S7 E6: 1999 Malaysian GP - Schumacher's incredible comeback

The Athletic Formula 1's first visit to Sapan in 1999 was unforgettable. Michael Schumacher made his glorious return after breaking his leg earlier in the year at Silverstone, promptly smashed everybody in qualifying, then set about becoming the best number two F1 has ever seen as he handed the race to his title chasing teammate, Eddie Irvine. The drama then continued after the race as both Ferraris were thrown out, Mick Hackinum was declared world champion with a race to spare and in a week later Ferraris got that decision overturned once again setting up a final round showdown at Suzuka. We're going to dig deep beneath the surface of all of that and much more on this episode of Bring Back V10s and joining me, Glen Freeman to do that are Gary Anderson and Karun Chandak. Gary, you were there, your Stuart team were there that weekend in Malaysia. When you think of F1's first visit to Sapan, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Yeah, well obviously it was a very nice to go to a new circuit and it was a fantastic circuit and we were coming from the European Grand Prix, the previous Grand Prix where Johnny had won in adverse conditions I suppose you might call it and Irvine was third so we were going there with quite a high momentum of motivation I think again and Johnny had definitely found his feet so as the weekend progressed, Johnny was definitely back in contention to be the driver that we always knew he was, whereas it struggled a little bit in the middle of the year. But the circuit was fantastic, all air conditioned offices and everything he ever wanted and it was a real challenge circuit as well, fast, slow, long straights. It was a good compromise circuit. Yeah, it's a great track and we'll talk about it in a bit more depth later on. Karun, good to have you back with us for another episode in this series, what stands out for you about that weekend. Michael Schumacher's qualifying lap. I mean, this was a guy who the last time we saw him was plowing into the barrier and still with the British Grand Prix months earlier. And then there was all this stuff about can you drive, can't you drive, you use an open ring football when he's telling people he can't drive, etc, etc. and then he arrives bang, six races off and he's on pole by nearly a second. Yeah, it's incredible plenty to go into there as well. Let's hear what those of you on Twitter chose as your stand out memories. Not for the first time this series, we had over a hundred suggestions for this. So thank you to everyone who sent something in. And sorry, I can't get to all of them. Naturally, most of those replies this time involve the words Schumacher and or bargeboards. So let's clear some of those first. We'll start with Schumacher. His return that we've already mentioned a couple of times was chosen by Nico. Gareth Langley, who said he took it for granted as an eight year old, just how good that performance was. We also had it from I racing Aussie, black mask, Sean Gibson and Hamilton, Lyndon Griffiths. Steve Bishop and Mimi mentioned the story Karun mentioned there about Luke and the Montezemolo finding out Schumacher was out playing football after he'd said he wasn't fit to come back for the final races. On to the bargeboard mentions a few shout outs specifically for Ross Broad holding a ruler up against one on the Sunday night. Thanks to Jamie O'Leary, Stephen Briggs and James Proudfoot for that. Aaron Collins, Richard Towler, Colin Mills and Gareth Jenkins also mentioned bargeboards. And some of you even said this was the race where you learned what a bargeboard was. Jason Ting says this was my first ever F1 race and I fell in love with it and still watch it today. I always like stories like that one. Quite a few of you mentioned regret that F1 still doesn't race at Sir Pang today, including Simon M's, Michael Butler and J.R. There were other stories from this weekend that we'll be getting into. A quick reminder that you can get early access to new episodes and bonus content among other benefits as part of the race members club. So head to the hyphen race.com/membersclub to sign up. And why not check out Bringback V10's merchandise range as well. Head to shop.thehyphen race.com and you'll find our range of clothing and other products with a V10 era twist. Of course, make sure you get your questions in for our series Finale. You can ask us anything about F1's V10 era from 1989 to 2005. Simply tweet them using the hashtag #bringbackv10s or email them to bringbackv10s@thehyphen race.com. But now on to Malaysia 99. The kicking things off in early October. As that's when Ferrari announced that although Michael Schumacher's latest checkup with doctors had shown that his broken leg had healed sufficiently for him to resume normal activities, the team said Schumacher has informed Ferrari of his decision not to take part in the remaining two grand prix of the season as he feels he is not sufficiently fit to cope with the demands of a race. Schumacher tested at Magello the following day and gave a press conference where he explained his decision saying that he was disappointed but he felt he could only drive at his true level for five laps before struggling physically. Schumacher was clearly in quite a prickly mood during this press conference. He said he was fed up with constantly going back and forth in his mind over whether he could return and he was finding it difficult to deal with the setbacks in his recovery. He said it would be impossible to do a full grand prix and he even took a swipe at Ferrari's statement for creating a false impression about how far along his recovery was. He hit back at claims that he had abandoned Ferrari in its hour of need with Eddie Irvine fighting for the championship saying these rumours have no foundation. So Karun, when it was first announced that Schumacher wasn't coming back, were you surprised? No, I don't think so because ultimately, you know, I thought he's going to decide if his legs broken or if his legs broken but if it's not fit enough to drive, he's not. You know, I think at that stage, we were in the thick of a very exciting World Championship battle really. You know, you had three drivers, all of the fights, DC was sort of vaguely holding on as a fourth contender, I guess. And there was plenty going on and actually, yeah, it would have been nice to have Michael back. But I think we were all as fans, just enjoying it. And as Gary mentioned, we'd come off the back of a superb weekend at the Nobel Prize, you know, just such a chaotic race as a fan to be watching. And before that, we had the drama of Monza with friends in winning and Mika dropping out from the lead. You know, there'd been some fantastic races up until that point. So, no, I don't recall having many thoughts about it. I was surprised or not. It was just like, okay, well, he says he's not fit enough. That's it. And later Irvine was quite pragmatic about all of this. He said on Sky Sports Legends of F1 series with Steve Ryder that Schumacher didn't want to come back and Eddie understood that Irvine said he was trying to miss the rest of the season for obvious reasons because he didn't want me to win the first championship for Ferrari. He was hired to do that job so it made total sense. I wouldn't begrudge him those feelings. If I had been him, I wouldn't have wanted to either. Irvine also said that at that Magello test Schumacher was within a couple of tenths of Eddie by his second lap of the day and it wasn't long before he was half a second quicker. And Irvine said it's impossible. It's really, really annoying, but it's amazing. It was an honor to be able to see his telemetry and the things he could do with the car. Now, Gary, you knew Irvine well and a couple of races after this in 2000, Jaguar. He was back with you. It's his pragmatic view there on Schumacher not wanting to come back. Is that what you would expect from Eddie? A big dose of realism and maybe acceptance of the situation. Well, yes, I mean, the fact that Michael was so good at taking the best from any car I ever drove. I mean, when he drove for us in the Jordan, the one named one in Spa, that's what he did. He just took the best from the car all the time. And Eddie, I think it was Emola who watched Eddie and Michael driving down into Revats 1 at the beginning of practice. And you know, the car is a downhill left-hander and the car, both for our eyes, you had a big snap on the entry. The rear would come around quite aggressively. And the next lap around Michael, the snap was about half, third time around the snap, you couldn't even see it. Whereas Eddie went the whole session with the rear end snapping. So Eddie was one of these never really adapted to the car. Very, very good driver, very, very quick. And the car was good. It was good. But I think Michael knew that coming back to these last two races, the only way that Eddie could win the championship was for Michael not to beat him. And you know, he didn't want to not come back and give it 100%. He didn't want people to say, oh, you broke your leg, no, you're not quite as good as you were. So those laps, the qualifying lap, Malaysia, I'm not talking about it, it was just, was just Michael doing what he could