Motor Racing: Prodigal Prost sets pace for open season

WELCOME TO the new economy-sized Formula One: smaller cars, smaller tyres, smaller budgets. Probably not smaller egos, but, just possibly, smaller gaps beween the leading cars. Which may be enough, despite widespread pessimism, to keep it alive at the box office.

After a year's sabbatical and enough controversy to last a lifetime, Alain Prost yesterday went straight back to the top of the timing sheets after the first qualifying session for tomorrow's South African Grand Prix. This, of course, had been widely predicted ever since the Frenchman took over Nigel Mansell's leadership of the Williams-Renault team during the winter. But anyone who assumes that Formula One is in for another year of processions can think again. The message of yesterday's events at Kyalami is that we may be in for some proper racing.

Ayrton Senna, who decided to show up for the opening round of the 1993 world championship only a week ago, gave a clear indication that his McLaren-Ford will have a real chance of winning races on merit this season. In the morning's untimed practice session, Senna threw the new MP4/8 around with typical verve and confidence, finishing three-tenths of a second ahead of Prost.

Senna also led the list through part of the afternoon's qualifying, but then Prost became the first man to get below 1min 17sec, his Williams FW15 looking typically undramatic as he registered a time of 1:16.804, just over a second slower than Mansell's 1992 pole- position time. Senna pounced with five minutes to go, but for once the Brazilian failed to pull off his usual last-minute banzai effort, thwarted by the warning flags which went out after Andrea De Cesaris had spun his Tyrrell- Yamaha into the sand.

So Prost took the provisional pole position on his first visit to the rebuilt circuit just outside Johannesburg, although he won the race 11 years ago over the old, and very different, configuration. A new circuit, and a new car: 'The car is good,' he said afterwards. 'It isn't perfect yet, but it's only the first day.'

Like many people, Prost was critical of the new regulation which reduces practice sessions to 45 minutes, in the interests of economy. This, he said, did not give enough time for an assessment of the effect of the track surface and the extreme heat on the narrower tyres also stipulated by the 1993 rules. 'On a circuit like this,' he said, 'where the track is very dirty and it's impossible to overtake, you have enough of a job to think about getting pole position. We haven't been able to do any work on finding out how the tyres will wear in the race. So I have no idea whether we'll be changing tyres once, twice, or three times.'

Prost's team boss, Frank Williams, said he thought the tyre question would make for an interesting race. 'I'm glad the cars are a bit closer together,' he added. 'It's better for busines.' He expressed pleasure with the performance of both cars, and particularly that driven by Damon Hill, who is under some pressure to reveal himself as the new Mansell. Hill took fourth place on the provisional grid, just behind Michael Schumacher's Benetton-Ford, despite a half-spin into the pit straight on one of his early laps. 'I'm reasonably satisfied,' he said, 'but I'd like to see us both on the front row tomorrow.'

With seven different makes of car in the top 10, there were plenty of encouraging performances. Jean Alesi, fifth fastest in his new Ferrari F93, described having to alternate fast and slow laps to keep his tyre temperatures down. Michael Andretti, Senna's team- mate, ran more laps than anyone in both sessions in his campaign to familiarise himself with the highly strung Formula One machinery, and could be reasonably optimistic about sixth place in his first grand prix qualifying session.

Behind Andretti came the first representative of the team that may be the season's surprise package. The smart black Sauber C12s, originally conceived as the vehicle for a return to grand prix racing by Mercedes-Benz but now run by a Swiss team with some cash and encouragement from the German company, look as though they mean business, and J J Lehto's seventh place was no surprise. The Finn's team-mate, Karl Wendlinger, ruined his session through incautiously shifting from fifth to second.

The Ligier team's two British drivers did reasonably well, although Martin Brundle and Mark Blundell must hope that their Renault engines, active suspension and traction control will bring them closer to the standard set by Williams, the other Renault-engined team, than eighth and 11th. Brundle, who went off in the morning when his throttle stuck open, was the faster of the two by half a second.

Johnny Herbert, who showed on occasion last season that his Lotus-Ford could hang on to the tails of the leading teams, complained of understeer and a stuttering engine, and was on what he felt would be his fastest lap when the Formula One debutant, Luca Badoer, failed to spot him in the mirrors of his Lola-Ferrari and chopped off the Lotus's front wing. Derek Warwick, making his return to grand prix racing, could do no better than 20th place with the unwieldy Footwork-Mugen.

SOUTH AFRICAN GRAND PRIX (Kyalami) First qualifying times: 1 A Prost (Fr) Williams-Renault 1min 16.804sec (av speed 199.724kph, 124.106mph); 2 A Senna (Bra) McLaren-Ford 1:17.152; 3 M Schumacher (Ger) Benetton-Ford 1:17.507; 4 D Hill (GB) Williams-Renault 1:17.732; 5 J Alesi (Fr) Ferrari 1:18.775; 6 M Andretti (US) McLaren-Ford 1:18.903; 7 J J Lehto (Fin) Sauber-Ilmor 1:19.120; 8 M Brundle (GB) Ligier-Renault 1:19.138; 9 R Patrese (It) Benetton-Ford 1:19.341; 10 P Alliot (Fr) Larrousse-Lamborghini 1:19.350; 11 M Blundell (GB) Ligier-Renault 1:19.688; 12 C Fittipaldi (Bra) Minardi-Ford 1:19.825; 13 J Herbert (GB) Lotus- Ford 1:20.009; 14 G Berger (Aut) Ferrari 1:20.066; 15 R Barrichello (Bra) Jordan-Hart 1:20.118; 16 A Zanardi (It) Lotus-Ford 1:20.150; 17 K Wendlinger (Aut) Sauber-Ilmor 1:20.365; 18 U Katayama (Japan) Tyrrell-Yamaha 1:20.401; 19 A de Cesaris (It) Tyrrell-Yamaha 1:20.721; 20 D Warwick (GB) Footwork-Mugen Honda 1:20.821; 21 I Capelli (It) Jordan-Hart 1:20.841; 22 F Barbazza (It) Minardi-Ford 1:20.994; 23 E Comas (Fr) Larrousse-Lamborghini 1:21.000; 24 A Suzuki (Japan) Footwork-Mugen Honda 1:21.342; 25 M Alboreto (It) Lola BMS- Ferrari 1:22.843; 26 L Badoer (It) Lola BMS-Ferrari 1:24.737.