This week's Grapevine brings you information fresh from the paddock on: Silly Season Update Treading a Safety Tightrope

Silly Season Update

Leading up to the US Grand Prix, with the teams spending a lot of time travelling, or performing other non-newsworthy duties, attention returns to the Silly Season, which is always good for speculation. Considering what a quiet year this has been for the rumour mongers, there is a surprisingly vibrant collection doing the rounds at the moment, with a spate that anticipate a shock change of drivers at the front of the grid.

Of course, it's all based on the story of Juan Pablo Montoya's much anticipated signing to drive for McLaren in 2005. The story goes, now that Montoya's interests are elsewhere, things have cooled down between the driver and the team, so it would be better to offload him on to his new team a year early - for a nice large fee - and run someone who will be more motivated instead.

Rumoured replacements for Montoya include David Coulthard, assuming he is the man displaced at McLaren, and Mark Webber, if Williams can prise him away from Jaguar. Of course, they could also give Marc Gene a year in the car, following their tried and tested (not to mention cheap) concept of promoting test drivers to race seats.

Actually, looking at Gene, it makes a fair bit of sense. He is not Fernando Alonso or Kimi Raikkonen, but he is a solid performer. Despite appearing to do little during his seasons at Minardi, Williams were impressed by his consistency in testing, and really believed he earned the rookie of the year award in '99. Whilst arguably not World Champion material, once Gene gets up to speed on a track, he will turn in fast laps like a metronome, which is a core requirement of the sport in its current state. His performance replacing Ralf Schumacher at Monza did other than reinforce that impression.

That said, the paddock at large currently rates Webber very highly, with many tipping him as a future World Champion. Williams themselves thought Antonio Pizzonia was no slouch, so having the Australian see off their old test driver so completely is a fairly big deal. Persuading Jaguar to part with him is not going to be easy - plain cash is not going to be sufficient, unless the numbers involved are ridiculous. A technological exchange is not exactly a good idea either, as it would erode the Williams advantage; so a replacement driver would be a potential sweeter. Gene, having demonstrated race pace, might be an option, but Jaguar learned a lesson from Pizzonia. Coulthard could be a valid alternative. As a bonus, getting him placed would save McLaren from having to pay the Scot nearly as much in severance. The other option that would be doing McLaren - or rather, Mercedes - a favour, is finding a seat for Nick Heidfeld, who appears to be short of a ride for 2004.

Leaving the Williams story aside, there are still interesting times at Sauber. There are rumours that Felipe Massa has declined to put his name to a Sauber contract, as Ferrari are waiting to see how the year pans out. A lot of people are convinced that if Michael Schumacher wins his sixth Championship this year, he will retire, as there is nothing more he can prove: in which case, Massa can go straight to a Ferrari seat. In the meanwhile, Peter Sauber is sitting on Heinz-Harald Frentzen as a potential second driver alongside Giancarlo Fisichella, but it seems he has had eyes on more reasonably high potential youngsters. Having yet to spot another Raikkonen amongst then, Frentzen is still in with a chance of a drive, but otherwise, the German is going to struggle to find a place on the grid next year.

Renault's test driver, Allan McNish, has been working on Eddie Jordan. Whilst it is generally rumoured that his chance of a seat there depends solely on Benson and Hedges stumping up considerable extra funds for a British driver, there is a little more to it than that. The work that has gone in to the Renault Friday test program this year has been very effective for the team when setting up their cars for each circuit in turn. McNish's part in that has been downplayed by Renault, but it has been clear from the outset that his input is making a considerable difference. With Fisichella leaving, Jordan is looking for a driver who can help develop the car as much as drive it. clearly, McNish fills that bill. And he comes an awful lot cheaper that Fisichella, too.

Treading a Safety Tightrope

With unsprung weight being a key contributor to performance, minimising the mass of suspension members - and their aero profile - is an area that teams are always working hard on: every ounce saved from here and put in to the balanced is paid back twofold in improved mechanical grip and balance.

Tolerances in Formula One are so tight that the difference between a suspension member that can take a corner at 170mph, and one that crumples at 150mph will be a single mistake in the layering of the carbon fibre construction. Flaws must be picked up using ultrasound, or the first that anyone will know about it is an apparently random catastrophic failure. However, the recent spate appear to have come from a slightly different direction - with the technology maturing the amount of material required to construct the suspension members is always being reduced, leaving them more susceptible to being weakened by heat, for example from a leaking exhaust. The reduced mass heats up faster, and then is less resistant to forces that are not perfectly aligned along the "strong axis," and the component fails.

Failing components in Formula One are not a new thing - especially when new components are being tested under race conditions for the first time, and stressed to the limit. However, with media interest in the sport continuing, these failures are gaining ever increasing publicity, especially when the result is a spectacular accident that takes the driver out of the next Grand Prix.

It is raising eyebrows with some of the powers that be in the teams and the FIA, concerning both the adverse publicity from drivers being unable to race, and the lost revenue from them being unable to attend sponsorship events. Little surprise, then, that these concerns are one of the arguments for bringing testing into the weekend schedule and getting the fans to pay to watch it. Which is just as well, as there is no simple way to actually solve the problem via legislation!