I've received several complaints over the last few weeks. (Yeah OK, that's nothing new but these complaints aren't in Dutch). It seems all is not right in the world of Ferrari Fandom. Apparently, we non-Ferrari fans are not being vociferous enough in our support of Ferrari. (I must admit that while they have a case, I don't think they have a point). Furthermore, I have failed to realize that the unquestioned dominance of Ferrari has brought more non-Ferrari fans into the sport than ever before. (In this case, I don't think they have a case or even a small valise).

Nevertheless, these are the only comments I have been receiving lately so either:

(a) they are right and the entire world has switched their allegiance to Ferrari including people who have never heard of F1 before,

or

(b) the rest of the F1 world lost interest about a month ago and now spends their Sunday afternoons calling Trulli's hairdresser.

In either event, it seems my entire audience consists of Ferrari fans and so I figured I'd try to write for my audience.

INDY CLIFF-HANGER LEAVES FANS BEGGING FOR MORE

Of all Michael Schumacher's victories, this was certainly one of them. In a race for the ages, Ferrari Superstar, Rubens Barrichello and the Ober-Mann, Michael Schumacher fought tooth and nail from flag to flag, asking no quarter, giving their all for the honor of bringing glory to the Scuderia. (We're not worthy. We're not worthy).

As the world held its breath, Schumacher came out of the pits after his last pit stop a mere three hundredths of an inch in front of Barrichello. Rubens of course could have challenged Schumacher for the win and probably forced a dead heat but he honorably chose to ensure the greater glory of Ferrari by providing a photo-op 1-2 as the chequered flag dropped.

After the race, the FIA announced several awards. Whilst normally the F1 awards dinner is at the end of the year, the FIA, in their infinite wisdom, decided that there wasn't much point waiting. The winners and runners-up were as follows:

BEST TEAM               Ferrari
                        (None nominated)

BEST DRIVER             Schumacher
                        Barrichello

BEST RACE WIN           Schumacher
                        Schumacher

BEST YOUNG DRIVER       Schumacher

BEST IN SHOW            Ferrari

BEST BOY                Ferrari

And so on...

BUT SERIOUSLY,

Ferrari fans can stop reading now. This race was “ninth verse, same as the first”. There was little doubt before the cars showed up on Thursday and no less doubt after qualifying. I know Ferrari fans want me to go all weak-kneed just because I'm lucky enough to be alive at the same time as Schumacher but apparently they have certain skills that I don't. It seems that they can perceive the difference between Schumacher going through a certain corner at 140 mph and somebody else going through that same corner at 137 mph. I just can't see it. Especially as most of the time you really can't see it because he's not on screen. (Apparently the TV directors are not true F1 fans because they keep showing shots of cars racing for position instead of studiously documenting every single lap that Schumacher drives. Well, that and the pit stops of course).

There was some interesting and exciting stuff in this race behind the Ferraris and that's all well and good, but let's remember that the real point of sporting competition is to determine the winner and nobody really cares who comes fifth. If that is your requirement, then for you, just like me, F1 is no longer a sporting competition. At least you don't have to watch it!

WILLIAMS DISQUALIFIED

Reacting to criticism that they acted too slowly in showing Montoya the black flag, the FIA have today disqualified him from the French GP in two weeks. Just for good measure, they also disqualified Ralf Schumacher, banned Frank Williams from the track and imposed a suspended sentence on Patrick Head for being obnoxious. Seven other teams were fined $10,000 each and will start from the pit lane. Minardi were forced to hand over their lunch money and Jordan were left as they were, which was considered punishment enough.

MONTOYA DOES THE HOKEY POKEY

You put your driver in.
You take your driver out.
You put your driver in.
Then you shake him all about.

I thought JPM was going to disappear up his own wazoo as he ran from grid to pit to grid and back again as the rest of the field rolled off on the formation lap. Seems they couldn't get the car started on the grid and the team thought that their race performance might suffer a little as a result.

McLaren was believed to be studying Williams' starting procedure as copying this tactic would save them from blowing up a couple of engines every week.

FIA COVERS ITSELF WITH...

Well, you know, the same stuff they normally cover themselves with. (And its not glory). Fourteen out of the first nineteen laps were run behind the safety car; failure to red flag the race after the first corner incident led directly to two further incidents - one of which might have caused significant injury and could have been much worse; completely failing to notice that the first accident caused the second and third accidents, they still allowed the cars to keep running around and around, through the minefield of carbon fiber debris time and time again; nobody attended Ralf in his car for more than 90 seconds after his accident; it took an hour and a half to DQ Montoya (according to the exclusive Atlas F1 interview, they were busy attending to other matters but they don't seem to have been taking care of much of anything else except perhaps for looking for the next prawn sandwich).

You think they would have learnt by now. If Ralf had been more seriously hurt, or worse, and this was in Italy, there'd be several team members in jail right now and the prosecutor would be trying to figure out whether the puncture caused the crash or the crash caused the puncture.

DID ANYBODY NOTICE?