McNish set for second chance

When Allan McNish was still looking ahead to the opening race of the 2002 season, he was asked how he imagined it would feel to sit on the grid for his first Grand Prix after a lifetime spent trying to break into Formula One.

"When it comes to revving up and reaching the first corner in Melbourne, it will be the conclusion of 20 years spent picking the lock to the safe,'' replied the 32-year-old Scot.

Unfortunately, it was at that moment that the safe blew up in his face.

Whether McNish can be said to have truly reached that first corner in Melbourne is a moot point. That was where the wreckage of his Toyota was to be found after the eight-car concertina resulting from the smash between Ralf Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello. So many years of anticipation came to nothing.

"There were various people going in various directions," recalled McNish. "I thought I had got away with it by cutting across the grass, but as I came back on the circuit I got hit. It was a bitter-sweet first race. With so many cars not finishing I could have been in the points. But I just have to forget it. I can't think about what might have been.''

So now it's a case of 'take two' this Sunday, 30 miles south of Malaysia's capital city Kuala Lumpur in the heat and humidity of the Sepang circuit. If refusing to think about what might have been is key to his performance, then McNish must qualify as an expert in the field by now.

A dozen years ago he was combining racing in Formula 3000 with a job as McLaren's test driver - the same job which David Coulthard, who is two years his junior, held at Williams in 1994 when he was drafted in to the full team following the death of Ayrton Senna at the San Marino Grand Prix. But the step up to the top league of motor racing somehow eluded McNish.

Many chose to believe his form faltered after his F3000 car crashed into the crowd at Donnington Park in 1990, killing a spectator. McNish trudged onward, testing for Benetton and Lola, but Formula One was in recession. Where there had been more than 30 cars on the grid, suddenly there were 22, and no place for McNish.