| | Associated Press
MONTREAL -- Team McLaren took part in its 500th Formula One Grand Prix Sunday, its drivers finishing fourth and seventh in the Canadian Grand Prix.
Although the elite British team, in its 34th season of racing in the world's most sophisticated and glamorous racing circuit, didn't have a good day Sunday, its overall level of accomplishment is unparalleled.
Since its first victory in 1968, Team McLaren has won 126 races, eight constructors' championships and 11 drivers' championships. It also has won 107 poles and had the fastest race lap 94 times.
In Formula One, the teams are required to build their own cars. But McLaren, founded by the late Bruce McLaren, has been associated with a long list of engine manufacturers, including Ford, BRM, TAG, Honda, Peugeot and current partner Mercedes.
Among its top drivers have been Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, James Hunt, Emerson Fittipaldi, Gerhard Berger and current stars Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard.
In F1, McLaren's record of winning once every four races is
unmatched.
"What's particularly pleasing about our statistics is our 25 percent score rate, the true measure of how successful a team is," said Ron Dennis, managing director of McLaren since 1984.
Its closest competitor is Ferrari, which preceded McLaren into the sport by 16 years and has won 130 times in 627 starts.
McLaren also has made its mark in other forms of racing. Among its accomplishments, McLaren dominated Can-Am from 1966-70, won the
Indianapolis 500 with Mark Donohue in 1972, and again with Johnny
Rutherford in 1974 and 1976, took the 24 Hours of Le Mans in its
first try in 1995 and won last year's European Formula 3000 with
Nick Heidfeld, now driving in F1 for the Prost Peugeot team.
Silly season underway
With the season nearing its halfway point, there already is plenty of speculation and rumors about driver changes in Formula One in 2001.
Among those being talked about are current F1 drivers Jacques
Villeneuve, Jenson Button and Johnny Herbert.
Villeneuve, the 1997 F1 champion who has struggled since moving
to the new British American Racing team in 1999, reportedly has
been offered a two-year deal for $35 million to move to Benetton.
Button, a rookie sensation with Team Williams, is being courted by the Jordan team and others. But the 20-year-old Englishman would only be available if Frank Williams decides to buy out the last year of the contract of current CART star Juan Montoya. Montoya was a test driver for Williams before being hired by his current boss, Chip Ganassi.
Jaguar driver Herbert, racing in Formula One since 1989, is expected to retire after this season. Speculation on his replacement mostly has centered on Jordan driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen.
Close call
Gaston Mazzacane, a rookie from Argentina, came
close to becoming the first Formula One driver to fail to qualify
for a race in more than two years.
Mazzacane, who drives for the have-not Minardi team, crashed his
primary car on his first lap in Saturday's only round of
qualifying.
After walking back to pit lane, Mazzacane jumped into the team's
spare car, preparing for teammate Marc Gene of Spain. But that
didn't help much because the engine was running on only nine of its
10 cylinders.
Mazzacane ran 10 laps in that car, but was coming up about four
seconds short of the 107 percent of the leader's speed needed to
make it into the starting field.
Finally, with only five minutes left in the qualifying session, Gene drove his car -- which he had just qualified 20th in the 22-car lineup -- back to the team garage on pit road. In desperation, Mazzacane slipped into that car and got out in time to run one lap at speed.
His time of 1 minute, 22.091 seconds, made him the slowest
driver in the field. But it also was within 104.7 percent of pole
winner Michael Schumacher's 1:18.439.
He drove his own repaired car Sunday, finishing one lap behind
the winner in 12th. Gene wound up 16th, five laps behind.
Spark plugs ...
Jacques Villeneuve, from French Canada and the son of the late Gilles Villeneuve, for whom the Montreal track is named, crashed out of the Canadian GP five laps from the end. The local favorite finished second in 1996, his first start here, and
has not placed better than 10th since, crashing the past two years.
Ron Dennis has been chosen a Commander of the Order of the
British Empire on Queen Elizabeth's annual list of birthday honors.
Among the celebrities seen here during the weekend were Paul
Newman, David Letterman, George Harrison and Emerson Fittipaldi.
Team Minardi had two of its engineers' computers stolen from
its garage Friday night. The team was unable to replace some of the
telemetry data from the hard drives on the stolen computers.
| |
ALSO SEE
Schumacher slips, slides to Canadian GP victory
 |
