After forty years of working in Formula One, former McLaren team co-ordinator Jo Ramirez joins the millions of racing fans who watch the action on TV. Now writing for Atlas F1, Jo follows the 2002 season in a personal column, which comes straight from the heart of a guy who is, after all, just a racing man...

Five races gone, and some teams are already feeling the tremendous stress of the current economic situation, with BAR and Jordan notably lightening their work force.

In BAR's case, the catalyst was a change of management, and the new one getting rid of some old wood in an effort to gain competitiveness. The results were evident by San Marino, where we already saw an improving team. However, Jordan's reasons were mostly economic, and perhaps also related to the possibility of losing the Honda engines unless they improve their performance.

What I cannot for the life of me understand is how come they have shown the door to about forty employees from top directorship and engineering level down, and expect to regain competitiveness. If they do become competitive, it will only suggest the team was badly managed before, as it will be obvious that they did not need these people in the first place. But I do feel sorry for Eddie Jordan - not personally, as he has done tremendously well out of Formula One for himself, but for his team. After all, if he does lose the Honda engine and ends up the same as Prost, Tyrrell, Brabham, Lotus and others, then of course it will be a terrible shock for Formula One.

I have known Eddie almost from the start of his motor racing career, and while most of the Formula One team owners invariably change once they have some success, Eddie has remained the same as he was 30 years ago, only a lot richer.

During my days with Theodore racing, we used to hire his Formula Three team for the Macau race at the end of the year. Macau was the home of my boss, Teddy Yip, and every year he put on a tremendous display of racing and social events there.

I have to say that it was a pleasure to work with Eddie. I remember that we used to get the prize money in cash in a brown shopping bag, and Eddie would chase me all over the Hotel for his percentage! Furthermore, with Macau being a small Portuguese colony, there were not many good hotels there back then, and one year Eddie and I ended up sharing rooms. At my fairwell party last year in Indianapolis, after the video presentation and speeches, he came over to me and whispered that if he had to share a room again with someone, he would not mind if it was with me...

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The Spanish Grand Prix itself is a sad day for us racing men, as it is the first anniversary of the reintroduction of traction control. At the time, the only reason it was allowed back was because it was virtually imposible to police who is using it and who isn't. Moreover, there was a strong belief that more than one team was using electronic aids in a way that effectively acted as traction control.

I will admit that at the time, I supported the move purely for the above reason. I also believed that our engineers would be able to develop a traction control a lot better than the opposition... was I wrong! In fact, McLaren had more problems at the beginning than any of the other team, and this no doubt cost us valuable points in our pursuit of Ferrari.

My only hope as a racing man, then and now, is that technology advancement will sooner rather than later bring on a system that will prove beyond doubt whether or not a team is using elecronic aids, in which time we shall see the back of this wretched gizmo. After all, we still want to see the drivers controlling the cars rather than the electronics, no? We do not want any Tom, Dick and Harry taxi driver running in Formula One cars.

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Qualifying this year was once again the only interesting competition of the weekend, and once more Michael gave Rubinho just a little bit of encouragement... only to relegate him to second place again in the closing stages. The usual formation behind Schumacher was only broken by Heinz Harald Frentzen in the ever improving Arrows, now with a new front wing that had an interesting arrangement, looking very neat and tidy. This is no doubt a Sergio Rinland contribution to the team, only a month after celebrating his half century birthday - Congratulations on both counts, Sergio.

During the race, though, I think I had a small tear shed for Rubinho. He is definitely not on good terms with Lady Luck, and this is particularly a shame since as he is driving better than ever, and he was very keen to race Michael, whether or not he would have been allowed to... I really though he was going to do it this time.

The long straight and long sweeping corners took their toll on aerofoils this weekend and it was a very brave and difficult decision for the Minardi team to withdraw their cars from the race. On another case, I was particularly surprised by Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren rear wing failure in the race, since McLaren do so much testing at Barcelona and are so meticulous in assesing the lifetime limit of the components.

The race was a little more interesting than the last one - thank god for that! - especially if we simply ignore Michael's lonely drive at the front. In fact, do we have to keep on saying 'Well done, Michael Schumacher'? Can we just take it for granted, and move on?

At least the right Williams got in second place... sorry, but we South Americans must stick together! And David Coulthard may have inherited his third place, but you have to be there at the finish and that's what counts (although perhaps Jenson Button is well overdue for his first podium).

But the story of the weekend was, eventually, the success and failure of the different small teams. While the little Swiss Sauber team is going nowhere but up and Frentzen picking a first, well deserved point for Arrows, it was sad to see those lovely looking green Jaguars at the end of the queue at the start of the race.

In fact, the British team doesn't even get a mention any more on our television coverage - imagine that! - and I am sure that poor old Pedro just lost control of his car out of sheer frustation at being last in his home Grand Prix! Likewise, the Jordan Hondas didn't last much longer, which makes you wonder what Eddie has left to do, short of committing Harakiri in true Japanese fashion...

And so we move on, to the beatifull hills of Austria, with the sound of music...

Until two weeks from now...

Jo X

About the author:
Jo Ramirez began working in Formula One in 1961, when he arrived to Europe from Mexico with his childhood friend Ricardo Rodriguez. He worked as a mechanic and a team manager with Dan Gurney, Emerson Fittipaldi, Ken Tyrrell and many others, before making McLaren his home for 18 years - where he worked as team co-ordinator between the years 1983 and 2001 and where he made life-long friendships with the sport's top drivers. Jo retired from F1 at the end of the 2001 season. He joined Atlas F1 as a regular columnist in February 2002.