguar, but a few laps later he then loses
out to a charging Frentzen. Announcements have by now stated that Jos is under
investigation and, sure enough, two laps after his second pit visit, Jos is
given a stop-go penalty for his ‘misdemeanor’ on the parade lap. For
the last quarter of the race then, Verstappen has only Bernoldi (who has also
served a penalty for cutting the chicane) and Yoong behind him. Three late
retirements move Jos back to fourteenth but, with power steering failure
affecting the car, he actually loses this place to Bernoldi on the final
circuit. This has been far from Jos’ (or Arrows’) best outing and, to
make matters worse, a Minardi and a Prost are just two of the cars that finish
a lap ahead of the orange machines. It seems that the switch to Cosworth
engines, and the addition of top design and aerodynamics experts, cannot come
soon enough. Arrows will also want to build on the positive aspects, one of
which is that Jos has completed 893 racing laps in season 2001, which is fifth
highest overall. In fact, he has completed at least 85% of all the races bar
four. Also good, from his point of view, is that he has finished eleven times,
plus one classified, which marks his most consistent year in Formula One so
far.
With the memories from Suzuka freshest in the mind, Jos Verstappen’s future at Arrows remains in question for much of the off-season, despite the fact that his contract has been renewed. Rumours suggest that this means nothing.