do. He came back and he had to give it 100%. Because he had to prove to himself that he could give it 100%. And that meant that the championship was going to struggle a little bit for Eddie. So it was a, it's a two full thing. You know, he didn't want to come back and show himself not to be as strong as he was before he left. And he didn't want to come back and help Eddie win a championship, whenever, whenever he knew himself, we should have won the championship. So it was difficult. But you know, he didn't come back. He did show he had got 100% of his talent was still there. He didn't give Eddie a little bit of a hand, but then, you know, Eddie threw it away himself really. This was peak, Michael Schirmacher, I think, you know, between 95 and 2000. Yeah, Miko was, was. there in 98 in particular, but you do get the feeling that Michael had been broken as leg in 99 with all the mistakes that McLaren and Mika made and he would have blitzed that championship really. So I think, you know, that was Ada was peak Michael Schumacher where he was the standout driver by a long margin. Secondly, I think that comment from Eddie is really telling of the difference between the mentality of Eddie and Rubens Barrakello who went there as his replacement because Eddie went there knowing, listen, I'm going to be a number two and, you know, with all your respect to Gary and Jordan, you'd rather have been a number two at a Ferrari driver and he could have snuck in the odd wins and even on a bad day to get a podium and etc etc, versus being the number one driver in a midfield team. So whereas other Rubens and you saw this, didn't you? Even in 2003, 2004, you get to preseason and Rubens if you're talking about this is my year, the car suits me and I'm going to be a championship contender and Eddie's just like, whoa, whoa, if I can get within three tenths of this blow, I'm going to be fine. I'm going to make lots of money, I'm going to get lots of points and a few podiums and I'll be somewhere. I think that just that different mindset meant that Eddie had a happier time at Ferrari where his Rubens had a more frustrating time being beaten by the greatest driver of his generation. And four days later after all this had played out, there was a miracle. After those tests at Magello and Fiorano where Schumacher was running all week, he changed his mind and decided he would race in Malaysia after all. There were rumors that Schumacher came under pressure from the very top of Fiat to come back and that Ferrari president Luke and Montezemallow hit the roof when he called Schumacher's home and found out Michael was outplaying football. A story that Irvine says is true. Schumacher of course wouldn't quite admit that he was forced to come back. He did say Montezemallow insisted that I return. And Michael added, "Perhaps I'd spoken a little too hastily, but testing went well and I could see I could make some more progress. Sometimes it is better to change your mind than to carry on making a mistake." That's good advice for everybody. "Over a race distance, I might have some problems, but it's very important to Ferrari that I'm there. I'm not at 100%, but I've realised that I have to be there." Obviously, I too wanted to make this comeback, but I had to convince myself. When I made it known as I wouldn't be in a condition to race, I wasn't bluffing. I felt good, but it's one thing to go for a walk in the park and it's another to endure a grand prix. I hope to be able to help the team in Irvine, but I'm not promising miracles." Montezemallow said Irvine had pleaded with him to get Schumacher to change his mind. And when the Schumacher news was confirmed, Irvine said, "For three and a half years I've tried to help Michael win the World Championship. Now the focus is on me and I hope that with his help I can win it, which would be mission accomplished. Now I have an even greater chance with Michael's help." Karun, did the fact that Schumacher was effectively forced to come back here, maybe show that he didn't hold all the power at Ferrari? Because it seems here that he thought he'd made his mind up, and then he gets told by the bosses, "No, you are coming back." Well, ultimately, man with a gold mix of rules, doesn't he? I'm sure there was a healthy and short-of-spaired and all those sorts of things, but at that stage, Michael was earning twice as much money as anyone else on the grid. And at some point, if Ferrari paymasters are going, "hang on a second, we're trying to win our first World Championship in 20 years, and the bloke who can help us is outplaying football and his back garden, hang on a second. Why are we paying him half a million a week?" So yeah, I'm sure there was an element of that, but I think the way Michael came back, and Gary makes a really good point, right? He never wanted to come back and just drive around, trying to be second. So he came back, he controlled this surprise race, which we'll talk about him for a few later on, but he controlled that weekend. He dominated that weekend, and he not only controlled his race, but he controlled the strategy of everyone around him and sort of just made that whole race happen. And the same when we went to Japan, he absolutely destroyed Eddie and qualifying. So at the end of the day, I think if a driver is going to win the World Championship, and if they're going to be a deserving winner of the World Championship, I'd correct myself, no, I don't think Eddie got any polls that season did he? In 1990, he got one poll position. So there's some of those things. So, and I think Michael wanted to make sure he was able to still tell the world that he was King of the Castle of Ferrari. We'll come back to Ferrari later, as we've hinted at, there's a lot more to their weekend. Let's move over to Jordan, where High Tald Francins still had an outside shot at the title, despite breaking down from the lead at the end of the year. But the focus was now on his teammate Damon Hill, as there were rumors that he wasn't going to see out the final two races of the year with the team. Jordan had started looking around for replacements in case it needed them, but then he'll decide it. He would finish the season. However, Damon said in his book, he only did this out of fear that he'd be in breach of his contract if he stopped early, and he was terrified of the potential financial repercussions for his family. If that happened, Hill said, "I feared I would end up with nothing, just as it happened to my family following my father's death." This thought alone was enough to send me into extreme anxiety. I was probably overreacting, but when you have no idea how to control a situation, it is easy to get things out of proportion. If I thought getting into F1 was hard, getting out was turning out to be even harder. Eddie Jordan has always said that he'll totally misread this situation, as Damon apparently read an interview Eddie gave to a newspaper earlier in a year and misinterpreted something Eddie said to mean that there would be a big legal battle with Damon walked away, which Eddie says wasn't the case. We could answer this question for most of 99, but looking at two races to go, when you've got a driver as mentally broken as Hill was for most of this season, would it have just been better for both sides if they just agreed to partways early? Well, it would have been if somebody else was standing on the sidelines, it could have picked it up quickly enough and been competitive enough, because once again it's a bit like Eddie and Michael for their effect for the championship. But as you say, Hans Harle was still there, still potentially had a potential chance of the championship. So you're better sometimes to go with what you've got, and they know each other, they work okay. Damon wasn't doing the job at Frensom was doing many means, but at the end of the day he still was doing a job and the team understood him quite well. So if you bring in somebody new, sometimes it can upset the apple cart and the other guy lose out a bit because of it. So anyway, it's the right decision. I don't think that Damon at that point in his career should have been worried about the financial implications of the last two races. He did, it was because of him I suppose that the budget at Jordan in 1999 was improved, because Damon brought a lot of credence with him. So it was one of those sort of situations I think where you couldn't make the right decision for making the wrong one. You just had to be so careful to make sure you didn't upset the team momentum and see the season through the way it was. So right for Damon to continue I think and right for the team to let Damon continue because you didn't run that risk of thrown it all away just for the sake of getting someone the driver and maybe to pay a few quid to Eddie which he never really refused too often. But at the end of the day the bigger picture was seen by all I suppose. It weren't about okay for everybody. I don't know, looking back at him I remember I was bogging it Damon quite a bit actually about this and he said he wanted to stop at the British Grand Prix. He just he wanted to do one last British Grand Prix, say bye to the home fans and then stop and anyone let him you know and I have a different view on it. I think when a