Mika Hakkinen wins the European GP ahead of David Coulthard and Jacques Villeneuve. Berger, Irvine and Frentzen made the top 6.
The race started with Schumacher having a good start and took the lead
from Villeneuve, Villeneuve's start was very bad that he ended up behind
Frentzen. Several laps later Villeneuve managed to pass Frentzen and started
chasing Schumacher.
The gap between the top 2 remained around the 5 second mark until the
second pit stops.
After the second pit stops, Schumacher was in front but appeared to
be slower than Villeneuve, within 2 laps Villeneuve closed tha gap and
made a passing attempt at Schumacher. Schumacher (as in Adelaide 94) hit
the side of Villeneuve's car and bounced off the corner into the gravel
to retire. Villeneuve's car survived the accident but his lap times slowed
down considerably. He stayed in the lead unitl the last lap when Hakkinen
and Coulthard passed him with Coulthard passing him almost on the start-finish
line.
Well, it has been a great year and congratulations to Jacques Villeneuve on his World Champioship win and to Mika Hakkinen on his first ever Grand Prix win.
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Believe it or not but the top 3 drivers drove around the Jerez circuit
in exactly the same time, down to the 1/1000 of a second !!. Villeneuve
grabbed pole because he was the first to lap in that time followed by Michael
Schumacher then Heinz-Harald Frentzen. !!
What are the probabilities of this happening. !!
In a seperate incident, Michael Schumacher appeared to have not slowed down under a yellow flag situation during qualifying when his brother Ralph crashed. Michael is under a suspended race ban. The yellow flags were apparently stationery (which means no passing under yellow) but seemed to be waving due to the wind !! (waving yellow means slow down which Michael ignored). I guess this is normal as some are treated differently than others ???
In any case, we should have one hell of a race tommorow and lets hope once again no dirty tactics during the race.
In other qualifying news, Jan Magnussen (11th) outqualified his teammate Rubens Barrichello (12th) and soemthing seems to be very wrong with Jordan with Ralph Schumacher in 16th and Giancarlo Fisichella in 17th place !!
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Michael Schumacher is back in 9th spot, his teammate Eddie Irvine is in 12th spot.
It looks like the Bridgestone runners have an advantage here. It will become clearer tomorrow in qualifying.
Both championship contenders, Jacques Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher appeared statisfied with their results and look forward to qualifying.
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Both drivers have indicated their fears of being blocked or taken out
by the other driver's teammate. What looks to be an exciting race could
endup being another race of dirty tactics.
Before the race even started, it seemed that the championship would go down to the wire since Jacques Villeneuve was disqualified from the race due to Jacques ignoring a yellow flag during practice. Williams however appealed and Jacques was allowed to start from pole. It is almost certain that the appeal will be rejected and Villeneuve will lose the points he has scored in Japan.
Back to the start of the race and Jacques and Michael had good starts so did Hakkinen who passed Irvine. A couple of laps later though, Irvine made an incredible pass on both Hakkinen and his teammate Schumacher !! and then a lap later he even passed Villeneuve. These passing manouvers where absolutely amazing. Furthermore he started lapping 4 seconds a lap quicker than 2nd place Villeneuve !! although Villeneuve, Schumacher and Villeneuve were on the same pit stop strategy.
After the first pit stops, Schumacher managed to pass Villeneuve (in the pits) and then with Irvine leading Schumacher by more than 8 seconds, Irvine slows down lets Schumacher pass and then stays in front of Villeneuve blocking him in his chase after Schumacher !!. Villeneuve and Williams decide to pit early in an attempt to pass Irvine in the pits but that fials due to a mistake by the refuelling man which caused Villeneuve's pit stop to be over 13 seconds. Villeneuve rejoined in 7th spot and that was the race for him.
Meanwhile Frentzen was charging and by the time the second pit stops arrived he passed Irvine in the pits to take 2nd place and started chasing Schumacher, he was not closing on him quick enough though and had to settle for 2nd giving Williams the 1997 Constructor's championship. Villeneuve ended up in 5th place scoring 2 points but will probably lose them when the FIA study the Willaims appeal.
So in a race where Irvine shined, he gave the race away to his teammate
who is now only one point behind Villeneuve (if Villeneuve's score is confirmed)
or 1 point ahead of him if Villeneuve's points are stripped away from him.
In any case Irvine driving future with Ferrari is certainly confirmed
following his strict following of Ferrari's team orders. His place at Ferrari
was in doubt last week following strong rumours that Berger might rejoin
the team.
