We all know that you are anti-Ferrari/Italian, but my question is why? Is it solely because you are British?

Marco Cimmarusti

Dear Marco,

Forgive me, but I’m astounded that you should think me anti-Ferrari or, for that matter, anti-Italy. I’ve often said, half-jokingly, that if you didn’t need a passport to go to Italy, France or the USA, I’d be quite happy to do without one. I adore Italy, and always have.

For that matter, in my childhood, when all my friends were Lotus or BRM fans, I was always obsessively pro-Ferrari, and those who drove for the team. The romance and the magic of the name captivated me – nothing ever looked or sounded like a Ferrari.

All that said, I will admit that my feelings were diluted somewhat through the era just past, when Ferrari lost much of the ‘Italian’ ingredient that had always made it so appealing. Much as I have always admired Michael Schumacher the driver – how could anyone not? – I was never a fan, because I still happen to believe that ethics are important in sport, and I thought many of Schumacher’s actions contemptible.

So, yes, I’ll admit that I didn’t greatly enjoy that period when Michael and Ferrari were winning everything – apart from anything else, it got pretty boring to go off to the airport every couple of weeks, knowing before you left what you were going to see at Monaco, Spa, Monza or wherever.

More than anything, though, I disliked the fact that, on far too many occasions, Ferrari was singled out for ‘special treatment’. Time after time I listened to other team principals and drivers complain about there being ‘one law for Ferrari, and one for the rest of us’. You could hardly blame them, either – indeed, not long before he left office as FIA president, Max Mosley blithely admitted that Ferrari had been effectively granted the right of veto over technical regulations in F1. How could that ever be right?

These days, however, with Stefano Domenicali at the helm, Ferrari is much more like Ferrari again, and I’m delighted to see it. And a final thought, Marco: I’ve always said that if I were able to go to only one race a year, it would be Monza…

I am afraid we’ve had to cancel our podcast that was scheduled for June 11th. However, you’ll be pleased to know that it is for a very good reason: we have a guest coming in to talk to us in a couple of weeks. We won’t say who he is just yet, but rest assured that there will be plenty of questions you’ll want to ask him.

First of all, many thanks for all the great pieces you’ve written over the years, including your book on Gilles Villeneuve.

I know you have been asked numerous questions about Gilles, but would appreciate your thoughts on the following, especially as he was (and still is) my ultimate all-time F1 hero.

Firstly, what was Gilles like as an individual? Was he the carefree, yet fearless driver that everyone seems to remember?

And secondly – particularly after the issue with Didier Pironi and the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix – would Gilles have stayed with Ferrari?

I understand this is all hypothetical, but do you think he would have made a move to Williams, Lotus or McLaren?

D. Paul Moncur

Dear Paul,

Hard to believe, isn’t it, that we’re closing in on the 30^th anniversary of Gilles Villeneuve’s death? I’m glad you’ve enjoyed my writings on him over the years.

What was he like as an individual? Well, I’ve always said that I liked the man even more than I admired the driver. Formula 1 was, of course, much ‘freer’ in Villeneuve’s era than it is now, but even then there were those in the sport whom you upset at your peril, and an appealing aspect of Gilles’s character was that he was completely without guile, and would always say what he thought about a given person or situation, regardless of the possible consequences for himself. That, of course, made him wonderful company – no one in the paddock ever made me laugh more. Yes, he was healthily cynical about certain people and their actions, and would put his salty sense of humour to good use as he talked about them, but for all that I always saw Gilles as an innocent in F1. As Keke Rosberg said, “On the track he was the hardest bastard I ever raced against – but always (itals) completely (end itals) fair. If you’d beaten him to a corner, he would never think of chopping you. He was a giant of a racing driver…”

After the debacle with Didier Pironi at Imola in 1982, I called him a couple of days later, and have never – even in the Senna/Prost days – known a racing driver so angry. He wasn’t screaming and shouting, but the intensity of his fury was evident. Pironi had duped him, stolen a Grand Prix victory from him, and he told me he would never exchange another word with him. When I asked him if he would stay with Ferrari beyond the end of that season, he said he wasn’t sure – “For sure no, if Pironi’s there…”

My belief is that he would have left, for either McLaren or Williams. Frank was always a huge admirer, and Ron Dennis had got as far as discussing numbers with him. Gilles always used to say that he would find it very difficult to leave Ferrari – “Enzo always finds a way of talking me round!” – but there’s no doubt that the events at Imola, and Marco Piccinini’s subsequent refusal to criticise Pironi, affected him profoundly, and, yes, I believe he would have made the move.