driver doesn't want to do it anymore then you should let them walk. I think back to Nicky Louder and Bernie Eccleston remember that was a Canada he drove one practice session, got all the car and said I'm done and Bernie went and just found somebody else and said oh yeah you can go or can you leave your helmet behind so I can give it to somebody else. And look I think you know there are a whole lot of people putting in a lot of effort into making that car competitive and successful as Gary knows much more than me. And if the guy in the cockpit doesn't have the motivation or the hunger to find the extra four tenths then all those hours of the people the wind tunnel has spent is kind of futile. So to me really they should have you know Eddie was in a bit of a bind because of the Benson and Hedges still and it was quite funny actually because this year at the British Grand Prix we had dinner in the campsite and there was Eddie Damon myself and a couple of other racing people like Davin Turner and Peter Dumbrek and so and we we got them both to recant the last half of 99 and it was quite funny because we you know few glasses of wine at that stage and it was getting louder and louder as we kept saying well you wouldn't let me stop well no you were the kicked off in classic Eddie fashion but I think as we all know Eddie's a very persuasive man and I imagine if he went and said, "Dameen doesn't want to do it anymore, I can't force him to drive the car. Come on BNH, let's have a bit of a deal. We're in contention for the World Championship. Friendship's giving us loads of publicity. Let's get a young hot shot in for the last part of the season. I imagine he couldn't try it a bit harder to settle that deal." Yeah, I agree with you, Colonel. I would 100% of back Dehrman retiring or stopping off the British Grand Prix because that gave them enough time to do exactly what you're saying, get a young hot shoe on there and try to help friends at one of the championships. But for the last two races, it's a bit of a turmoil. There fly away races. It's not as though they're on home soil. But yeah, from my point of view, if Dehrman and Retired of the after the British Grand Prix, that would be 100% correct for him and for the team. But not the last two races just that sort of seems a little bit late in the equation to try to help the team get the best result possible. Yeah, I agree. Other than if you could find another Eddie Irvine who obviously drove for us at Zazuka out of the blue in '93 and you know, good, fantastic. As you can find a hot shoe from the superformal out there out in Japan that really was a master of Zazuka, then perhaps it would have been the right thing to do. But you know, there were a few and far between. In the driver market, Olivier Panis was on the verge of signing a deal to become McLaren's test driver. Panis had decided earlier in 1999 as it was time to split with Alan Prost's team and he'd initially signed a deal to racing kart with Patrick Racing. However, that deal gave him a window where he could back out if he was offered an F1 seat. Panis dismissed rumors at the time of arrows and minardi being interested in him, saying he would not gain anything by going there and on F1's beyond the grid podcast, he revealed that talks with McLaren over a test driver role were his idea. He said that when he suggested it to his managers, Keke Rossberg and Didio Koton, they asked if he was mad. But they contacted McLaren and designer Adrian Nui was keen on having an experienced race driver testing for the team full time. Ron Dennis had doubts about offering Panis a deal because he didn't feel right offering a Grand Prix winner a testing only contract, but Panis assured him he wanted to do it, saying McLaren would be giving him a present if they took him on. He added, "I took the risk because I wanted to know what was my real potential in the best car." Karine, you're the racing driver among us here. Can you understand Panis' mindset here and the fact he was willing to give up racing for this opportunity to drive one of the best cars on the grid? Well, this was the era of the super test drivers, wasn't it? They were in loads and loads of mileage. So it wasn't like a decade later where you're just sort of loitering out waiting for somebody to fall downstairs. This was a time where the cars were running. If you think back actually in that run up between Sampangan and Suzuki, even in this season we're talking about, I think McLaren and Ferrari did 11 test days each just between those two final races. They'd have a whole day of just start practice. They'd have a day of wet test tire testing, you know, all this stuff. So the test drivers would get a whole load of mileage and especially with the top team, get a chance to experience and learn how a top team operates. So from Panis' standpoint, I guess you're thinking, "Listen, if I can gain a whole load of knowledge from a championship contending team, then I've got to be in line for a good seat with a midfield team later on. Because they're going to want that knowledge and learn and behold, that's what happened." A couple years later, it wasn't in the BAR. So I actually think it was a brave move to do. You know, it was at a time where people who were no longer able to get a seat in F1 went to cart or went to Indycar as that split was happening. But actually, I think it was a brave move when he sort of set the term in Indycar. You had Delarossa, Alex Verts, a bunch of those sort of drivers who walked with that step back from racing to go testing and using that as a catapult back into a race seat. Yeah, you also, as you say, Karam, the amount of testing meant you had valuable seat time and you could be references against the wrist drivers, but also Michael Schilder at Silverstone that you can have an accident, you can break your leg and suddenly there's a wrist seat available to you and if you're in the prime position of doing some testing for a team, then you might just get that seat. So I'm sure Pellis never thought on any of them, he Clarenne drivers hurting himself, but in the background they're actually dead. You know, it would be better to be lined up ready for that seat and take the opportunity if it came to you. And that, you know, it only gives you that opportunity. It doesn't, it doesn't mean it's going to happen, but it gives you that opportunity to be there ready and waiting, I suppose. So there's lots of, there's lots of doors that technically year off can help you. And what we're seeing that this year with Daniel and Cardo, you know, we'll just see what's going to happen with him, whatever it all unfolds. But there is doors that can help to open for the future. Yeah, Pannis really started that trend, as you mentioned there, Karoon. He was the first person willing to take the plunge and say, no, I will, I will step back, I will be on the sidelines. Pannis was had a much busier 2000 than I think Daniel Riccardo's 2023 will be for the comparison. Now, back at the end of 99, there was an FIA World Motorsport Council meeting around this time. And we pick up on a couple of the interesting rule changes they announced. Firstly, this was when F1 introduced the entry deposit for new teams, which still exists in some form today, although for a much higher amount. Back in 1999, a new team would now have to put up a 48 million dollar bond to prove it was serious. And this would then be paid back in monthly installments, providing the team stayed on the grid. This was partly to prevent any more substandard entries, like Lola's disastrous 1997 project, which we've done an episode on in the past. But it was also a reaction to Honda going back on its decision to enter F1 for 2000, having been promised the 12 slots on the grid before abandoning its plans and becoming a works engine partner to BAR instead. But Gary, you know what it was like to come in with a small team when Jordan joined the grid in 1991. Did you agree with the idea of this barrier to entry? Had everyone changed so much by 99 that this needed to be done? Well, I don't think I needed to be done at that point in time. No, I mean, obviously there was a few teams abused it by coming in going out, not really being serious about it. But they didn't come in and they didn't make that decision without having felt there was going to be the potential to pull them on it together, to be competitive through the season or to run at least through the season. You know, we entered 1991, we really didn't really have two pennies to rub together. Building the car was as much as he could fund. And then after that it was about finding sponsorship to keep the thing going. And it does show you that, you know, it can happen if you've got enough well-encomitment. You know, during 1991 and 1991, 1992, even 1993, you know, we were we were fairly strapped for cash. So it wasn't easy to survive, but at that point in time, you know, I think Bernie was a big help in keeping us alive. And I think Bernie appreciated Eddie being one of the more eccentric team owners that could put a life into the form of the world, which it needed badly. But you know, the $48 million bond getting paid by it monthly, it's pretty heavy going to sign up to that. You've really got to have something in line that's not going