Are we going to see an exciting race in Jerez or will the FIA even disqualify
Villeneuve for that race because of his appeal. If that is the case, the
championship would be Schumacher's and it would be his third world championship
and his 2nd that he wins in controversy !! - I would not be surprised if
this happens but millions of F1 fans will be very very disappointed.
Let us hope that the 2 will race and will go for it in Jerez
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The session was stopped 5 minutes before the end due to a heavy crash
by Gianni Morbidelli, he walked away uninjured.
Bridgestone did not qualify well at all despite the super tyre story.
The highest Bridgestone runner was Panis in 10th spot.
McLaren had mixed fortunes with Hakkinen in 4th while Coulthard in 11th. Jordan had a bad qualifying session with Fisichella in 9th and Ralph Schumacher in 13th. Diniz once again outqualifies Damon Hill.
Lets hope everyone goes through the first corner without a problem especially the first 2 !!
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World Championship contenders Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve only managed 10th and 11th respectively but their teammates have done much better indicating that they were testing different setups. Panis is the highest Bridgestone runner in 3rd. Bridgestone are using a specially designed tyre for this event in an attempt to win their first race on their home ground.
Should be a very exciting qualifying session tommorow.
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The race start saw Fisichella and Ralph Schumacher touch with Ralph
car bouncing in the air and hitting Michael Schumacher's car. Resulting
in all 3 drivers retiring. (Michael retired a lap later).
At the front, Hakkinen was in the lead followed by Coulthard whoi made
yet another impressive start and Villeneuve who banged wheels with Frentzen.(
Frentzen accidentally switched off the ignition of his car at the first
corner and when he realised what happened he was in 12th spot.
The top 3 started to get away from 4th place Barrichello and Hakkinen
in front was building an impressive gap between himself and Coulthard.
The situation remained the same until after the first pit stops when
disaster again struck both McLaren's and almost on the same lap both Hakkinen
and Coulthard retired. Ruben Barrichello retired soon afterwards and Villeneuve
found himself leading the race. Behind him was Alesi and Frentzen fighting
for second place closely follwed by Berger. There was a good battle for
5th and 6th with Panis pushing Diniz to the limit but Diniz didn't give
in and stayted in front.
Panis's return was an impressive one manging to finish in 6th spot after
his terrible accident in Canada, Diniz showed everyone that he has the
potential of a good driver and finished 5th. But the honours go to Renault
with the top 4 finishers powered by them, they have proved to be the most
reliable.
So with Villeneuve's win and Michael Schumacher's retirement, Villeneuve
now leads the championship by 9 points with 2 more races to go. All what
Villeneuve needs to clinch the world championship at Suzuka is to stay
ahead of Michael and finish in the points, a task that should not be very
hard given Villeneuve experience at Suzuka, Williams performance at that
particular track and the mishaps of the Ferrari team.
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The top 8 are less than 1 second apart and Hakkinen was only 0.089 seconds
faster than Villeneuve who was only 0.05 seconds faster than Frentzen.
Michael Schumacher was only 0.02 seconds faster than David Coulthard.
Barrichello was the top Bridgestone runner in 9th followed by Panis
in 11th.
Should be an exciting race.
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Championship rivals were not as quick, Schumacher 8th and Villeneuve down in 12th spot, but this is practice and tomorrow is qualifying. Interestingly enough 12th spot was Villeneuve's same position in last year's practice sessions at the Nurburgring !!
A welcome return for Panis this round, he could be the dark horse of this race.
The times are very close and will get even closer by qualifying, makes it even more exciting !!
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The race start was exciting with Villeneuve on pole giving up a few places (what is unusual ??) and ended 3rd on the 2nd lap and Schumacher in 9th spot having a good start and ended 6th on the 2nd lap. Jarno Trulli and the Stewart pair of Barrichello and Magnussen had impressive starts and after the first lap Trulli was leading the race until the pit stops. (Who would have thought of that). Prior to the pit stops, Villeneuve managed to take 2nd place fro Barrichello and reduce the gap to Trulli.
After the dust settled following the pit stops, Villeneuve had managed to pass Trulli in the pits. Meanwhile at the back Alesi and Irvine where fighting for position and on 1 corner they touched and both retired (Alesi should have known better). Yellow flags were waving at the scene but Michael Schumacher either ignored them or didn't see them and actually passed Frentzen under yellow which caused him a 10 second "stop-go" penalty and ended up in 9th spot. Towards the end of the race several cars blew up (their engines that is), most notably both the Prost cars of Trulli and Nakano blew up on the same lap!!.
