Handling the unhandleable

There’s no F1 action on Friday in Monte Carlo, but everybody was working hard trying to figure out what was going on. Wendlinger lay in a deep coma in Nice’s Saint Roche hospital. After losing Ratzenberger and Senna just a few weeks earlier, F1 really didn’t another dead driver. Team Sauber packed their equipment and after officially withdrawing from the event, headed back to their base at Hinwil, near Zürich. The mood was worsening. I saw Pat Behar, the FIA’s photo delegate, shouting abuse at a trembling colleague for an unknown slight. In 23 subsequent years of co-operation, I never saw Pat behave like this again. The tension was tangible. News came in about FIA president Max Mosley’s intention to reduce the pitlane speed limit to 80 km/h with immediate effect. It wasn’t an unreasonable decision, but still felt like a vague attempt to handle the unhandleable.