JUSTIN HYNES on two Irish drivers chasing the ultimate dream, a seat in a Formula One car for next season
There are just 20 race seats available now in Formula One. Twenty places being sought by countless thousands of aspirants, from the nine-year-olds climbing into a kart for the first time in idolatry of Michael Schumacher to the countless professional hopefuls toiling away to raise budgets to race in one of a hundred series in a hundred countries.
In September, drinks company Red Bull took 15 young US racers to France for a shoot-out that would see four chosen to be groomed for an F1 berth.
That's 20 per cent of the current grid if all of them make it (unlikely though that is). The four chosen were relative unknowns Joel Nelson, Paul Edwards, Scott Speed and Grant Maiman.
It has been nearly a decade since an American, Michael Andretti, last raced in Formula One. The chances of any of them making the F1 grade are slim, despite the backing of cash-rich sponsors like Red Bull.
It's not just in the US that such statisitics hold. Europe is worse with road racing the dominant form of motorsport, Formula One the dominant dream.
Even a small country like Ireland has its overwhelming share of dreamers and schemers. There are now more than 30 Irish racers plying their pie-in-the-sky trade in foreign racing series from Japan to Germany, Spain to Britain.
Multiply that by every major racing country on the planet and you get some idea of just how precious and rare is the holy grail of a Formula One seat.
So, it must be a recognised achievement that at the end-of-season Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka, two young Irish drivers were being squired from team to team, meeting and greeting F1's great and good with the hope of a Formula One test almost within touching distance.
The two were 19-year-old Adam Carroll from Portadown and 25-year-old Ralph Firman, who, though born in England, carries an Irish passport courtesy of a Newbridge-born mother and proudly wears a shamrock on the front of his helmet.
For Firman the trip to Suzuka was short, at least in terms of physical distance. The 26 year-old Anglo-Irish driver lives in Fuji near Tokyo where he has based himself for the last six years.
"I moved into proper car racing in 1993 and did the Vauxhall Junior series and won the McLaren-Autosport young driver of the year award," he explains.
"Then I did Vauxhall Lotus with Paul Stewart Racing and finished fourth in the championship that year. The following year I did F3, won six races and finished second in the championship. I stayed with them in 1996 when I won the championship. That was a great year."
And then the money ran out. After the championship winning year of 1996 Firman found himself at a loose end. Unable to raise the finance to stay racing in Europe or move to the US, he made his way to Japan to race Formula Nippon, the F3000 of the Far East.
Eddie Irvine had just graduated to Formula One from the then cash rich series and more would follow - Mika Salo and Ralf Schumacher amongst the series graduates.
A year after he arrived in Japan he was offered the opportunity to drive for the Nova team which had just won the championship. He jumped at it.
Unfortunately the team switched from a successful Lola chassis to a less than useful G-Force model and Firman spent the next three seasons struggling to drag something meaningful from a car that was regularly a second off the pace.
Since then though he has transferred to the Nakajima team, perhaps the best outfit in the series. But the struggle in Japan continues.
"It's a very difficult place," he admits after six years in the country. "It's very different from anywhere else you might have been to. The first year, when I was only 20, was a massive shock. I was on my own so it was a complete culture shock, but I've got used to it now and I'm very comfortable. When things are going very well with your racing then it's easy to live here. When it's not so good you do struggle a bit.
"It was difficult but it was the only option I had in my career at the time," he adds. "But having said that it is a great place to come racing. The cars are extremely fast and it prepares you well for Formula One, which is still my aim and goal. Hopefully, I'll get the opportunity, maybe at the end of this year. You never know. You have to keep pushing."
Firman's wait for reward for long service in Japan has finally come. Last month at Suzuka he took the Formula Nippon title, beating closest rival Satoshi Motoyama by just two points.
"It's been a fantastic year," he told Motors after winning the title. "Nakajima has run a really good team this year and it's been excellent. One would hope that the championship win will open a few doors."