Schumacher managed to put a lot of pressure on Barrichello and caused
him to commit a mistake and with 2 laps to go, Schumacher managed to pass
Hill to secure 6th position.
Overall, it was a good race and in terms of the driver's championship,
the gap between Schumacher and Villeneuve is 1 single point with 3 races
to go. What a season finale it is going to be.
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It seems like the Bridgestone tyres have an advantage over the Goodyear runners. Hill qualified 7th ahead of Irvine and Michael Schumacher in 8th and 9th positions.
The Benetton's and the Jordan's did not do well, Ralph qualifying 11th, Fisichella 14th, Alesi 14th and Berger 18th.
Very impressive perfomance from the Stewart team.
Less than 1 second separates the top 14 drivers. Should be exciting
especially the start and the pit stop strategies.
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The top 6 were less than half a second apart and just outside the top
6 was Michael Schumacher 0.738 seconds off the pace.
Barrichello was so impressive that his teammate is back in 18th place.
Fisichella is showing his skill being 4th fastest while his teammate is
16th !!
The field is very close and it should be even closer tomorrow for qualifying, stay tuned
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If the top 6 were reversed we would not have been surprised but it was not. Coulthard won the race by having an excellent start and an excellent pit stop.
Alesi came second becuase he had a bad pit stop (he was leading until the pit stops). Frentzen was thrid, Fisichella 4th, Villeneuve 5th (bad start again) and Schumacher 6th.
The Championship race is 1 point closer now with Michael Schumacher 10 points ahead of Jacques Villeneuve who should have scored better than 5th position with Michael and Ferrari struggling in Italy.
Next race is in Austria and as Coulthard described it, it is like Monaco without walls and concrete barriers.
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The times are very close and less than half a second separates the top
7. Dissapointment however for Ferrari with Schumacher 9th and Irvine 10th.
Both the Stewart's outqaulified the Arrows of Damon Hill, Barrichello
in 11th place in front of Herbert. Nakano managed to outqualify Trulli
in the Prost but both are way back in 15th and 16th spots.
It is going to be a very close race !!
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Both the Ferrari's were off the pace with Irvine in 8th position and
Michael Schumacher back in 13th postition more than 2 seconds off the pace.
Pedro Diniz was faster than his teammate Damon Hill.
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Note: Mika Hakkinen was disqualified from the Belgium race and lost his 3rd place. This has affected the Driver's and Constructor's championship. Check the main F1 page for the updated tables.
Schumacher and his Ferrari team made the right decision and went for
intermediate tyres at the start of the race while Villeneuve and Alesi
where on full wets, soon after the start of the race the rain stopped and
the track started to dry very quickly, this gave Schumacher the advantage
of intermediates over full wets and easily passed Alesi and Villeneuve.
From then on he led the race till the finish. Villeneuve pitted very early
and changed to intermediates which was clearly the wrong choice since he
had to make another stop for slicks soon after, this has cost him a better
position, he did fight back and managed to secure a 6th position.
Benetton have struggled with Berger and Alesi finishing 7th and 9th.
Jordan had mixed fortunes with Fisichella very impressive 2nd but Ralph
Schumacher spun out. A similar case for McLaren where Hakkinen finished
3rd while Coulthard retired.
Michael Schumacher now leads the championship by 12 points, the next stop is Monza where it will be very hard to beat the Ferrari's but will Villeneuve take the challenge. We shall see.
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Pedro Diniz in 8th was the highest Bridgestone runner outqualifying
his teammate Damon Hill who is in 9th position. Both were ahead of David
Coulthard.
Dissapointments from Gerhard Berger (15th) and Eddie Irvine (17th).
Should be a great race.
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Both the Benetton's were way ahead of the rest, Berger being almost
1.5 seconds faster than 3rd place Barrichello.
Williams and Jordan were very dissapointing with Frentzen in 13th,
Fisichella in 15th, Villeneuve in 17th and Ralph Schumacher in 20th position.
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The race started with Schumacher leading the way, Villeneuve made a bad start and ended up 5th from 2nd. Hill started 3rd and passed Villeneuve so did Hakkinen and Irvine. The Ferarri's however started to experience the tyre problems again and both Irvine and Schumacher were in struggling. Hill managed to get passed Schumacher (who have thought that could happen this year!!), Hakkinen and Frentzen went out with failures and Villeneuve ended up passing Schumacher and chasing Hill. The Williams however suffered tyre problems and could not keep the up the pace with Hill who was running Bridgestone tyre. And until the last lap everyone thought a miracle was about to happen but it didn't, Hill's car failed him on the last lap and had to give way to Villeneuve for his 5th win of the season. Next stop Belgium.