Anyway, I thought it might be useful, amusing, or vaguely interesting to look back on my predictions for the season to assess the accuracy, or otherwise, of how things might go this year. You may remember that I suggested 10 things which might happen during, or by the close of, the 2010 season. I will take them in their original order, as I laid out the magic cards on January 4.

1. Hamilton and Alonso will tangle with each other – well, not yet they haven’t. Alonso has been too busy making mistakes on his own.

2.  Rossi will win the MotoGP title – no, he won’t, not after his horrendous crash at Mugello last Saturday. Although badly injured, Valentino has – according to the reliable Rick Broadbent in The Times – “discovered a great rapport with morphine”. Blimey.

3. Schumacher will win a race – not yet he hasn’t, but he still can. If only Mercedes could recapture the magic of Brawn GP.

4. Audi will win Le Mans – this time next week we’ll know.

5. Bernie Ecclestone will prepare to retire – no comment.

6. The Renault F1 team will be a shadow of its former self – just plain wrong.

7. Räikkönen will come back to F1 – still think he might. However Red Bull, which had been linked to Kimi, has now signed Webber for another year alongside Vettel.

8. Vettel will move to Mercedes – I think he will eventually.

9. Lotus F1 will be best newcomer – correct so far.

10. Somebody will run out of fuel before the end of a race – well, not yet, but it’s been extremely close on occasion. Virgin should have paid attention here.

OK, not a great result at this juncture you will no doubt be thinking. And you’d be right. But now we’re off to Montréal where anything can happen, and often does. The walls are very close and the grid will be very tight. And then there’s Le Mans  – a close-run thing between Peugeot and Audi for sure.

So, while we’re all stunned by the Rossi accident at Mugello and are suddenly acutely aware – by his absence on Sunday – just what a huge amount of excitement he brings to MotoGP, we have lots of other racing to look forward to.

Clark’s final race
One of the few English journalists at Hockenheim in ’68 recalls fateful day

Colin Chapman
The Lotus boss was a complicated but brilliant man, as a new book recalls

Goodwood preview
What’s new at the Festival of Speed

Renault’s renaissance
How F1 team overcame ’09 setbacks

The ‘new’ Silverstone
Racing royalty and the Duke of York turned out for the track’s relaunch

Sir Jackie Stewart’s scrapbook
The triple World Champion’s career has been uniquely captured in a new book

Lunch with… Tom Kristensen
We meet most successful Le Mans racer

Mark Blundell’s race return
He’s not raced for seven years, but now an Audi R8 GT3 and Spa are calling

Jaguar’s Le Mans return
American Paul Gentilozzi is readying an XKR GT2 for the 24 Hours

David Murray
The Ecurie Ecosse boss tasted success at Le Mans, so why did he disappear?

Road test: Jaguar XJ
New saloon combines charm and ability

Women in motor sport
Michèle Mouton and the FIA want to encourage more female racing drivers

Monaco Historique
Period F1, F3 and sports car action

Mille Miglia retro
BMW victorious, 70 years after first win

Classic Racing Cars
Don’t be put off by its bulk – the Jaguar XJ220 was one seriously quick car

“What can I say?” Webber beamed afterwards. “It’s hard to avoid the clichés, isn’t it – but this is the Monaco Grand Prix! I guess it has to be the proudest day of my career – to win here is a dream for every driver. A party tonight? Probably a lot of people are going to be here, rather than going home, because of the volcanic ash, so… yes, I’d say there’s likely to be a party tonight, with a few sore heads in the morning. The boys really deserve it – they work so incredibly hard…”

It had not been easy, he said – just keeping your concentration going for 78 laps around Monaco can never be easy – but it had been more straightforward than perhaps he might have expected. After qualifying the Red Bulls were again the strong favourites at this, a circuit at which they had not previously shone, but there was clearly some threat from the Renault of Robert Kubica, which separated Webber and Vettel on the grid, and lurking, too, were Felipe Massa’s Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren.

