They say that when the phone rang at 7 o'clock in the morning, Marc Gen� hung up thinking that it was the hotel alarm call. However, this was a different phone call. The operations manager of the Williams BMW team phoned to tell him about Ralf Schumacher's absence from training sessions of the Italian GP and Marc Gen� became Juan Pablo Montoya's team mate. Possibly nobody woke up so fast and in such an expected way. On the way to the circuit, the driver from Sabadell realised that this time things were serious.

For the first time in his life he was going to drive a "real" F1 car and at Monza, one of the best scenarios. In spite of being extremely bervous, his trial laps were correct achieving the fifth place on the start grid, which he would go on to repeat in the race. Not a single error, nor a single problem. In all likelihood he will not be driving in the next race, but if the world is fair, Marc Gen� deserves to be at the wheel of a good car in the 2004 season. This was the fruit of three years of hard work.

With regard to the rest of the goings on, and in spite of the desperate attempts by Montoya, Michael Schumacher put on a tremendous show of faculties and is, and rightly so, a little bit more leader in the Championship.


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