Michael and Jacques were the only two to lap under the 1:15 mark but
the real surprise was Damon Hill qualifying in 3rd place.
Both Benetton's were off the pace with Berger 7th and Alesi 9th. Both
Jordan's were even worse with Fisichella and Ralph Schumacher qualifying
in 13th and 14th places.
This circuit is one of the hardest to pass on so the race will probably be won in the pits and by tyre wear. Enjoy
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All the top Bridgestone drivers were impressive with Trulli in 3rd, Hill in 5th, and Barrichello in 7th.
A lot of disappointment for Villeneuve in 11th, Berger in 13th, Alesi in 15th and Hakkinen in 20th !!. Lets see how they will do in qualifying tomorrow.
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The race started with Berger maintaining first place as did Fisichella, Michael Schumacher managed to get past Mika Hakkinen. There was a lot of place swapping behind Hakkinen which also resulted in Coulthard spinning and damaging his car's nose, Irvine and Frentzen touch wheels and retire due to flat tyres.
Race Order after 1st Lap : Berger, Fisichella, Michael Schumacher, Hakkinen, Alesi and Villeneuve.
Race order remained relatively unchanged apart from pit stops. Of the front runners, Benetton were on 2 stops and the rest were on 1 stop.
Villeneuve never managed to threat anyone in front of him, in fact he was pressured all the time by Trulli and on lap 33 he spun and retired. Alesi's 2 stop strategy did not give him much of an advantage, infact he probably lost 2 places because of that.
Fisichella was very unlucky when his left rear tyre blew up while he was running strong in 2nd position just 4 laps to go and Michael Schumacher manages to finish second even with a gearbox problem and having to make an unscheduled pit due to a feulling problem.
But Berger stole the show, having missed three GP's, lost his father and announced that he will not be driving for Benetton next year, goes out and wins the German GP comprehensively. Congratulations to Gerhard Berger.
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Jacques Villeneuve was a dissapointing 9th and Rubens Barrichello was impressive yet again in 11th place. Less than 1 second separates the top 8 drivers. Should be an exciting race with all the different manufacturers up there.
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The Bridgestones did extremely well, Barrichello in a Stewart was fourth, Diniz (ahead of teammate Damon Hill)and Nakano in 6th and 7th. Fontana in the other Sauber was 4th.
The biggest surprise is that Benneton and Williams where way back, Berger,
Alesi, Villeneuve and Frentzen where 14th, 15th, 16th, and 18th.
McLaren were not that better, while Hakkinen was 8th, Coulthard was
17th.
The weather forcast is rain for Saturday and showers on Sunday, this will make it a very exciting qualifying and race event.
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The race started with Frentzen stalling which required another warmup
lap and he started from the back which gave Michael a clear track and at
the start managed to pass Hakkinen. Coulthard had a great start and almost
managed to pass Schumacher. Frentzen on the other hand clipped Verstappen
and punctured a tyre which left him out of the race.
Race order : Villeneuve, Schumacher, Coulthard, Hakkinen, Herbert
Villeneuve and Schumacher started to create a gap and it was clear that
both were on 2 stops while Coulthard and Hakkinen were on 1 stop.
The lead didn't change until Villeneuve made his first pit stop and
the mechanics had trouble with the left front wheel nut, this caused Villeneuve
to drop back to 7th. (the pit stop took 33 seconds stationary). So Schumacher
was in the lead alone but just before his second stop smoke appeared from
his tyres, the mechanics checked it when he made his second stop and cleared
him, however on his outlap he retired due to a problem with his left rear
wheel bearing.
This temporarily gave the lead to Alexander Wurz who had not stopped but only for 1 lap, then Villeneuve took the lead but needed to stop once more, once he stopped, Hakkinen took the lead and was 5 seconds ahead of Villeneuve. Villeneuve managed to catch up with Hakkinen in 3 laps and was less than a second behind when Hakkinen's engine gave up giving the lead to Villeneuve without a fight.
The championship is now very close with Schumacher only 4 points ahead of Villeneuve. Next stop is Germany where Villeneuve promised to pay Schumacher back for his win in Canada. We shall wait and see !!