Kubica, as it happened, got a little too much wheelspin away from the line, which allowed Vettel to snick through on the run to Ste Devote. “That pretty much decided second place,” said Sebastian, but I couldn’t do anything about Mark today – he was just too quick – and in fact I was concentrating more on my mirrors today, because Robert was never very far away.”

Indeed he wasn’t. “A lot of the time I think I was actually a bit quicker than Vettel, particularly on restarts, but…it’s almost impossible to pass here, you know, and late in the race I flat-spotted a tyre, and then had terrible vibration from it. I drove hard today, and I think third place is not too bad…”

The Monaco Grand Prix effectively ended ‘under yellow’, for at Rascasse a couple of backmarkers – Trulli and Chandhok – became entangled in a nasty-looking incident, the Lotus going over the top of the HRT. Neither driver was hurt, but the safety car was instantly deployed, and such was the quantity of debris that, with only three laps left, there seemed little chance of restarting the race proper.

As it was, the safety car pulled off at the end of the final lap (so as not to appear on all the ‘chequered flag’ photographs), and it was at this point that Michael Schumacher suddenly made a desperate lunge past Fernando Alonso for sixth place.

What is it about Schumacher and Rascasse? On his last appearance at Monaco, in 2006, Michael ‘parked’ his Ferrari at the corner, thus blocking the track in an attempt to protect his pole position from last-second attack. For that, he was put to the back of the grid, and most felt he got off very lightly.

This time around he passed Alonso at the end of the final lap – which had been run as a ‘safety car’ lap, and therefore precluded overtaking before the start/finish line. Afterwards the stewards debated the matter for hours, and one didn’t really understand why, for it seemed like an open-and-shut case. Eventually it was announced that Schumacher had indeed transgressed, but as the regular penalty – a ‘drive through’ – could not be applied as this was the last lap, a time penalty of 20 seconds was imposed instead.

Much earlier in the race there had already been muttering about Schumacher, who got ahead of Mercedes team-mate Rosberg, and remained narrowly there until lap 19, when he came in for tyres. With a clear track in front of him Nico cut loose at this point, setting new fastest laps on consecutive laps, and it seemed clear that he would be ahead of Schumacher after his own stop. As it was, for reasons unclear to all but the ultra-cynical, Mercedes decided not to bring Rosberg in until lap 28, by which time his tyres had gone way past their best. When he rejoined Nico came out just behind… Michael Schumacher…

Alonso, never at the best of times exactly a fan of the great man, was furious about the Rascasse incident, in which he came close to hitting the barriers, but already he had been on the back foot all day, having started from the pit lane, stone last. In the Saturday morning practice session, having just set the fastest time, Fernando clattered into the fence at Massenet, and although the impact speed was not that high, the Ferrari’s monocoque was damaged, obliging him to miss qualifying altogether – no T-cars allowed these days, of course.

Alonso had been fastest in both sessions on Thursday, and was very much a man to fear for the Red Bull boys. He makes remarkably few mistakes in a Grand Prix car, but this one – who knows? – might ultimately cost him the World Championship.

For McLaren, Monaco was a consummate disappointment, with Hamilton finishing fifth after never featuring, and the unfortunate Jenson Button retiring after a couple of laps, his engine cooked after someone forgot to remove a cooling cover from the left hand sidepod – where resides the radiator…

No such problems for Webber, though – no problems of any kind, in fact. The Red Bull is unquestionably the fastest car – and at the moment the man who is driving it fastest is one derided by some as a hard trier, and very brave, but essentially an artisan at the wheel. At Monte Carlo, as at Barcelona, he looked like an artist.

One of our favourite parts of doing these podcasts is the variety of questions that we get sent in so if you haven’t yet done so, make sure you ask the team a question for next month by clicking here.

