Although the Prost team officially says that Technical Director Alan Jenkins hasn't resigned from the team, it seems that the Englishman has left after all - but because he was fired. According to team sources there was a certain amount of animosity between Jenkins and some of the French members of the design team, and team principal Alain Prost was presented with an ultimatum: either he goes, or we go. Ultimately, the sources say, Jenkins was the victim.
Nigel Stepney, the Ferrari chief mechanic whose leg was broken in Michael Schumacher's pit stop in the Spanish Grand Prix, is back in the Monaco pits, working for Ferrari. However, he won't be helping out with refuelling stops until he has fully recovered.
Monaco is a maximum downforce circuit and some teams sported rear wings with as many as ten elements. In the past, wings have sprouted from various parts of the car, in order to increase downforce and this year was no exception. The car with the most extra wings was Williams. Two little wings on stalks on each side pod, and another mounted just behind the top of the roll cage on the engine cover. "Believe it or not, they work," said team manager Dickie Standford. "We tested them at Nogaro and we put them on, took them off, tried one wing without the others and found there was quite a difference."
Mika Salo had a curious complaint after first practice in Monaco: he kept undoing his seat belt buckle, and at one point disappeared down into the monocoque when he braked, because there were no belts to hold him. "We go onto full lock around the Grand Hotel hairpin and as I pay off the lock, my glove is catching the seat belt buckle," said the Finn. "It undid the buckle one time and I had no belts for half a lap. But then I braked for the swimming pool section and there was nothing to hold me and I slid forward and down into the monocoque. I couldn't see anything. So I came into the pits to have the belts done up again!"
Honda and BAR are currently working on programme called Athena 200 which is a test programme for new technology. At the moment, it is limited to control systems within the cars, taking the chassis and engine management software and hardware and combining them. The programme began at the Nogaro test and will continue at Monza and Magny Cours. It is a combined Honda and BAR project, being undertaken by the Honda engineers who are working at BAR, with the help of the BAR engineers themselves.
Jordan is due to make an important announcement in the next week or so - but no one is saying what it is about. The general expectation is that it concerns either a sponsor (but there's no further room on the car), an engine deal (although they already have Mugen Hondas wrapped up), drivers (a bit early for that) or tyre wear or a designer for the coming year. The betting is on one of the latter.
The FIA was hard at work with their cash register at Monaco as three drivers were fined for speeding in the pit lane, where the limit is 60 kph. Pedro de la Rosa got away with $500, Michael Schumacher parted with some small change worth $750 while Ricardo Zonta spent rather more at $1500 as it was his second offence this year.
Medical car driver, Alex Ribeiro, started off Saturday morning in the worst possible way: by shunting the Mercedes Benz AMG 55 medical car. He was on a quick lap prior to the start of Saturday morning's first session when he hit the tyres and the barrier at the swimming pool, badly damaging the Mercedes. Fortunately, there was a spare car for use during the rest of the day. However, the Brazilian former Formula One driver could at least take comfort from the fact that he wasn't the first course car driver to do this at Monaco. More than ten years ago, Harry Schell's brother crashed the then new Lagonda Rapide at Rascasse and more damage was done to it when it was lifted onto a flat bed truck. And, just a couple of years ago, Jean Ragnotti crashed into the back of Taki Inoue's Footwork which was being towed back to the pits, while taking the FIA's press officer on a lap of the track.
