In this week's column, Ann Bradshaw talks about the ex-team bosses, new team bosses, watching the race on television and the Macau Grand Prix...

I spent the early hours of Sunday morning cuddled up under my duvet, my dog by my side snoring loudly, and watching what was, depending on your point of view, either a moderately interesting or a moderately boring Australian Grand Prix. I was able to find out what was happening in Melbourne and it was not following the script, most of which was based on the outcome of winter testing. However, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be a fly on the wall wherever five men, who in the past had been in the middle of the Melbourne action, would be watching this year’s race.

I think the most relieved of these men would be Sir Frank Williams. Frank, quite sensibly, decided to watch the race from his Grove HQ. It is a long trip for a fit person, but for someone like Frank it must be quite an ordeal. Also he had his partner Patrick Head there to make sure things went well. The BMW WilliamsF1 Team had been written off as a serious contender before the season, and so to see Mark Webber and Nick Heidfeld giving McLaren, Ferrari, BAR, etc a run for their money must have been gratifying.

However, everything is relative and no doubt Frank still wanted better results, as he is a racer who wants to win. Also he must have been fuming at the way his German driver was denied a points finish thanks to another German driver. It was a very unusual mistake from Michael Schumacher, but he is more used to leading from the front, and not having to battle halfway down the field.

Another man who, while not happy at missing the chance to carry on the job he had been doing so well, may have been a little smug about how things turned out was David Richards. I know politics in Formula One are often more important than the sporting elements, but I still cannot understand why he was replaced at BAR.

He did a good job there but now, with David gone and Nick Fry in charge, the team has suddenly dropped down from the top of the leaderboard and produced a result that was described by Nick himself as ‘lacklustre’. I have known David long enough to appreciate he would not have been gloating at the team’s problems, but if he did have a private smile on his lips I for one would not blame him.

Eddie Jordan is a man who must have been feeling a sense of relief, but also a pang of jealousy that it was not him at the helm of a now well financed Jordan Grand Prix team. I would not have minded watching with him. I saw him a few weeks ago at a Thin Lizzy concert in London and he was full of the joys of spring. He suddenly had money in his bank account and time on his hands to decide what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He had found his Russian billionaire, and so assured the livelihood of most of his employees.

I know Trevor Carlin, the new Sporting Director for the team, as he used to run the pit stop challenges for the WilliamsF1 team sponsors. He also runs several successful teams in lower formulae, including the Formula BMW UK Championship. I had a chat with him just before he jetted to Russia, on his way to Australia, for the team’s official launch in Moscow, and he was looking forward to the task ahead of him.

He is friends with Frank Williams so I am sure he has not been too proud to ask the odd word of advice. While the team did not have the best of races, it made it to the grid and its two rookie drivers made it to the flag. While Eddie may have missed the fun of Melbourne, I think he would have been delighted that the team is still there.

Now we come to the two men who I would not have chosen to sit with, although I would have loved to hear their comments after the race. They are Tony Purnell and Dave Pitchforth, who were in charge of Jaguar Racing and then, for a short time, Red Bull Racing before the owner, Dietrich Mateschitz, decided he did not like the way they were running things.

I know opinion in the media is divided on their abilities at running Jaguar Racing, which to the outsider seemed to be one of the better funded but least successful teams, such that eventually Ford had to pull the plug on. I only came across them for a short period while working with Antonio Pizzonia in 2003. What I saw was not something I liked, but if they had done a good job with the team then I would be happy to put my personal feelings to one side. However, I did not have to.

They are now gone, and with just a few weeks at the helm Christian Horner, who I have always found personable, got in there and has done a great job. With David Coulthard and Christian Klein getting their heads down and ignoring the hype going on round them, we saw a team that made everyone except Renault F1 look very over hyped. I expect it was not easy watching for either of these two men, but for me seeing those Red Bull cars doing well was one of the highlights of the whole race.

I am aware the outcome of the weekend had a lot to do with the new qualifying system, and I’d prefer to leave the pros and cons of this to people who were there. At the end of the day we have to decide whether we want to see the best driver, in the best car win with no artificial elements to stir things up, or if a bit of stage managed mayhem can add what Formula One has been lacking recently - excitement.

