It would be wrong to call the 1998 season a very successful one. However it was the first step into a new era for the Minardi team. The most important thing was (next to the arrival of the Ford
Cosworth V10) the return of
Gustav Brunner. He had worked with
Ferrari for 4 years and had already been with the Minardi team in 1992. He started immediately with the design of the
M01 (the '99 car). In addition to that, the factory in
Faenza was almost doubled in size. The drivers were the very young
Esteban Tuero from Argentina and the fast
Shinji Nakano from Japan. Tuero was, due to his age and his reckless driving style, very popular with lots of fans and the media. RTL Germany for example dedicated a part of their F1 TV show to him (letting him do all kinds of funny things like sticking an Austrian motorway vignette on his car during the Austrian GP).
Tuero crashes with Johnny Herbert at Zeltweg
Shinji Nakano who raced for Prost during the '97 season had a very constant year. He finished 7th in Montreal and had several other good races. Commentators called him one of the best Japanese drivers ever.
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