And because it features so much in this month’s recording… here’s that radiator…

1950s
At the start of the World Championship the Italians ruled, but then came the rise of the Brits

1960s
A decade of technical innovation, with rear-engined cars coming to the fore, led by Lotus and Jim Clark

1970s
The ’60s had been a deadly era, but this was no better, until Jackie Stewart started his campaign for safety

1980s
The struggle for power between the teams and FOCA reaches a head, and is repeated by Senna and Prost

1990s
A black weekend for F1 with the death of Senna, followed by the rise of Schumacher (and Max and Bernie)

2000s
Schuey continues his red rule, before a new generation bring the excitement back to Formula 1 racing

Bahrain celebration
Nearly every living World Champion was at the first race of the season to mark 60 years of F1

Other features

Lunch with… Riccardo Patrese
His mother wanted him to study, not go racing. Luckily for us he defied her…

Road test: Rolls-Royce Ghost
More affordable Rolls impresses

Classic Racing Cars
’80s tin-tip legend and a must-have for wideboys – the Ford Sierra Cosworth

Some people ask why CART’s old Indy or Champ Cars and the IRL’s current Indycars put on a better show with closer racing and more passing. One reason is that when F1 went to flat bottoms more than 20 years ago CART stayed with a Lotus 79-style ‘tunnel car’. Mario Andretti insisted that flat-bottomed cars were much too pitch-sensitive and more difficult to drive in close quarters, therefore discouraging close racing and passing. Mario’s concept was an integral element of CART’s and then Champ Car’s rules until the latter’s demise in 2008, and was the primary reason why Champ Cars put on a better show.

Of course, the IRL went down an entirely different route. Contemporary IRL cars are seriously restricted on horsepower and downforce, and are designed to run around in a pack. Passing is extremely difficult but the cars do tend to stay close together much like in a NASCAR restrictor-plate race. Yet the IRL’s formula has proven spectacularly unpopular as the series struggles to draw crowds to most races and its television ratings have plunged to miserable new lows.

A key element in the IRL’s formula is the massive amount of drag designed into the cars by the rules. In discussing the new Delta Wing Indycar concept Chip Ganassi told me that designer Ben Bowlby emphasised the excessive amount of drag required by the IRL’s rules. “Ben pointed out to me that an Indycar has more drag than a stock car!” Ganassi exclaimed. “I said, ‘How can an open-wheel car have more drag than a big, full-bodied NASCAR?’ That’s not the way it should be. But that’s how we, as rule-makers, have allowed it to be.”

Surely the people who write the rules have defined far too many of the specifications for today’s racing cars, F1 included. Darn near every element of the cars are specified by the rulebook. Today, there’s no room to create something that’s at all innovative like a rear-engined Cooper-Climax or a Lotus 79. Instead, we’re supposed to drool over the latest aerodynamic refinements to wing endplates and so forth. But these things are way too arcane, if not trivial, for most race fans. Clearly, people are tired of watching the same basic package that we’ve seen for the past 20 or more years.

Something radical is desperately needed, and that’s why I think the Delta Wing concept is a great thing, just to shake up everyone’s thinking. This spirit drove the sport for most of its history but there’s no longer any room for out-of-the-box thinking. If Colin Chapman was alive today, he’d shake his head and walk away, disgusted with the spec car syndrome that has infected the sport at every level, F1 again included.

Of course, if the rules were to be opened up F1’s team principals would complain that it would be too expensive and would result in too many different solutions and probably in one concept proving much quicker than anything else, making all others obsolete. No doubt there’s some truth to this riposte, but that doesn’t mean the sport isn’t in dire need of inspired technical leadership to recreate itself in a way that intrigues and excites more of us.

Launches of new racing cars fall into two main categories – the absurdly lavish with dry ice, awful music and dancing girls. Or the nicely businesslike (as in Williams every year) where the car is the star and you have a gut feeling about its prospects.

The unveiling of the new Lotus fell into the latter category. Well, OK, it was a little bit glitzy but not absurdly so.

