On Friday Riis, teammate Ullrich and Spanish rival Abraham Olano had been told they could not ride their time-trial “specials” because the cycles did not conform to the Union Cycliste International rules which deem illegal “anything that reduces resistance and offers artificial acceleration such as a fuselage”. The Italian makers Pinarello are now adapting their design to conform for the other Tour time-trials after a pounds 40,000 development programme.Riis had used his “special” to win a silver medal in the Danish time trial championship, and the Danish Federation claimed that “the rules are not very clear, so it is up to the official at the start to decide”. His 52.466kph performance was nowhere near his Tour record of 55.152kph, but less than 5km into his ride there was a yellowish glow about the flying Merseysider. He was already two seconds faster than Ullrich, and a second faster than the Russian Yevgeny Berzin who finished third, five seconds slower than Boardman.
“This is a very special day. I don’t think I appreciated how important the yellow jersey was when I first won it in 1994,” Boardman said “Believe it or not, I was not happy with my ride. I was very nervous about trying to get ‘everything out’ in just over seven and a half minutes.

I was not aggressive enough at the start and I was uncertain about how to tackle the small hill. Yet I possibly profited from that when I had to ride into a headwind towards the finish.”Boardman relished the moment but was philosophical about how long he could defend the jersey. He said: “With sprinters not so far behind me on time it may only take one sprinter like Mario Cipollini to take it from me the next day.”Boardman was five seconds faster than Swiss pair Alex Zuelle and Tony Rominger, whose world one hour record the Briton eclipsed last year, on a course that took in two bridges over the Seine and passed the 12th century cathedral.The world time-trial champ-ion, Zuelle, who beat him by two seconds in last year’s Tour prologue in Hertogenbosch was riding with his fractured collarbone held together by 12 surgical pins “I went faster in training than I did in this ride I made a mistake on the last bend. At a time when Silverstone is obliged by FIA, the sport’s governing body, to erect fencing to keep fans away from the paddock at the British Grand Prix, which will attract 150,000 at the weekend, Goodwood allowed them not only to see their idols, but to speak openly with them, just as Silverstone’s Coy’s Festival will later this month.At last year’s British Grand Prix Herbert was nearly fined for signing autographs in the wrong place. Few people can lay claim to having been disturbed by the legendary American driver Dan Gurney racing one of his Eagle Weslake Grand Prix cars in their back yard, but the Earl of March and Kinrara, Charles Henry Gordon Lennox, can. Two weeks ago Goodwood House in Sussex reverberated to the echoes of motor sport history in the fifth annual Festival of Speed. More than 100,000 spectators flocked to enjoy the emotional reunion of legends such as Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks with the Vanwall in which, 40 years ago, their British Grand Prix victory provided the first for British drivers in a British car at such a level.
Hans Stuck drove his father’s prewar Auto Union, and the champions Phil Hill, John Surtees, Jody Scheckter and Emerson Fittipaldi mingled in the crowd, who also saw Johnny Herbert, Eddie Irvine, Eddie Jordan and Carlos Reutemann piloting a variety of glamorous historic racing cars and bikes up the hill outside the stately home where, as a boy, Lord March had driven his own go-kart.The festival explodes many myths, chief among them that spectators can no longer get close to the action at motor racing.

I’m in racing to win, so if you get a chance to win, then you should try to win it. There would have been more work and pressure and all that, but the fact that you win outweighs that a thousand times.”If he fails to kick-start his campaign with victory at Silverstone, Villeneuve, the fast kid who sometimes trips over his own precocity, might just find that 1996 was, after all, his best shot.. To tell you the truth, if I wasn’t racing, I would have died my hair easier without thinking about it. Now I thought a little bit about it, because there’s no reason to do something if it’s going to get everyone mad, unless you do it just to get a reaction from people. But that’s not why I do it.”Jackie Stewart always maintained that losing the 1968 World Championship battle to Graham Hill was the best thing for him, as he was not then ready for champion status, but Villeneuve has a typically Nineties view of last year’s defeat by Hill “It would have been better to win it. If you can win something, then you can’t say that not winning it is better.

Rumour says that the schoolboy has lately had a lecture from the headmaster and his deputy, as well as from the school governor.So why the change of hair colour? “I just felt like it. Villeneuve will almost certainly stay for 1998, but his name is continually linked to a new Formula One project planned for 1999 by his managers.Jock Clear, Villeneuve’s engineer, says that on a professional level he is very strong-minded and makes others justify themselves, but that he can also lark around, “just like an overgrown schoolboy”. Tensions which started over financial negotiations now embrace performances. No driver has ever been so molly- coddled as Villeneuve was when Formula One’s powerbroker, Bernie Ecclestone, shoe-horned him into the team. He did 6,000km of testing before his GP debut, and was allowed – in an unprecedented indulgence – to make his own experiments with chassis set-up. Now he says the team have to work harder, though their failure to score a one-two result so far this year doesn’t worry him “What concerns me is what I do,” he says curtly.