Reward for the hard years in Japan and for winning the Nippon championship came last week, when Firman was granted the opportunity to test a BAR at the Circuit de Catalunya. It was the culimation of all his recent efforts and also a chance to redress the balance of his career.
Catalunya wasn't as unkind as it has been to others. Running on used tyres, Firman at 1:21.056 may have been just over two seconds slower than Jacques Villenueve but he was 1.3 seconds off regular BAR tester Anthony Davidson, who has a hefty season of testing the 2002 BAR behind him.
It may be enough to earn him another opportunity, it may be his sole reward for his Nippon Championship. Time will tell.
Firman is pragmatic about the outcome however. "It's so different from the last time I drove I can't compare anything," he said. "What really surprised me was the braking and I was finding it difficult to brake hard. Also, the traction control felt very strange.
"I'm very happy, but it's a shame I didn't get to go on new tyres. Driving F1 is what it's all about, and this is where I would like to be. But if nothing happens, I'm very happy to go back to Nippon and defend my title."
Nippon has been good to Ralph Firman and we wonder at his continued desire to give up a drive he is paid for in Japan to tilt on the notoriously fickle battleground of Formula One.
"I don't want to come to Formula One for money, I want to come to race," he insists.
"I've raced against a lot of these guys before. When I raced in F3 I raced against Montoya, Trulli, Heidfeld, De la Rosa and I beat them all!"
Adam Carroll dreams the same dream. The Portadown youngster was a sensation in this year's British Formula 3 Scholarship Class, the series where aspirant racers can cut their teeth alongside full championship contenders before moving to the championship proper.
Carroll, backed by the fledgling John Sweeney race team, blitzed the scholarship class winning that championship by 128 points. Along the way he took 14 wins and 17 podiums, a record that set tongues wagging and raised curious eyebrows in other series, including it was rumoured in Formula One.
THE youngster, who started racing in the UK in 1999, is sanguine about the achivement however. "I did Formula Ford with Sweeney Racing and it was John Sweeney who then took me on. I've been with him ever since. We did two years in Formula Ford, which were very, very hard years. Everybody learned a lot, especially John and the team, because he'd just come in to motorsport and had no idea what to expect or how hard it was going to be. But it just shows how good he is. He turned it around, didn't give up and pulled off a cracking deal when he bought the Jaguar F3 team at the end of 2001.
"The plan was to do the Scholarship Class in British Formula 3 the next year, win that and run as highly up the grid as possible among the full championship contenders. We did that. We did everything we set out to do."
The question, now, is where does Carroll go from here? Success has come earlier than expected and Carroll now wants a step up. To that end, he and Sweeney have brought in Richard West, a former Williams employee turned management meeter and greeter, a man they reckon has the contacts to put Carroll in the frame for a move beyond F3.
The time may have slipped past though.Two years ago, youth was the flavour of the month in Formula One.
Twenty-year-old Jenson Button flew into Formula One on the back of a successful F3 campaign and took to it like a duck to water.
Formula Renault graduate Kimi Raikkonen was even more at home in Sauber's 2001 car, despite having less than 40 professional races under his belt. For 2002 he was got a dream transfer to McLaren. He was just 22 when the move happened.
Since then, F1 has had a rethink. The somwehat lurid styles of Felippe Massa and Takuma Sato and the number of chassis bent by an influx of youthful chargers has dented the sport's faith in the young.
Carroll, though, isn't bothered by driver fashion trends.
"If you're good enough you're old enough. If you're 15 or 25 it doesn't matter. I mean there's great drivers in F1 but it's boring as hell. You'd like to see a few young chargers in there who are going to cause a bit of fun, who are going to go for it. That's what it needs. Back to the Senna-Prost days. You need some racing in F1."
First though Carroll has to secure a test drive. Until then he is planning an attack on the full British F3 championship but options are still there. Nippon? "I don't know. I don't think I'd say no to that, they look pretty quick. Loads of grip and good power. I wouldn't mind that."