The Lotus-Cosworth T127 is a great-looking racing car, at least as far as is possible in the modern era. And great-looking racing cars are often quick racing cars. Not always, granted, but if they look right, then they invariably are right. Of course, looks are a subjective thing, but I like what Mike Gascoyne has done with his first car for the Malaysian version of the old Team Lotus.

The colour scheme is terrific – enough green and yellow to acknowledge its heritage without being a ghastly pastiche of the real thing. Clean, simple lines and a purposeful feel about the ‘package’, as it’s known these days. I am a fan of Gascoyne and his work. I’m aware that a great many people find him difficult, rather too bullish, but I find his attitude acceptable in a world that is so often pasteurised, homogenised and corporately correct. I believe, also, that he has built some good cars which, given a bit more development, could have been great. We know that looks are not everything, but somehow the T127 gets off on the right foot even when it’s standing still.

In the highly complex world of aerodynamics and aeronautical engineering that pervades modern Grand Prix racing the tiniest pieces of bodywork can take a car to the front of the grid or leave it languishing at the back. So we will have to wait a couple of months before we know whether Gascoyne has got this one right. The hard work begins now, in Jerez, and the big test will be in Bahrain and beyond. There will be problems, there will be frustrations, but a man of Jarno Trulli’s experience will know, pretty much as soon as he leaves the pitlane, how effective the new Lotus will be.

One of the most important things a Grand Prix car has to do is combine speed through the air with grip in the corners. That sounds obvious, but it’s a fine balance, a sweet spot that eludes even the best engineers.

In 2006, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, I remember studying the Renault R26 in which Fernando Alonso had won his second World Championship. Nearby, Dan Gurney was doing a TV interview, during which he observed that – were he a piece of air – then this was the car he’d most like to drive through him. We knew what he meant. Tim Densham’s car looked right straight out of the box and, developed by Densham/Bell and Symonds, it wafted Alonso to a second consecutive title.

Of course, we can also think of great-looking F1 cars that failed to live up to their looks. For various and very different reasons, Dan Gurney’s beautiful Eagle and the gorgeous Brabham BT45 did not translate beauty into winning. There are always exceptions. But consider the cars of Gordon Murray, surely the most visually stunning of the modern era. They looked right, they were right, and they won a great many races. And yes, I know, there were exceptions even then.

I wish Lotus well. We all know it’s not the “real thing” but it’s a good name to have on the grid and my instinct is that it will be the best of the new teams as the season unfolds.

We have our own reservations about the use of the name by an all-new squad, but would those most closely associated with Team Lotus feel the same? We asked Paul Fearnley to find out as part of our celebration of Lotus in F1, the centrepiece of the March issue of Motor Sport. The verdict? Well, read the magazine to find out!

As part of the Lotus special, editor-in-chief Nigel Roebuck recounts his personal memories of Team Lotus and explains why the team means so much to him. Meanwhile, lucky Andrew Frankel gets behind the wheel of the F1 car that first inspired him: Mario Andretti’s Type 79, the ‘wing’ car that stormed the 1978 World Championship. And Rob Widdows meets Fernandes and Gascoyne to hear about the revival of Lotus in F1.

From a personal point of view, this issue felt like a long time coming. In fact, it seemed as if it would never end! Hopefully that should come across when you read it (in a good way) because there is plenty between the covers.

Highlights include more from the 1970s, as dep ed Gordon Cruickshank witnesses a very cool reunion: Andy Rouse and the British Leyland Jaguar XJC tin-topper, the epitome of that romantic motor racing standard – the glorious failure! Then it’s that man Frankel again as we remember the Tour of Britain, which attracted stars from stage and track – plus the odd Radio 1 DJ…

Finally, I must mention Simon Taylor’s latest ‘Lunch with’ interview. He met March co-founder Robin Herd for what would prove to be an entertaining bout of reminiscence, but in a venue with a twist. You’ll find out what I mean on page 74.

The April issue is already well underway, and so far it’s coming together nicely. In fact, I’d better get back to it! In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the March edition and do let us know your thoughts on the return of Lotus to F1.