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Another dead Jaguar at the side of the road?
The Jaguar F1 race car for 2002 was called the R3. It turned
out that it was no fast cat, but more of a dog in cat’s
clothing. The replacement, called the (HR) R3B (Hurriedly
Revised R3) is not much better and the designer John Russell
has reputedly fallen on his sword, or swallowed his sack of
gold severance pay or something similar. Russell, a former
race engineer who had worked with Mansell, Patrese, Hill and
Coulthard at Williams became Jaguar’s chief designer two
years ago. Many insiders were surprised that he survived the
major re-organisation at the end of 2000 when Steve Nichols
took over from Gary Anderson, who had recruited him.
 Jaguar
F1 car – Courtesy Pitpass and Bothwell Photographics
With Jaguar having to toe the FoMoCo line
these days - cost cutting has been very prevalent. Another
“road kill” Jaguar has been the supercharged 3 litre V6
X-Type R saloon, a 330 bhp M3 BMW eater which was to have been
released in 2004 with prototypes having been seen testing in
Europe and the UK this year. Goodbye!
The F-Type sports car, the E-Type of the
new millennium, has also been the victim of the Ford
juggernaut and is another dead Jaguar at the side of the road.
 Jaguar
R Coupe
The R-Coupe, which is a great looking vehicle, has also
gone to the taxidermists I believe. More road kill! Shame
really, as Jaguar as a manufacturer was looking strong, with
innovative new designs for the next decade.
What did we learn from the German Grand Prix?
Well, the first thing was that Michael
Schumacher may have already won the 2002 World Championship,
but he is still hungry. He dominated Germany, being the
fastest in practice, fastest in qualifying, fastest in the
race warm-up, set the fastest lap of the race and won
outright. That is total domination!
Another fact that came out of the German GP
was that although these race cars are the most expensive
Sunday run-abouts in the world, less than 50% of them managed
to see the chequered flag at the end. That’s right, there
were 10 finishers from the 21 starters (Alex Yoong failing to
get a start, being again too slow). Very few of those
retirements from the event were through driver error
(otherwise known as “crashes”) and unreliability was
certainly the name of the game. When a race car costs umpteen
millions of dollars (not baht) to build, one should expect a
finishing record of better than 50% in my book.
Another fact that came out of what was
really a fairly dull race was that Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi
Raikkonen have big cojones! The side by side battle through
several corners was definitely the highlight of the event.
Both have a big future and it would be interesting to see what
Raikkonen could do in a Ferrari F2002.
What else did we learn? Certainly one thing
- the race commentators we get on the HK feeder are abysmal.
Talk about one-sided! The one who is attempting to be
“Muddly Talker” is obviously in love with Jenson Button
and Jacques Villeneuve and you can be guaranteed that with
about 10 laps to go and with Schumacher well in command he
will say, “Have you noticed that Schumacher is slowing. I
think he has a problem.” He is also the architect of the
so-called “Michelin dip”. This is where he opines that
after the opening laps when the Michelin race tyre is quick,
it then goes “off” for a few laps and then comes good
again. This is absolute rubbish. When a race tyre goes off, it
does not magically renew itself. Not at all. All that is
happening is that after the first few adrenaline charged laps
the driver settles down and takes stock of where he is, how
the car is, getting instructions from his pit, etc., before
then getting on with the serious business of trying to win
motor races.
F1 Championship standings
Michael Schumacher 106
Juan Pablo Montoya 40
Rubens Barichello 36
Ralf Schumacher 35
David Coulthard 32
Kimi Raikkonen 17
Chopstix Grand Prix in 2004?
Reports to hand are that Shanghai has signed an
agreement to host an F1 GP between 2004 and 2010. It has been
an open secret that Asia would get another GP, but since the
calendar is already full, the only way that can happen is by
Europe losing a race. The bad news for the EU doesn’t stop
there either, as there is also supposed to be a Middle East GP
coming as well (probably Bahrain), so Europe will lose two
GP’s.
With tobacco advertising still allowed in China, and for
the foreseeable future, the advertising lobby would be happy
to see the GP’s leave Europe where cigarette advertising is
banned in most countries - which is why the McLaren Mercedes
cars were branded “David” and “Kimi” instead of the
“West” signage.
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Autotrivia Quiz
Last week I mentioned that in 1934, in the
UK you could buy an exchange engine for 9 pounds 10 shillings
(the 8 horsepower model) or go the whole hog and spend 11
pounds 10 shillings for the 14.9 and 24 horse models. Those
prices included labour charges too! The question was what
vehicle manufacturer was it in the UK offering the exchange
engine service? This was also the first of its type in the UK,
by the way.
The answer was good old FoMoCo, AKA Ford
Motor Company.
So to this week. And an easy one. We have
been mentioning Jaguar - why did they change the name of the
company to Jaguar from its previous name?
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be
the first correct answer to fax 038 427 596 or email automania
@pattayamail.com
Good luck!
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More “dead” Jaguars?
According to Autoweek Jaguar has three
months to get its act together or get out of Formula One.
Apparently Ford’s new chief executive Nick Scheele has
warned the team that time is running out: “I have given
Richard Parry-Jones 12 weeks to tell me what we have to do to
fix it to become podium material,” says Scheele.
“It’s fair to say that F1 is not doing
for Jaguar’s image what we had hoped. But if there is anyone
going to get hold of the situation it will be Richard,” adds
Scheele.
Meanwhile there are whispers in some quarters that an
ฃ8m severance package is being lined up for team boss
Niki Lauda.
Train
the Trainer - or Quiz the Quizzer?
Had an interesting email come through to the Autotrivia
Quiz, where a chap named Rob Davis in London asked me
did I know when was the first use of microchips in motor
cars. I am told that a Jack Kirby created the first
microchip in 1958. The first microprocessor - where they
put more than one microchip together to perform certain
tasks - may have been invented in 1970. In the early
70’s came electronic ignition and electronic fuel
injection. Again, from hazy memory, the Bosch K-Jetronic
fuel injection was seen in Porsches in 1973/74 in the
Californian spec 2.4 litre engines. I “think” they
had microchip technology. Again, if anyone out there
knows more specifically let me know and I will pass on
the information to Rob.
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Driving overseas - in
particular in the UK
The trials and tribulations of licensed
driving overseas continues, and I do thank David Jeater and
Roger Womersley who contacted me through Automania after my
request for more information. David pointed out that my idea
of getting my original UK licence renewed (or re-issued) would
not have worked anyway because anyone without a permanent
address in the UK cannot get a replacement licence. This
applied to David on his last visit to England and I guess will
apply to many UK ex-pats living in Thailand. Of course, I
suppose you can always use a UK member of the family’s
address, if you don’t mind a little “fudge”.
David also mentioned that the rental car
firm in the UK (if you are going to use one) should accept the
Thai licence as it is legal to drive on it in the UK. He did
say that a translation might be helpful, but I would be
interested to know if anyone has rented in the UK on a Thai
licence.
Roger felt that there were other problems
with an International Driving Licence (IDL) in the UK,
writing, “As far as I know you cannot drive in the UK on
only an International Driving Licence, you must also have a
valid national driving licence on which you can drive: this is
regardless of an IDL which is irrelevant insofar as the UK is
concerned.” However, to get an IDL issued from your country
of residence does need you to hold a national licence from
that country.
I must say, I remain a little in the dark.
Anyone else who can shine a little light on this can contact
me through automania@pat tayamail.com
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I presume the letters would stand for Aston
Martin Limited, but keeping the number plate for 33 years
isn’t a bad record. Wonder where they store it these days?
