Progress in Portugal:
by Gerhard Berger.
F1 Racing, January 1997.

Naturally I was very pleased to be quickest at the busy Estoril test recently. I'm not getting too excited though - after all,
how many times in the past have things gone well in the pre-season only to struggle to be on the pace at the first race? Still, on the test's final day, running the same Goodyear compound on which Williams set their best times the previous day, I went a couple of tenths faster in my Benetton-Renault B196.

Interestingly, Williams ran Renault's new RS9 engine in Jacques Villeneuve's car during the week, but I didn't get a chance to try it. The gearbox on this year's Benetton chassis does not match the new engine, so I'll have to wait for our 1997 car before I try it. Fingers crossed, that should be before Christmas. Of course, everyone is working flat-out to try to get the car finished in time and give it a run as soon as possible. I'm certainly looking forward to it - the old car is starting to feel pretty good now. I'm finally getting it to understeer!

As you know, there have been two major departures from Benetton's design side recently, with the team's technical director, Ross Brawn, going to Ferrari and designer Rory Byrne seeking the good life in Thailand. A lot of people have suggested this will cause problems. I don't agree. In all honesty, of the teams I have driven for, Benetton have the greatest strength-in-depth throughout their engineering and design personnel. Of course Ross and Rory will both be missed, but I have every confidence that Pat Symonds and Nick Wirth can fill the gap without any major drop-off in performance of the car or the team. And I don't think that could be said of every team on the grid.

I'm really delighted with the rapport I enjoy with all our engineers. We all understand each other very well when we're testing, and progress is certainly a lot easier to make it than it was a year ago when I first arrived here. As well as being a very constructive test for us, Estoril was also notable for the return to a Benetton cockpit of Alessandro Nannini - six years after his last race for the team, when his F1 career was cut short by that terrible helicopter accident. Sandro got a run before I arrived on the Wednesday, and he did a pretty good job - after so long away, to be three seconds off the pace was impressive. Nannini's lack of strength and control in his right arm was aided a lot by the power steering we ran on his car, and I tried it too. It's not the sort of thing that's going to make a difference to your lap times, but it certainly makes life easier when you're doing a race distance - and anything that keeps me feeling fresher over a long hard race must be an improvement.

The one downside to my test was a minor mishap I had late on Wednesday. It was getting pretty dark and I clipped a kerb on the inside of one of the corners. That threw me off-line, and I brushed down the barrier on the outside of the turn. A steering arm was broken but, apart from that, there wasn't much damage. I was a little surprised to hear news stories saying it had been a major crash!

Goodyear were trying plenty of new tyres in Estoril, and they definitely made progress. Some of the rubber compounds I ran were a significant improvement on anything we had in 1996. There again, Bridgestone are pushing pretty hard too and, judging by the TWR-Arrows times in Estoril, it looks like they have come up with some impressive wet weather tyres. Of course, wet races are always a possibility, and every tyre manufacturer has got to cover themselves by having some good wet compounds. Otherwise, should there be another couple of races like Barcelona this year, they could be somewhat embarrassed.

Actually, we were due back in Barcelona this week for more testing. That's more things to try out for the new car, and more miles on the clock in order to be as reliable as possible for the start of the new season. Losing points through unreliability is never good, and next year I expect it to be extremely tight at the top - which means none of us can afford to give away even a few points if we want to be in the fight for the title at the end of the year.

Aside from that, I've been enjoying some good snow back home in Austria, training hard with more of my beloved cross-country skiing. Wherever you are this Christmas, I hope, like me, yours is white and very happy. Actually, my mood has just got even better with the news that, according to the latest scans, my wife Ana is expecting our second daughter. She's due in March - I only hope I can toast her arrival with champagne from the winner's rostrum in Melbourne....

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