Sunday April 14th, 2002
Unlucky Cat
Jordan were supposed to be lucky this weekend. They were the proud recipients of a 'lucky cat' that visits a different team's garage each weekend, placed there by a television crew. The stuffed cat found its home in the Jordan garage for the Imola race, but it failed to bring them the luck of the Irish - because both cars went out of the race with only 20 of the 62 laps completed. The cat visited Minardi in Australia at the first race of the season, and driver Mark Webber scored a sensational two points, and it was with Toyota in Brazil, where they too scored a point through Mika Salo.
But it was not to be for Jordan, whose drivers Takuma Sato and Giancarlo Fisichella fell out of the race with gearbox problems and an hydraulics glitch respectively, and a team engineer was left grumbling: "It was useless. I don't know who had it in Malaysia. Maybe it is lucky every other race - but whatever, we're still not having it back!"
Battling On
Ferrari chief Luca di Montezemolo was seen parading around the Ferrari motorhome after his driver Michael Schumacher had confidently and convincingly pummelled the opposition to record a stunning victory in the Imola race. And as the Ferrari chief basked in his glory he bumped into Williams-BMW technical director Patrick Head as the defeated designer headed out of the paddock. The pair greeted each other and Head congratulated the Ferrari chief on his impressive victory but issued a cool departing warning when he said: "Well done... but we will not give up."
Bearded Wonders
The announcement that Jordan has linked up with Virgin mobile was an interesting one, as it had been rumoured by sources inside the team that they had "missed out" on a deal with mega-rich British entrepreneur Richard Branson's company before the start of the year. Clearly, then, there had been some re-negotiating in the planned deal - and if anyone was backing down it is a fair guess which side it would have been. However, the deal is now done and bearded Branson, who was not present in Imola because he was dealing with other business in Australia, admitted in the team's press release that he was delighted by the new partnership with a like-minded look-alike. "We bearded entrepreneurs have to stick together," he joked.
Red Wine Putdown
FIA president Max Mosley paid his first visit to a full Grand Prix weekend for two years and spent more than an hour talking to journalists in a press conference. But he made sure he didn't waste too much time with one question, which he immediately shot down. When asked if the big money manufacturers would spend money to develop advanced engines when others could not, he said: "I understand the point but that's really a real after dinner, second bottle of wine argument."
Mint Condition Sauber
The San Marino Grand Prix this weekend marked the 150th race for Sauber, but they did not go for champagne celebrations. There was little to stand the landmark event out from any other race for the little team which battles hard to fight with the big boys, but they did make some effort to show everybody they have now been around for quite a while - by giving out small round tins of mints with 'Sauber Petronas 150' stickers on the top. Understated, but typically Sauber.
They are now the 14th team in the list of Grand Prix starts and have scored 114 points since their debut, in 1993. That gives them an average score of 0.76 points per race - not quite as good as Ferrari, who have competed in the most Grands Prix at 656 and have an average points score of 4.15.
Published at 17:00:38 GMT
(03-11-2005): 