Now my Formula One globe trotting days are over I am involved in other forms of racing, and they have brought a lot of the fun to my motorsport career. I currently am counting the days until the new A1 Grand Prix series hits the tracks in the UK in September. It is now a year since I got involved in this series inspired by His Highness Sheikh Maktoum Hasher Maktoum Al Maktoum. Apart from realising that this 28-year-old from the Dubai ruling family is much happier just being called Sheikh Maktoum, I have also come across a concept that has inspired a variety of influential people from the worlds of business and motorsport to want to be involved.

A1 is billed as the World Cup of Motorsport, and has lived up to this title. While Bernie Ecclestone must be rubbing his hands at having the first Indian driver in Formula One, he would surely love to also have the variety already signed up by A1 that would ensure huge new televisions audiences. A1 has already got teams signed up from 14 nations, including newcomers to the sport such as Pakistan, Turkey and South Korea. With the regulation that the national team must have a driver from that country, the boast that over eighty per cent of the world’s population will be represented is not an empty one.

One of the first countries to sign up was China, and it will be fascinating to see how this country picks the driver who will carry his country’s national pride. However, motorsport is not new to China, and I fulfilled a personal ambition in November last year when I attended the Macau Grand Prix, which was being run for the 51st time! The stories I had heard of what happens there both on and off the track were legendary, so I could not wait to see for myself. I was lucky enough to go with BMW as a three-car team had been entered in the touring car race.

It was only when I got there I started to understand the history of this event, as most current Formula One drivers have raced here in the blue ribbon Formula Three event. Names of past competitors include Michael and Ralf Schumacher, David Coulthard, Mark Webber, Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello, Juan Pablo Montoya, Jarno Trulli, Takuma Sato, and the list goes on. And then you have those who have long ago hung their helmets up, such as Stirling Moss, Sir Jack Brabham, Phil Hill, Denny Hulme and more recently Gerhard Berger.

It was a proper event with the street race taking over the Chinese territory that is famous for its casinos. Night and day the fun did not stop. On the track, which made Monaco look safe, the action went on all day. The F3 and touring car drivers knew that a slight mistake meant contact with the barriers and hours of work for the mechanics. However, the bike riders knew the consequences were much more severe, and sadly during the weekend there were a couple who paid the price and as I left were still in comas.

A small, professional, dedicated group of people run the event, with lots of my mates from over 30 years of racing involved. I first met Barry Bland in the seventies when he used to make entries through his company, Motor Race Consultants, into Grand Prix races on behalf of Roger Williamson and Rikki von Opel. Well here he was looking fit and well and making the whole thing happen, with the help of Pete Briggs, who is usually running his Edenbridge racing team.

Barry made sure he was backed up by friends who knew what they were doing, so I kept coming across the likes of Charlie Whiting from Formula One and Mike Trimby from MotoGP, and since getting home I have found out there were others who I never saw but were happy to give up their precious off-season time to get involved in a great event.

This is one of those stand alone events that doesn’t need championships to get entries - everyone who goes there is there for fun as well as racing. However, the reputation it has precedes it, and I am delighted that for 2005 the FIA have realised just what a great event it is and it will be the final race of the World Touring Car Championship.

For those of you who have never seen the FIA European Touring Car Races on TV, I can recommend you make sure you watch the progress of the series that has now gone global. With BMW, Alfa Romeo and SEAT now being joined by Ford and GM, the great racing is bound to go on, and I am more than happy to say I hope last year’s champion, Andy Priaulx, can win the title for BMW!

My racing season has another month before it kicks off, but then it is with my Formula BMW UK Championship drivers. I had a lot of fun with these youngsters last year, and am looking forward to seeing what my class of 2005 is like. I now know what foster mothers must feel like, as they have their children for a short space of time and then send them off into the big wide world. I saw four of my youngsters head to Formula Three, have ten coming back and also a new batch. No doubt I shall have some tales to tell you in my regular columns.

About the author:
Ann Bradshaw - Annie - began her motor racing career as a teenager, helping out her brother in local rally races in England, where she grew up. In the 1970s she organised motor racing events in England, and was later the press officer for the RAC MSA - the motorsport governing body in Britain. In mid 1980s, she became press officer to team Lotus, where she worked with Ayrton Senna. Shortly after, she moved to the Williams team and was working there for several years, when once again she found herself working with Senna. She worked with Damon Hill after the Brazilian's death, and moved with the British Champion to Arrows. She also worked with the Panoz team in the United States, before becoming a freelance press officer, now working with BMW among others. Annie joined Atlas F1 as a regular columnist in April 2002.

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