to let you down because obviously, you know, if you take the low-loving with the master card sponsorship, it was all planned. But obviously, it just didn't work out the end of the day. And so many sponsors have made major promises. And, you know, they haven't, they haven't got their rockup, for example, with Williams. You know, they're all those sort of things are they come, they come and go. And there's nobody got to stand up there and, you know, be held up for this $48 million bond. If the sponsor suddenly decides it doesn't want to play anymore. And the sponsor's money is all down to the economy, you know, it's all down into the marketplace of the economy. So things can change outside of Formula One that can dramatically affect the team in Formula One. And sometimes, I think you need to be very careful. You don't restrict other teams coming in just because of the financial commitment that's required to take that first hurdle. You have to just keep an eye on it as the years progressing and make sure the team is financially structured well enough to keep going. So anyway, yeah, I mean, decisions are made rules are a place. But not always necessarily the right rules. I mean, you just got to look back though across the last 31 years. And when we talked about it on another episode of this series, in the last 31 years, there have been three start-up teams who have been successful, Jordan, Salva and Stuart Grand Prix. You know, those are the only three that I've actually made it to to a place where you could say they were credible, good, solid Formula One teams. So it shows just how hard it was, right? In that period, I can't count the number that I've come and gone. Edel tell us that's way the teams that were around the late 80s, early 90s, even. And I think that's, that was a catalyst, right? You had the Eurobrones and the Colonies and all the sort of stuff coming up going. That started this whole cycle of Bernie and Max going, hang on a second. We need to, we need to just some sort of filtering process here. Yeah, Jordan with the exception, weren't they? Absolutely, and Sourbos soon after that, but I think Jordan was truly exceptional because Sourbos had Mercedes money and, sorry, Sturgrantbury had Ford money. So really, what Eddie and Gary and people like that did in '91 was truly the exception, I think, in so many ways. So with no manufacturer backing, that's great. So I think the Honda thing upset Bernie a lot, I think, you know, the fact that this was going to be another proper good solid manufacturer team that then went away, and then they had to create something. I think what we have now, though, because it's interesting to compare, right? Today we're talking about 200 million as an entry thing, but I think the 48 million they were talking about then got paid back over a period of time. So really, it wasn't an outflow net outflow, it's a cash flow issue, you know, where you've got to put this money up and it comes back. And that, I think, is in some ways better than what we have today, which is, it's literally 200 million gone, with it not coming back into your pot. So I think that there was some degree of merit in what they did then to try to create some sort of filtering. The other change we'll talk about is that this was when F1 abandoned aggregate race times for races that were red flagged then restarted. The way this had worked was that when a race was restarted after a stoppage, the gaps at the time the race was stopped were retained, even though all the cars lined up together to take the restart. This most famously played out in 1994 Japanese Grand Prix when Damon Hill and Michael Schumacher in a tent battle against the clock, rather than wheel-to-wheel on track for victory. But the FIA felt it would be much simpler for fans following the races if the gaps were just wiped out on the restart so everyone was battling for position together. Correct. What do you think of this? Can you make any argument that the drama of Damon's Suzuka win is a case for keeping this rule as it was? No. As a 15 year old watching it, you know, I don't want to be, and also at that time, we didn't have a live typing app, we didn't have any of the information that you have these days to follow the race. You know, you just want to watch them race and no other crossing check of flag wins. So I actually think what we have now is quite good. You know, you have a suspended race, safety car. It's just part of it, you know, that's part of the F1. I get it if you're a leader who's built up a 10 second lead, it's not great, but that's for yeah, a grade. Yeah, I think it was the right thing to do is to get rid of it because it does, it does, anything you can do to complicate a rule, a regulation put in place for Formula One just confuses it all, confuses everybody, even confuses the rule makers as we've seen in many, many occasions. And I even think that now with a red flag, you know, you shouldn't be able to change tires during the red flag, you shouldn't be able to change the car, you still should suffer the consequences of the problem. Now you could say, okay, well, if you drove over Danbury, there'll be maybe a cut in the tire or whatever, but you can stop the next lap, you know, you can, you start the restart, the race and you can come in the pits of the next lap and fix your car. So basically what you're doing as a Santa driver, it's better to damage your car during a red flag or down with the tires because you can change them and they're not down with them because they're, they're red flag, haven't come out, you know, other drivers that might have got some damage on the car would have to pet to get new tires or new parts on the car. So it's a, there they are right there where I think that red flags even still compromise the end result of a race, rather than to strategy relative to fix on the car. So I think there's still more to be done there to make sure the race is a true lights out to check out flag race and the best man wins at the end of the day. I think it's still room for improvement. Let's get to the on track action then and this as we've mentioned was F1's debut at Sapan, which made a good first impression on the drivers. Michael Schumacher laboured it the fourth best track in the world behind Spa, Monaco and Suzuki and he said it bubs the trend of new circuits being mostly boring. Mika can uncold it a successful design and a proper racing track that was an example to everybody of what a circuit should be. Eddie Irvine said the track had a combination of everything and Damon Hill said it was an exciting challenge where the drivers could make a real difference today, lap time. By the end of Fridays running most drivers said it was fun to drive, but very difficult to set up a car for. To Gary you can help us with that. What was it like arriving at Spaeng for the first time and trying to set the car up? Well actually it's quite interesting because that was still a time for us at least where you're still sticking your finger in the air, which is where the wood was blowing, because you didn't have all the simulation tools, the factory to help you. You had a few little bits and pieces to try and work out gear ratios, aerodynamic drag levels, downforce levels, but nothing to this sophistication you have nowadays. And I think that as a team, with the drivers we had and the team we had, we were quite good at getting the best out of something as quick as anybody else as long as you hadn't been there before and had lots and lots of data. So it was always a nice challenge to go to a new circuit or for conditions to change for you to have to react on the spot, as I say, to take your finger up to see which way the wind was blowing. But it was, as all the drivers said, there was a bit of everything there. It was a good compromise, fast, slow corners, all sorts of stuff, good long straights. Because of the way the straights were, the wind wasn't a big influence because you could go down one straight, coming up the other one. So you're always going to get the best out of the downforce levels you'd set. You shouldn't ever get it wrong. And I think we had a good weekend, so I think we went there with a lot of momentum from the European Grand Prix in Durinburgering and carried that momentum on into that race. And we sort of bought into the fact we were, we might have been the smallest team, but we could do the job given the right opportunity. That's what we tried to do in Malaysia from the start because nobody else had been there. So it was a fresh start for everybody. And we thought we could do it as good as anybody. And that they, you know, think we did. Yes, Stuart had a great weekend, which we'll come back to in a bit. Karine, you've raced at Sapan. So you can tell us how good was it. And I'm curious, would it be as close to the top of your list as it was for Michael Schumacher? I love Sapan. I think it's a superb circuit. It really is. It's got, let's Michael set a mix of everything. I think it's got some really interesting sequences of corners as well. You know, you got the middle part turns five and six. I think that part towards the end where you do 12, 13 into a tightening radius 14. And they had that amazing design with the two straights paddled basically, but a couple of happens