I wish there was something more to write about as we head into the last Grand Prix of the season. With Ferrari's total domination of the sport this season and the lurid "team" tactics displayed so far this year by Herr Schumacher, the spectacle that was once the premiere motor sporting series in the world has lost much of its shine. Let us hope that 2003 brings more competition and excitement (but I sincerely doubt it the way Ferrari is going).

F1 big boss Bernie Ecclestone and his sidekick Max Mosley are throwing around some pretty crazy ideas in an effort to spice up the spectacle. Among the ideas are weighing down the faster cars or forcing drivers to switch to a competing team's car every race. I personally believe they are only throwing these crazy ideas out there in order to get the public all stirred up, thereby making it easier for them to initiate changes that will seem more "moderate" by comparison. Very shrewd, these two gentlemen.....

No surprises at all in qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix at the beautiful and challenging Suzuka circuit (it is built on the site of a giant
amusement park and the Japanese apparently have to enter into a lottery in order to get tickets with the chances only being about 1 in 6 of winning a seat). The Ferraris easily took the front row, Michael looking like he was on a Sunday drive in the park. After his fiasco "photo finish" at Indy two weeks ago I believe Michael will simply drive away from his teammate and the entire field in this race. Only a fool would try to do anything else in his position.

Alan McNish was trying really hard in what may prove to be his last GP start. So hard that he literally FLEW off the course backwards at about 120 m.p.h. after missing a corner exit. If you get a chance to see the footage it will make your hair stand on end and you will appreciate why McNish was looking as white as a ghost after climbing out of the remains of his car.

The rest of the race is mildly exciting. The two McLarens seem to have a decent setup for this relatively high downforce circuit. They will battle
with the two Williams for 3rd to 6th places. It will interesting to see if Montoya and Ralph manage to stay away from each other in this race (I doubt it). The Honda engined cars will battle it out with Sato trying to impress his home crowd and Villeneuve trying to display his talent.

Jaguar was unlucky in qualifying. De la Rosa made a mess of most of his two days, but Irvine seemed to show enough promise to hook up into the top ten. Unfortunately, he suffered an engine failure right in the middle of his fast lap, thereby relegating him to 14th position on the grid (2.5 seconds off the pace). His teammate struggled to make 17th. As team manager Niki Lauda commented, the Jaguar does not have a satisfactory setup for high downforce tracks (Suzuka has a lot of medium speed corners). So don't expect them to do very well tomorrow.

Predictions? Assuming I manage to stay awake until 2:30 a.m. when this race finishes, Michael will run away and win it easily, with his teammate a distant second. One or two of the McLarens or Williams will not finish, but the other two will take the 3-4 spots. For the rest who knows, I suppose half the Honda engined cars will avoid engine detonation and finish in the top ten. Don't expect Jaguar to finish strongly though unless there is a high attrition rate. The most exciting part of the race may very well be the Ralph versus Juan Pablo battle; let's hope they continue it!

Race Report

Zzzzzzz...... is it over yet?

And so went the 2002 version of the Japanese Grand Prix and the last race of this unbearably long season. Yes, I was crazy enough to stay up until 3 a.m. in order to see the chequered flag. How as it? Let me put it to you this way: even the highlights reel was boring.

Schumacher pushed the button on his launch control and rocketed away into the lead. Barrichello, second on the grid, moved across to block David Coulthard in the McLaren and........ that was about it for drama. By lap ten Schumacher was 15 seconds ahead of the first non-Ferrari. He never looked back and won the race easily. His teammate Barrichello followed 5 or 10 seconds behind and finished second. As predicted by yours truly, one of the McLarens crapped out (Coulthard), one of the Williams crapped out (Ralph) and two of the Honda engined cars blew up (Panis and Villeneuve). Absolutely NOTHING interesting or even remotely exciting happened in this race. Jaguar started far down the grid and Eddie drove an uncompetitive car to ninth place. His teammate broke down. Bye-bye 2002 and so long to the R3. Wanna buy a used F1 car?

The only nice thing to happen all day was seeing Takumo Sato take fifth place in front of this home crowd, his best finish ever. Apparently the
points were worth quite a bit to the team also, as they will bag an extra 2 million pounds of FIA money as a result of their placing in the year end results.

That's it for this year. We'll be back in a couple of months with a preview of 2003. Here's a sneak look: Ferrari will once again be miles ahead of the competition and Jaguar will have to build an entirely new car from scratch if they are to have any hope of success. Best of luck to them!