By Tom Rubython        

Nine years after the world championship showdown at the Spanish circuit, Jerez de la Frontera, between Jacques Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher in 1997, the then-Sauber driver Norberto Fontana has decided to tell the story of what happened to him and his part in that highly-charged weekend.

Fontana was a talented driver who had won the German Formula Three Championship two years before, beating Ralf Schumacher, Jarno Trulli and Alexander Wurz in the process. But the Argentinian’s career stalled and he finally got an opportunity in Formula One deputising for the injured Gianni Morbidelli at the Sauber Petronas team for four races at the end of 1997. After the Jerez race, he never competed in Formula One again, going to America and into obscurity. Few remember his Formula One career except in Argentina where he is still a minor celebrity.

At Jerez on that day, Sunday 26th October, Fontana had qualified 18th out of 22 and gone about his weekend totally unnoticed. He was 1.3 seconds slower than his team-mate Johnny Herbert in qualifying. But Ferrari team principal, Jean Todt, had spotted his potential in 18th place, although not for the usual reasons. In a recent interview with the daily Argentinian sports magazine Ole, the now 31-year-old Fontana claims two or three hours before the race, Todt visited the Sauber motorhome where the two drivers were having a pre-race massage. The Swiss team used Ferrari engines at the time. What happened next shocked all those present. Todt told the three men that the Saubers must block Jacques Villeneuve’s Williams Renault if they were in a position to do so in order to help Michael Schumacher win the world championship. The order was given to Fontana and Herbert, the team’s number one driver.

In reality it was unlikely either of the Sauber drivers would have had a serious chance to block Villeneuve, but Todt apparently made it very clear what they must do it if they had. Fontana says now: “We were in Peter Sauber’s motorhome with the masseur and Johnny Herbert, softening the muscles. It was two or three hours until the race started. Jean Todt entered and went straight to the point: ‘By strict order of Ferrari, Villeneuve must be held up if you come across him on the track. To whoever this applies.’ And this applied to me.” Todt didn’t appear to know who Fontana was but realised as a slower backmarker he might have more chance to block Villeneuve than Herbert would.

It was an astonishing situation for the young driver to be in. But according to Fontana, Peter Sauber told him that whatever the morality he had little choice but to comply. Sauber had an engine contract with Ferrari, then in its first year, which obliged it to comply.

Peter Sauber has since strongly refuted this version of events in an interview with his close friend, the journalist Roger Benoit. But he cannot know for sure as he was not present in the motorhome when Todt made the request. Nevertheless, in an interview published in Blick, the Swiss daily newspaper, Sauber called Fontana a liar and vigorously denies Fontana’s claim.

Sauber told Blick that in the nine years Ferrari and Sauber worked together, the Italians never asked his team to block other drivers. He told Benoit: “Ferrari never expressed the desire that we should obstruct an opponent of Schumacher on the track.”

Benoit is a journalist of the highest regard and with the highest standards, and would have printed exactly what Sauber told him. That Sauber denies it cannot be refuted.

However the television footage appears to prove Sauber wrong rather than Fontana. It clearly shows Fontana blocking Villeneuve for three corners when he came up to be lapped on lap 32. Fontana describes how he did it: “When I came to taking a turn, I held Jacques back by three or four curves, not more.”

As well as the television footage, it is also backed up by a sequence of remarks between Murray Walker and Martin Brundle, the ITV commentators for the English-language broadcast of the event. The exchange went like this:

“Case of champagne from Ferrari to Sauber,” said Walker.

“Because the Argentinian newcomer Norberto Fontana, up from Formula Three, really, really, helped Michael Schumacher on his way there,” he added.

“What engine have they got in that Sauber, Murray?” said Brundle.

 “Isn’t it a Ferrari?” he said.

“Well, it is, yes,” said Walker. “Martin you are a cynical chap.”

Walker and Brundle had no doubt what had happened, and although they didn’t know why at the time, by their comments they suspected some doubtful behaviour by Ferrari.

Fontana is adamant he did his job well and blocked Villeneuve for three or four corners and cost him around three seconds.

In the end, of course, it didn’t matter as when Villeneuve challenged Michael Schumacher for the lead, the cars collided and Schumacher got the worst of it and retired from the race and championship contention. Villeneuve won the world championship and Schumacher was later stripped of his second-place for pushing Villeneuve’s Williams Renault off the track. The race also had another controversy that enabled Todt to get away with his ruse: the Williams Renault and McLaren Mercedes openly colluded to alter the course of events, although not negatively as Todt had planned. Frank Williams agreed that if the McLaren drivers Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard helped Villeneuve then the Canadian would hand the win to either of the McLaren drivers if he didn’t need the points at the end of the race. But this was certainly not collusion to the extent of trying to disrupt Villeneuve’s race as Fontana was ordered to do.

And there the secret would have lain if Fontana had not harnessed bitter feelings about the incident and been telephoned by a reporter from Ole to comment on Schumacher’s retirement on the evening of the 10th September 2006. The article duly appeared in the following day’s edition.

Fontana was bitter because he claimed that neither Schumacher nor Todt ever thanked him for what he did. Fontana believes the incident harmed his career and his chances of attracting another drive with another team. He says: “It was incredible at the time but already it’s history, a story.”

Fontana said he was telling the story now because time had passed and Schumacher was retiring: “Now that time has passed, I can tell the story. After all, who remembers?”

He says: “It harmed me. First, Schumacher never thanked me for it and Todt, as they lost the championship, they left the motorhomes heated and I never spoke with him again. And, months later, that situation finished me.” More than anything else, he was angry about not being thanked.

Fontana was a friend of Schumacher’s from his German Formula Three days, as he says: “We had a lot of contact when I raced in the German Formula Three, because Ralf was there.” Schumacher was once quoted as saying of Fontana: “Who is that boy? Fontana, an Argentinian? He goes very well, that boy he goes well.” Fontana remembers eating pizza with Schumacher and becoming friends.

Fontana did go on to secure a drive with Tyrrell in 1998, but after the team was bought by Craig Pollock he blocked the move. Fontana maintains it was because Pollock was Villeneuve’s manager and remembered what had happened. He explains: “Pollock finished me and gave me the thumbs down for that manoeuvre.”

Now Fontana is sanguine about the incident and ruminates about what might have led from that Tyrrell drive: “I had more to lose than to gain. I did what I had to do. But it is a done thing.”

But Todt may not be out of the woods. There is now enough published evidence for Max Mosley, the FIA president, to haul Todt up in front of the FIA World Motorsport Council for what he did. But will he?