at either end, which meant that you got overtaking, you got three slow corners in a row, which were all different. And had enough character, some off camber bits as well in that sequence. So you had great overtaking. It had a fascinating challenge for the drivers and engineers to set a car up for the circuit, I think. And I think out of, you know, that was the first of the modern tracks, wasn't it? You know, Gary mentioned before the first one of the nice air conditioned offices and the clean loose and all that sort of stuff that we weren't used to raise tracks in that era. And actually, if you look at it since then in this era of tillka drums that's come through, I still think that was his best circuit. I still think you could say Turkey is up there and Austin, I think is another good one, but I still maintain that sepang for all of the above mentioned reasons is probably the best of the modern tracks. Agreed. And Schumacher, as we've mentioned, made his mark in qualifying, taking pole by almost a second. Irvine joined him on the front row while the McLaren's were just over a second back from Michael with cool-fired pipping hacken and to third, possibly because Mika was the only front runner to choose the hard tyre compound. Irvine released a book about his 1999 season called Life in the Fastlane. And in that he said Schumacher blasted us into orbit in this session. However, in a book and at the time, Eddie offered a couple of excuses for the gap. He pointed out that he chose not to do a final run to save a set of tyres for the race. And he said that all the other drivers were worn out after a long season, whereas Schumacher had come back fresh after a few months off. Gary, do you think Schumacher being rested made a difference here? Was he just that much better than everybody else? Obviously he was that much better than anybody else in that period to be honest. But he did come back rested as well. And you know, the one thing about it is that Michael was always the one that I classified as being not just physically fit but mentally fit. And that rest would have given him time to become, I think, more mentally fit. Just focused, just a 100% focused on all the little stuff that he probably wouldn't spend time on in his mind as to what was happening and why it was happening. Just a little, you know, you can do so much thinking and sorting out in your mind to make sure you come more prepared. So I think he was obviously one of these guys. I mean, if you take Michael and Eddie, for example, I forget what race it was, but we were, I think it was Argentina. We arrived leaving the circuit or leaving the hotel one morning at sort of six o'clock and Michael came in from a run. And you know, he'd been out there. It was race day, Sunday morning, and he had come in from a run because he just wanted to sort of list himself up a little bit whereas you know Eddie would still be upstairs, stories head off and bed. Well, maybe not stories head off, but he been bed for sure. And it's just a difference. That is the difference really, Michael, just, you know, he dot days and cross the teeth on everything. And that's what gives you that advantage. But the mental rest, the physical rest, the dedication to training that allows you to have after a couple months off, is you can't not count that in an overall performance that he brought to the end of that season. Further down the grid, championship outside of Frenzen, who was 12 points behind with 20 still on the table, seemingly stuck another nail in his title coffin as he qualified 14th. He'd had a spin when his headrest came loose in qualifying, then took the spare car, which was set up for teammate Hill, and also had a brake problem which cost him a run. Frenzen and Eddie Jordan had been pretty realistic about their dwindling title hopes even before qualifying with Frenzen saying he was the underdog, but he wasn't going to claim he could win it. And Jordan saying the chances were slim and he felt the team was paying the price for not doing a good enough job earlier in the season. Frenzen raced through into the points on Sunday to score. Actually, what he felt was probably one of the toughest points for sixth place he'd ever earned in F1. And Jordan chose to look at the positives as they confirmed their best ever constructors championship position of third with a race to spare. It wasn't a joyous occasion for Hill in the other car though, as he'd been punted out at the start by Giancarlo Fisicela's Beneton. He will congratulate the team on its third place, adding I just wish I could have done more to help. Curin, obviously we've talked in the past about, you know, could Jordan have stayed in this championship fight? Everything that happened at Nurburgring with Frenzen breaking down from the lead there. But in a situation over faced within Malaysia, do you think with a clean weekend, Frenzen could have done enough to keep his title hopes alive in the fight with the McLean's and the Ferraris? It's a tricky one, isn't it? Because the reality is they were the outsider. And actually it was the round previously, wasn't it? Where he'd obviously had full position and then they had an electronic glitch, shall we call it, the pit stop of the Nurburgring with a car then ground to a halt, which really took the wind out of their sales, I think, in many ways. Yeah, Eddie's right, early on in the year, they didn't score as many points as some of the others, but let's be honest, for Jordan to win that world championship, they would have needed for an audience McLaren to trip up a lot. They were doing a fair amount of that, but you always had the feeling that when it came down to it, for the final couple of races, McLaren really should have been the favourite. You know, Mika was going to be the favourite with me. He was quicker than Eddie all year long. Eddie was able to stay for a chance because Mika made a whole heap of errors as the McLaren in the middle of the year. So yeah, I don't think Subang would have turned it on its head. I think they would have always been the outside bet. But you know what, fair play for them. They put themselves in contention for a championship in a year that nobody expected them to do so. Irvine said in his book that he felt it wasn't decided until just before the race, if Subang would help him, although Subang had made it clear on multiple occasions that weekend, that if he was in a position to let Irvine through, he would. We didn't have to wait long to find out for certain once the race started. As after charging away to a three second lead after two laps, Schumacher slowed down and let Irvine through on lap four. Schumacher then tried to back up the McLaren's, but he was barged to side and lapped later by Coolthard, who said afterwards he knew he had to get rid of Michael because he was going to be playing games. Schumacher said Coolthard caught him by surprise, joking that maybe he lacked a bit of sharpness after being on the sidelines. Michael said he'd been managing his tyres because he was one stopping. So he'd been careful on the power between turns one and two, which gave Coolthard the chance to get through. Karim, what did you make of this move? Is another example of DC getting his elbows out and barging Schumacher out the way? Yeah, I mean they had a bit of previous, aren't they? Argentinians as well, they got very close for comfort and in that occasion DC ended up facing the wrong way. But I think it was a good bit of opportunistic overtaking. We don't even know, looking back at all the years that we've had at Subang, don't often see many moves into turn two. And yeah, I thought that was a great bit of opportunism from DC. Yeah, loved it, it was good stuff. Unfortunately for Coolthard, around 10 laps later, his McLaren broke down and that made things much more straightforward for Ferrari. Schumacher was restored to second place and he immediately dropped his pace to back up Hacken and Michael then sped up in the laps before the pit stops to build a gap over the McLaren and slowed down again to help Irvine build a gap before he and Hacken and made their second stops. Hacken and showed his frustration behind Schumacher a few times by waving a hand out of his cockpit, quite unmick a Hacken and like you might say. But after the race, he called it brilliant tactics from Ferrari and said McLaren would probably do the same in their situation. However, he also said Schumacher was very inconsistent in some corners, breaking in surprising places and Mika was having to concentrate a lot to make sure he didn't run into the back of him. Schumacher said it was my job to drive a bit slower to allow Eddie to build a gap and I did this in a fair way. He also claimed his car was damaged from the contact with Coolthard but his fastest lap of the race was 9/10 quicker than Irvine and 8/10 faster than Hacken and so it wasn't too much wrong with it. Before we discuss this any further, let's hear Hacken and memories of this race which he recently shared with our very own Ed Stroll. 