The spills that chilled the pit lane

Richard Williams examines fears that Formula One is playing with fire

IF YOU want to know about the true state of grand prix racing, don't ask a spokesman, or a team owner, or a driver. Ask a mechanic. The one I talked to on Sunday night at Interlagos, a few hours after the end of the Brazilian Grand Prix, could hardly speak. A total of three hours' sleep over the previous three days, plus the strain of the season's first race, had drained him. But there were things he wanted to get off his chest.

As we spoke, the race stewards were considering the evidence that would lead, later that night, to the disqualification of the first two finishers, Michael Schumacher and David Coulthard. Darkness had fallen over the pits, and the only sound was the clatter of equipment being crated up for shipment to Argentina and the next round of the championship, a week today.

My friend had many things on his mind, and all of them, apart from a yearning for a good night's rest, were to do with criticisms of the way the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile, motor sport's governing body, is going about the business of making and administering the rules of Formula One racing.

The race in Sao Paulo provided a lamentable opening to a season in which we were promised an application of the regulations so rigorous that no one would dare to offend against either the letter or the spirit. But when the new rules faced their first test, what we had was a familiar shambles.

My friend complained about various signs of what he took to be favouritism and political bias. But the thing that really bothered him was what he had seen, through exhausted eyes, at three o'clock that morning.

After completing the night's adjustments and repairs, the mechanics of the McLaren and Benetton teams took the opportunity to try out their high- speed refuelling routine, with the equipment supplied to them for the forthcoming season. This is the gear, manipulated by two mechanics in helmets and fireproof overalls, that can pump in 70 or 80 litres of petrol while the rest of the team change all four wheels in under 10 seconds. Supplied to the teams in a uniform specification, it was designed and built by a French company, Intertechnique, at the behest of the FIA, which decided last year to reintroduce refuelling in order to spice up the action. It is not compulsory, but it opens up the possibility of carrying a smaller, lighter fuel load, and that is an offer no racing car designer would turn down.

It has always been controversial, because its heightens the risks of an already perilous environment. But what happened in the early hours of last Sunday morning spooked every mechanic in the pit lane.

Both teams experienced several fuel spills while going through their rehearsals. And the amounts spilled, it seems, were greater than the two litres which sprayed from the nozzle over Jos Verstappen's Benetton at Hockenheim last summer, engulfing the car in a sheet of flame which gave photographers the season's most spectacular images. The Verstappen fire was caused by an unauthorised modification to the equipment; but the more recent problems appeared to be the result of design or manufacturing flaws.

The mechanics, I was told, were terrified by the problems in a system they had been told was foolproof. Before the race, it seems, an official suggested that they should avoid accidents by taking it more slowly and carefully; but try telling that to a racing team attempting to get their driver in and out of the pits with a couple of seconds' advantage and a grand prix at stake. To ask for caution amidst such intensity is to invite the Thames to flow backwards.

Some weeks earlier, during a pre-season equipment trial, the McLaren team experienced a spill estimated by Ron Dennis, the team boss, at 10 kilos, or about 12 litres (others now say it was in fact about half that). Luckily, the car's engine was cold and its electrics switched off. They traced the problem to an incorrectly fitted valve, which was reported to Intertechnique, who modified it immediately. Fair enough - until the Ligier team discovered that the equipment supplied to them was full of metal shavings.

Max Mosley, the president of the FIA, thinks there is no cause for alarm. "The McLaren problem was caused by incorrect assembly," he told me on Friday. "That, and Ligier's problem, were the result of teams ordering their equipment late, which meant it was manufactured in a hurry. I don't think we're going to have any more difficulties."

He ascribed the spills in the wee small hours at Interlagos to misuse of equipment. "There's a safety clamp which attaches it to the car, operated by a trigger," he said. "If it's held open, fuel can spill out. That's what was happening. Now they've been told to use it properly."

Anyway, Mosley said, these were "negligible spills - perhaps a cupful". But is there any such thing as a "negligible spill" of inflammable liquid in an environment of hot metal, large petrol containers, and hundreds of bystanders, many wearing no protective clothing beyond a laminated VIP pass?

"Yes," he said. "A cupful of petrol doesn't make much of a fire. And it's quite hard to set light to such a small amount."

My friend in the pits has a different opinion on that one. He thinks Mosley is playing with fire. He had better be wrong.