Well, what can I say about Austrian Grand Prix 2003? It reminded me a lot about last year's races and that's not a good thing. OK, to his credit, Schumacher did pass Räikkönen on a track instead of doing it during a pitstop. Other good things were Button's 4th place and Pizzonia's strong race after all those rumors.
The bad things... I don't know what's wrong with Ralf Schumacher but he was especially weak. He's been weak the whole year (Imola not included, that was a good race for him) and it's going to be interesting to see what Williams will do with him. Williams' car isn't too good either athough Montoya was leading before his engine blew.
If this was A1-Ring's last GP then I won't be missing it. Sure it has a nice scenery with all the fields and cows but the track isn't suited for modern day F1 cars anymore. Everyone was saying how there's lots of overtaking places but it sure didn't look like that to me. The only good corner for passing was Remus and even there the action was limited to few incidents. This was most obvious in the end when Barrichello was chasing Räikkönen. Even though he was faster, there was no realistic way for Rubens to pass without Kimi's mistake. But I guess the same thing applies to most other tracks aswell. So maybe it's not a track problem but a car problem. I don't know.
Schumacher's burning Ferrari made me think of a replay of Verstappen's Benetton in Hockenheim '94 but luckily that wasn't the case.
All in all I'd say the race was - along with Imola - the dullest of the year so far. I waited the whole race for rain to spice things up but no such luck.
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05-31-2003, 06:31 PM