99 was a very special year and and the Malaysian crampory I remember in terms of physically that crampory was incredible. It was a such a nightmare and I was following Michael nearly whole race if I remember correctly, you know and and he he knew where I was quick and and he knew where I was slow and vice versa and he was using those places in advantage where I was slow he was even slower. So what that means that he was constantly taking taking the racing lines to take my downforce away from my car. We'd make my driving extremely challenging, absolute challenge. Just to meet to able to keep my race car in track without with the not best possible downforce was an nightmare. So I was finished but for a moment I finished third, Michael was second and Ed was first. Only what I do remember that was the hardest, hardest ever physical experience when I have experienced a Formula 1 in death crampory it was just so so tough and and the team had a team that had played the great game. Gary what did you think of this kind of Ferrari versus Hacken and approach to the race? Did they go too far with the games they were playing? No not really I mean you know it was a team sport at that time team tactics were a little bit confusing as to what you did but then the death of the driver really does know his responsibility then that's the way he led up to it was the race on fools but I think that one thing Michael did want to show was that he was doing it blatantly. He wasn't you know just not quite quick enough. He was doing what he was doing like pulling out the gap he did over the first four laps and letting that run through by just holding everybody up the way he was doing it. He was doing the job he should have done but he was making it obvious to everybody so I think I was always going to be the way but you know nobody else likes that. No other driver likes those type of tactics so you know they're always completely about it. Despite all of that messing about Schumacher's one stock strategy meant that with five laps to go he was still over six seconds ahead of Irvine back in the lead of the race and he dropped his pace significantly to hand a place over two laps later. After the race Irvine famously said this guy is depressing not only is he the best number one he's also the best number two even adding that Schumacher did the hard work for me. In his 1999 book Eddie added Michael did the perfect job for me during the race I couldn't have asked for a better wingman. He also felt as Gary's actually mentioned that Schumacher was happy because he'd been able to show how much faster he was at key points in the race so in Irvine's words his performance proved he is the best so the result was good for everyone. Schumacher was asked how it felt to be letting someone else through for a change and he said I knew what my job was I had no problem in letting Eddie pass it was only right for me to give something back. I do the same as I would expect people to do for me. I would prefer to win the race but there's no point to being glorious and afterwards we don't win the championship then we look stupid. So Karin we've talked about this a bit already but I guess we can just have a kind of final word on it. How good was this performance from Schumacher when he took into account how fast he was when he was trying and how good he was at being the wingman as well as Eddie said. It was just exemplary wasn't it? I mean there's just some of those days where you watch and you go there's one driver who was head and shoulders above the others Barcelona 1996 Spa 1995. some of those performances where he just was and subang 99 I think is unquestionably one of the sort of red letter days in the career of Michael Schumacher. Hacken and an ended up third behind the Ferraris but only after a late pass on Johnny Herbert Stewart which had brilliantly executed a one-stop strategy but Johnny then made a small error with a couple of laps to go. Herbert says there's some brilliant stuff about this drive in his book saying it was the only time since his horrific F3000 accident in 1988 that he experienced a complete oneness with a racing car that feeling that I honestly thought had gone forever. He added it was as if I'd been taken over by the old me. One last race without being hampered by any of the injuries or baggage I'd accumulated. I was free for the first time in over 11 years. Why it happened there I have no idea and it's only stayed with me for that one weekend. There was no pain in my feet or ankles and all the thoughts, concerns and worries are normally carried with me at the start of a race weekend were absent. Negarri, Johnny said he felt possessed that weekend. Did you notice anything different about him? Well yeah I mean it's one of those sort of difficult things because during the season various races Johnny and Rubens would be final qualifying or final practice before qualifying. They would be third and fourth or fourth and second or something but they both be in contention I suppose you might call it for doing a pretty good job and you go out the first run in qualifying and Rubens would be fourth and Johnny would be 17th and we never were really quite comfortable terms of why that was happening to him and I think it was Monsa where I had to sort of like stand up and just say Johnny come on there's something wrong here because you were right up there in the practice before qualifying and now qualifying you're down in the teens. So where is this? What's happened to it? I think it was maybe part of what Johnny's saying here he just didn't have that free feeling in the car where it came to doing that one lap straight from cool you know during practice he could build up to it and you know just get into the momentum of the car but whenever you go out for qualifying you've got to just do it and you've got to ring a snack immediately straight from cold and I think that whenever we got to Malaysia I think I think better that comes from the European Grand Prix as I say where he got his you know he won the race he he kept it on the road and it adverse conditions made a few good decisions and and up you know standing in the top step of the podium so it was one of those sort of situations where I think he had just come to terms with himself a little bit more and his confidence level was high and that obviously makes a lot of difference and I think Malaysia all came together to point in the right direction so all the all the stars were aligned and he made the best best use of it to be honest and that's that's what you got to do as a racing driver I mean it's one of those sort of situations where even the next racing to Zuko you know it wasn't bad it wasn't as good but it wasn't bad so yeah the future was bright I think because that was something an horrific accident he went through on at Brown's Hatch you know and it recovery from that to what he did afterwards and former Walmers was immense. Herbert said in his book that he didn't begrudge his old Lotus teammate the position that as Hacking and needed every point he could for the championship but Johnny did himself a disservice as he said although that extra point he got from me didn't win him the title I like to think that my ineptitude went some way towards helping him that point was crucial though as it meant Irvine couldn't just follow Hacking and home at Suzuki and claim the championship Hacking has third place in Malaysia meant Irvine was only four points ahead so if Hacking and one in Japan and Irvine was second Hacking number winner title on count back of race wins but if Herbert had stayed ahead in Malaysia second place in Japan would have been enough for Eddie. Karin I should say that when when Ed asked Mikko about this Mikko has no recollection of that pass let alone how crucial it was do you think that maybe sums up that the importance of this moment gets overlooked in the story of the 99 title fight. Oh 100% I mean I think Mikko clearly was saying how much you know that whole thing with Michael and the games of Michael's playing got into his head and he found it exhausting and the whole thing was just almost overwhelming for him wasn't it so passing Johnny in his tour clearly pale and comparison in amongst all the noise going on and Mikko's head around this this mental game I guess that Michael and Ferrari were playing with him at the time. Let's get into the post race drama then despite initially passing post race scrutinyering both Ferrari's were thrown out when their barge boards were checked again and found to be outside the regulations to massively simplify what this was about. Everyone's rules stated that no bodywork could be visible when viewed from the bottom of the car so any aerodynamic parts like a barge board had to have what's called a shadow plate at the bottom blocking sight of it from underneath and because of the contours of Ferrari's barge boards there was a specific area in the middle of the design where the shadow plate was about a centimeter too small so part of the barge board was visible from underneath. Ferrari boss John Todd was particularly upset about the fact that these barge boards had been on the car at the previous race at the Nürburgring and past scrutinyering there and all weekend at Sapan so he said Ferrari felt the FIA had been alerted to recheck them by someone else. That was true as it was McLaren design genius Adrian Neue who made the FIA aware of barge boards were illegal. Neue said he'd not been able to get a clear look at them at the previous race or during