Allan McNish believes that the all-new for 2003 Friday practice season for Renault, Minardi and Jordan is the ideal shop window for forgotten and emerging talent to show team bosses what they are really made of. The Scot, dumped by Toyota after a good first season in F1 passed up the offer of race seats with back of the grid teams in order to show his skills in one of the better pieces of F1 machinery available. Has he made the right choice? He certainly thinks so and on paper, the Friday session that is expected to see Minardi run perhaps 8-10 different drivers this season, certainly seems like a good way of peddling yourself to rival teams. But there are problems.
The main difficulty really stems from the turnover of drivers in F1, or lack of. Consider the top teams for example, barring Mika Hakkinen's retirement the big three have not changed drivers since 2000/01 and they don't look like changing anytime soon (unless Schumi retires). This example is indicative of the core problem surrounding the idea that Friday practice could secure a driver an F1 seat - simply there are always going to be too many drivers and not enough seats and the new practice format will only exacerbate that problem.
The driver moves this season have been pretty significant. Jaguar cleared the decks, so did Minardi and Toyota, and the likes of BAR, Jordan and Sauber shuffled the pack around their stalwart drivers. For a driver on the fringes of F1 all this looks good, plenty of movement, plenty of seats up for grabs. So Friday practice should be a great way of showing you've got the right stuff for driving an F1 car. But wait, look a little further down the track and things don't look so rosy.
All the top three teams will not change their driver line-ups unless Schumacher moves or retires. The Schumi/Barrichello, Montoya/Schumacher, Coulthard/Raikkonen combinations will remain for 2003/2004, of that there is little doubt. This then limits the options for the mid-field teams and the domino effect begins.
For most drivers looking in to F1 Sauber, Jordan, Minardi and BAR are their only real opportunities with the other teams tying their drivers for longer than one season. And for at least two of those teams you will need to bring copious amounts of cash with you in any case (so for people like McNish who cannot do that, the main obstacle to overcome next season will still be the same as it was this season - money). At BAR the contenders for Villeneuve's seat (assuming of course that he leaves) will need to have had a Honda badge on their lapel for a while to get a look in, despite what Dave Richards might say.
Effectively the new system will speed up the inflow of talent into F1 without necessarily seeing an equal increase in the outflow. Unless team bosses start giving drivers one season to prove their mettle before chucking them on the scrap heap, there is likely to be very little movement leaving the Friday practice boys high and dry.
So yes the Friday practice will be a great shop window but don't expect any driver changes because of it. As always with F1 it will come down to a fickle and unpredictable combination of cash, talent and corporate backing. The difference from 2003 onwards will only be that more drivers will almost reach F1, only to fall at the final hurdle. Mind you, testing an F1 car isn't a bad achievement.
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