a Sapan weekend because Ferrari made a huge show about covering them up but he'd gone for a closer look when the cars were left unguarded in Park Fermé. Todd's an Irvine both felt the punishments of disqualification from the race was way too harsh. Todd called it disproportionate while Irvine said on the Monday having been travelling to Macau when the news broke. I can't believe they are taking the leadership of the world championship away from me for something like that. The punishment doesn't fit the crime. Karine before we get Gary's view on this as a rival technical director at the time, what did you think of it? Did Ferrari have a point that the penalty was too harsh? It's a funny one isn't it? It's a bit like the coscap stuff we're talking now. You know, it's the reality is if something's illegal, something's illegal. Now what they successfully managed to argue here was that it wasn't illegal if it was being measured in a certain way. But to me, the simplistic view I always take is if the cars underweight by 0.1 of a kilo, it's underweight. There's no ambiguity there and it's thrown out of qualifying on the race. And clearly Ferrari knew this and Ross Brown knew this so they knew that the argument of performance gain or percentage of performance gain not fitting the penalty isn't an argument you could ever win. So the only way they could win this argument was to find a way to show that it was still legal and that's what they did. But yeah, I feel like this is definitely more Gary's cup of tea. This barge board gate than mine. Yeah, well, we'll bring Gary in shortly because remarkably on the Sunday night in the paddock, Ross Brown held an impromptu press conference where he held up one of the barge boards in question and explained that it was indeed illegal. However, Ross said it was a mistake. Ferrari wouldn't produce a part that it knew was illegal, that it offered no performance gain as Karoo mentioned and that Ferrari was going to look into established what had happened. Braun spoke at length about this in the book he released with Adam Park, a total competition. He said Ferrari eventually found out it was a misunderstanding by a design engineer and that during the vetting and inspection process at Ferrari nobody had spotted the error in the engineer's understanding. Braun also said he regretted giving that Sunday night press conference where he effectively accepted blame on Ferrari's part. He said there was tremendous pressure from within Ferrari to say something straight after the race and it was a mistake in my view to say anything because there was no need. My instinct would have been to initially to say nothing, just controlled a situation because what we were doing by commenting straight after the race, we were reacting in a panic and I hate doing that. Those impulsive statements often come back to haunt you and I wish we had never, I had never made that statement. So Gary now will come to you with this. Firstly, what did you think of the decision, the initial disqualification? And as a technical director yourself, can you sympathise with Ross over being forced into that Sunday night media briefing? Well, yeah, I can sympathise with them as far as the Sunday night media briefings concerned, but to actually say that it was a misunderstanding by design engineer is a bit strange. They're all part of the same team. It's a team sport. And I agree with Karen, regulations or regulations, one millimeter or ten millimeters or one kilo or one kilo. It doesn't really matter. If it's illegal, it's illegal. So we were disappointed that we didn't get through right, obviously, for our positions, but at the end of the day, the bars were very powerful component. We sell our very powerful component as far as the 2021 regulations are concerned. So small detailed changes on there and mix them work very very differently. It's wrong to say they didn't help the performance. They did help the performance. They always will help the performance if you've got a small detail that you can exaggerate. So I still think to this day they were illegal. There's no point in proving it after the event that it's legal because it's the ones that are on there for the event that are tested and checked. You know, Joe Barra's Nulfil, he checked them all. Are they really good? Are they should have been through a lot? But because of Ferrari, it didn't happen. Well, the appeal hearing took place the Friday after the race. So at this point, of course, Mick Hacken and his world champion because Ferrari's have been thrown out. The outcome was announced by FIA President Max Mosley in a press conference on the Saturday morning, so six days later. Ferrari won the appeal by successfully arguing that the missing element of the bargeboards, when measured in a certain way, fell within the five millimeter tolerances allowed in the F1 technical regulations that govern the flat bottom of the car. The International Court of Appeal said in its verdict that all dimensions of the bargeboard were within the five millimeter tolerances. And it also said that the suggestion that a 10 millimeter shadow plate was missing from the bottom of the bargeboard resulted from a method of measurement, which was not necessarily in strict conformity with the regulations. In simple terms, Ferrari will basically able to say, well, if you measure it like this, it's actually within the tolerances allowed. The verdict then went on to say that the measuring equipment available to the FIA scrutiny is at the Malaysian Grand Prix was not sufficiently accurate to call into question Ferrari statement. This all came down to exactly what angle the bargeboard had been mounted on the cars. And because the FIA had taken the parts off to impound them, it had no way to disprove Ferrari's claim about how they were mounted, mostly admitted in his book that this was a mistake by the FIA, saying with hindsight, we should have impounded the entire car. Braun said in his book that Ferrari had come up with this defense after a series of meetings in the days leading up to it that involved studying the regulations intently and coming up with an argument that supplied the tolerances of the flat floor rules to vertical surfaces as well. Hopefully you still will. This meant in Braun's words, there was an interpretation that you could present where they weren't illegal. He also admitted it was never the intention of the regulation and I think everybody knew how the regulation was applied, but ultimately when you go to an appeal court, you are sat in front of a group of people who are qualified only to make an interpretation of the wording of the regulation. So after all of that, Gary, is the best way to describe this to say that Ferrari found a way to win this appeal on a technicality? What did you make of the way the appeal process and how they got reinstated was handled? Well, to try to explain this is pretty difficult actually, but to try to explain it a little bit better. If you imagine the the the the barge board itself is a curved plan of carbon fiber and it may be three mills thicker, five millimetres thicker, whatever, but basically it's got a bottom and the bottom of that barge board theoretically hides the rest of the barge board if you look directly from below the car. So you can have as tall as you want as long as it's on the same curve, the same profile. On the Ferrari barge board, the top of it was further outward than the bottom. So when you look from below, the bottom of the barge board didn't act as a shadow plate for the top of the same component because it was sitting at an angle. Now if you take a plate square or a square and you put it across the flat floor of the car and put it up vertically. Obviously that's what you've got. You've got a 90 degree angle that that barge board can sit at. But if you take the bottom of the car and you're like this five millimetre tolerance, if you have that five millimetre tolerance then the square doesn't sit square. The bottom of it doesn't sit horizontal. So the vertical part of the square doesn't sit vertical. So it lies out a little bit. So it means that you can see, you're allowed to see part of the barge board. But it does mean that you're not contributing the regulations because you're not more than the five millimetre on the flat floor area. But because the flat floor isn't flat, then it means that the barge board can lean out a bit. And it's very, very difficult to explain it, but it's it's wrong. The business in my book is wrong. There's nothing that says there that the flat floor area, the five millimetre tolerance, it's on that flat floor will be taken into account to any vertical reference plane it says. And also the one thing that we always have had, we have even more now, is that the measuring equipment that the FIA have at the circuit are there for you to use. You could bring your own measuring equipment if you want to, but the FIA's measuring equipment is what is theoretically gospel. And we used to have something in Adrian Newy could relate to this. Then what was called the Bridge of Doom. Whenever they did their first big flat platform and they took it to the first race of the year, we all put our cars on to the Bridge of Doom as such to measure it all up. The front wings were illegal. And that was that was only because the the Bridge of Doom was flexing with the weight of the car on it. Everybody has tested their wing and designed it to be legal, the height of the front wing relative to the underneath of the car. But when you put it onto a flat plate that's flexing, the front wing was too low. So I remember Adrian Newy's shone on screaming at the FIA guys to, you can't have this because we all designed our car legally. And you say that every car in the pit lands illegal by three millimeters or something. That's not because of the cars. There was an exception given for that first couple of races I think because of this because every car was illegal. But it just shows that you have to use the equipment that the FIA have created to check the legality. Ferrari got away with arguing that if you used theoretically perfect equipment to measure it, you could come up with an argument that their bargeboard was legal. But in reality it wasn't. The bargeboard vertical face should be vertical. But it wasn't vertical. It was out by the amount of the floor tolerance. So they could argue it was legal because if it was mounted properly, 100%, then it would have been okay. But it wasn't mounted on the percent because the floor was out. So it's a circle of events and they ended the day they got away with it. We were disappointed as well as a lot of people. The successful appeal meant that F1 had a title decider in Japan after all with Irvine heading to Suzuki four points ahead of Haccanon. McLaren took this news badly with Ron Dennis calling it a really bad day for the sport. He added we are not disappointed and not really surprised. We believe the push now for our sports has inevitably become quite commercial. Everybody wants to have an exciting race in Japan, but I think the price we have paid for that one race is too great. The benefits of this decision are purely short term and I don't think that it does any long term good. And now this sport has lost a degree of its integrity. Ron accepted that Ferrari probably had made a mistake rather than intended to run an illegal part. But in his view, the regulations needed to be enforced. And he also disputed Ferrari's argument that the 5mm tolerance rule should apply to that part of the car. He then accused F1 and the FIA of having a desire to see teams other than McLaren and Williams winning championships. Adding it seems to be the perception that Ferrari winning the championship is better than McLaren. Mostly hit back at those accusations, accusing Dennis of bringing F1 into disrepute and saying only those who don't understand the basis of the ruling would make the claims Dennis did. Mostly also said if the FIA really wanted to help Ferrari, it would have just declared the bargeboards legal on the Sunday in Malaysia. So Karone, what do you make of all that? Do you think there's any truth to the fact that there was a motivation here for F1 to make sure it got a title decided in Japan? 100%. Yeah, absolutely. I remember being in India with a bunch of friends watching it and you know we have these big McLaren fans and Ferrari fans. We're all getting very excited for the season finale in Japan and then it will usually be BBC World News that we watch later on that popped up the thing that he'd been disqualified. This was before we all really had internet as part of our day-to-day lives or on our smartphones and stuff. So I remember that being a bit of an anticlimactic feeling really thinking oh that's a bit rubbish. It complains of the fizz out of it and I'm sure in the week that went between Malaysia and the final hearing there were a lot of conversations about how can we make this Ferrari legal. Let's all get together and figure out a way for the show to listen. Ron's a smart guy. He's been around the block a lot of times. He's been around Championship battles. I'm sure even he knew deep down they would find a way to together Championship battle in Japan. Yeah, McLaren, I don't think McLaren really ever celebrated that championship and I noticed they're also Gary was nodding along when you said that they definitely wanted the title decided but Adrian Newey made some really interesting claims about what happened here in his book. He says that Ferrari were encouraged to protest by Mosley and even someone as level headed as Newey can't resist in his book referencing the rumors that FIA actually stood for Ferrari International Aid. So that's not just an internet conspiracy theory. One of everyone's greatest minds as a feeling that might be true. Neuey said he spoke to mostly about this years later, and Max told him that he felt McLaren had lured Ferrari into a trap, claiming that they already knew the bargeboards were illegal and they waited for Ferrari to win a race before protesting them. Neuey called that complete rubbish, saying he'd just been not been able to see them until they were left unguarded in Park Fermé, and he added, "Even if that were the case, it didn't alter the fact that Ferrari were using illegal bargeboards." Neuey said the appeal hearing made the Spanish Inquisition look exemplary, and he expressed some suspicion about the fact that Charlie Whiting was on holiday, so couldn't offer his findings. Adrian accepted that it's easy to make silly mistakes like the one Ferrari made, but it wasn't what Ferrari did that made him angry, it was the fact that they'd been let off the hook. And the final point he made on this was, "I am absolutely sure this would never have happened had it been us who had made a similar mistake." To Gary, Adrian didn't hold back there at all in his book, and he actually said that he couldn't say any more for kind of fear of legal action. So what do you make of Adrian's interpretation there? And do you think Max was right to say that McLaren tried to trap Ferrari here? Well, it's not a kiss of trying to trap anybody, it's a kiss of as the car legal or as the car legal. It doesn't really matter who brings it all up. The FIA are supposed to make sure the cars are racing in legal condition. It's one of those hard to think of things. We as Jordan protested Beneton in 1994 at IEDA. We finished third, Michael won the race. And at that point in time you had to have exactly the same regulation. You had to have the floor area had to be basically, well you wouldn't like to have holes on it basically, you know, at any of the floor area. And that included the bottom of the barge board and how they've been pervious. Whereas we had two, we had one bracket holding the barge board. So you had the flat floor area, you had the one bracket holding the barge board and you had the bottom of the barge board, all a continuous surface. There was a car, but it was a one continuous surface. Surface. Well, on the Beneton they had two brackets. So they had a major hole in the middle of it. So they had the flat floor area. They had front bracket, the bottom of the barge board and a rear bracket. And you know, between those brackets and the barge board and the floor, there was a huge hole in it. And the FI is ruling on that was that the surface that was left was impervious. So in other words, you can have the floor area with lots of holes on it over the whole thing. Anywhere you wanted them. But the surface that was left had to be impervious. The Oxford English Dixonry says that impervious means you can't pour water through it. So I don't know how big the hole can be, liability, pour water through it. But we found out then that basically you shouldn't protest anything that the FIA are doing. The FIA have gone with. It was a bit like Irvine's accent in Brazil, you know, the beginning of '94 where he lost the mystery races because of it. You know, initially he lost one race because of it. We protested and said, "Let us stop real fair. It wasn't really his fault. It was for Stappen. Attacked him and he didn't see him coming and they touched and so on and so forth." They'll be lost right there as well. So you learn your lesson pretty quickly that just take what you've got on the chin and stay out of trouble as best you can. But the fact that going back to the Ferrari bargeboards, I agree with Adrian and I agree with Ron Dennis. The fact that they were illegal. They were always being illegal for this day. I believe you have to wonder sometimes how they come to these decisions because it is pretty difficult to actually sort of see in front of you the package that creates your car and some teams can exploit it a lot better than others. And I've seen it during the years. You look at somebody think, "How did they get away with that?" But I learned during the years just to accept it. It's going to be the way it is, you know? Yeah, I think we can leave it there for Malaysia '99. This did rumble into the start of the Suzuki weekend. So when we cover that year's Japanese Grand Prix, we'll pick up any loose ends. But yeah, not F1's finest moment, but we got a title designer and McLaren wanted anyway. So not too much ongoing controversy from this one. Thanks to Gary and Corune for joining us for this one. Next time, we're revisiting another Michael Schumacher Masterclass as we head to the 2004 French Grand Prix, which he famously won with a unique four-stop strategy that outfoceted Fernando Alonzo's Renault team. The Athletic