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The race was an incident filled one with lots of crashes, it started with a first corner accident involving no other than Eddie Irvine then on lap 2 Jacques Villeneuve made a "beginners mistake" as he called it and crashed into the wall. Then Ralph Schumacher had a tyre explode and crashed heavily into the tyre barrier and on lap 53 Olivier Panis lost control and crashed heavily into another tyre barrier, the race was stopped due to the debris from the accident. And Michael Schumacher (with a bit of luck) won the race and I say this because only 1 lap earlier David Coulthard was in the lead when he went into the pits and stalled just before the race was stopped.
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Should be an exciting race, Click here for the timed results
Click here for the timed results
Most Goodyear teams had 3 pit stops except for Villeneuve and Alesi
who like the Bridgestone teams had 2 stops.
The race started with Villeneuve having a good start as did Michael
Schumacher (started from 7th), Frentzen had a terrible start and by the
end of the first lap he was 6th !! (from 2nd), Michael Schumacher on the
other hand jumped from 7th to 2nd.
No major dramas this time, retirements where mainly mechanical with
Hill out early once again.
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Click here for the timed results
It seems that the "going back to the basics" philosophy is working for
Benetton and the Jordans are looking hot. The McLarens are also doing well
.
Major dissapointment for Hill (20th) and Arrows and also for Rubens
Barrichello who only managed 18th fastest.
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The race was full of accidents and spins, only 10 cars managed to finish.
At the start of the race the Williams team made a very bad judgement that
the rain will stop and started both Villeneuve and Frentzen on slicks rather
than wets, by the end of the second lap both Williams were back in 8th
and 9th positions. They both went in and switched to wet tyres but they
couldn't do any better and eventually retired. Villeneuve with mechanical/setup
problems and Frentzen spun and hit the barrier while running ninth.
The MClarens had a terrible day too where Coulthard spun on the 4th
lap causing Hakkinen to crash too !!. Arrows were not much luckier where
Diniz was out on the first lap and Hill followed on the 4th lap. The Benetton
team continued their poor performance, Alesi spinning and stalling the
engine and Berger running in 9th position.
Impressive performance from Michael Schumacher who clearly displayed his superiority in the rain and an equally impressive performance from Rubens Barrichello who strated 10th and finished second giving the Stewart their first podium finish. Eddie Irvine also drove superbly starting 15th and finishing 3rd. Panis, Salo and Fisichella all showed their skills in the wet.
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Top 8 are within 1 second, should be an exciting one !!
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Click here for the timed results
This was yet another exciting race where Frentzen managed to finish first just 1.237 seconds ahead of Michael Schumacher. Earlier in the race Jacques Villeneuve had to retire in the pits due to a gear change problem.
The race started with Villeneuve having another good start and Schumacher managing to get ahead of Frentzen. The top 3 started to get away from the remaining cars and the order was Villeneuve, Schumacher and Frentzen. After the first pit stops, the situation was reversed and Frentzen took the lead followed by Schumacher and Villeneuve. Villeneuve started to slow down due to his gear change problem which led to his retirement.
Frentzen stayed in front through the 2nd pits stop and managed to ease a little from Schumacher but towards the end of the race, Schumacher tried very hard to catch Frentzen and finished only 1.237 seconds behind.
Eddie Irvine was third more than 1 minute and 18 seconds behind Schumacher. Irvine and Fisichella had some exciting moments but Irvine managed to pass Fisichella in the pits. Alesi and Hakkinen were also very close for most of the last 10 laps.
There were no incidents at the start of the race !!, Berger on his 200th GP spun and the top 2 finishers managed to lap every driver up to 4th place !!
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Dissapointment for the McLaren's and the Benetton's today, Hakkinen in 8th spot, Coulthard in 10th, Berger in 11th and Alesi in 14th !!.
It seems that the Prost of Panis and the 2 Jordan's are replacing both
the McLaren's and the Benetton's.
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The Ferrari's and the Benetton's seem to match the Williams today. In fact only 1 second separates the top 11 drivers. Lets hope it stays that way tommorrow and we could have another exciting race.
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McLaren and Benetton did'nt do well at all, the McLaren's are 10th(Coulthard) and 17th(Hakkinen) and the Benetton's are 11th(Alesi) and 12th(Berger).
It looks like an exciting season.
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Race Highlights
The initial start of the race was aborted due to Barrichello's car stalling
and an accident on the first corner. The initial start saw Schumacher get
to the first corner ahead of Villeneuve and Villeneuve sliding into th
gravel and rejoining in 6th place.
The race restart had Schumacher get to the first corner again and Villenueve
close behind followed by Hakkinen, Berger, Alesi and Panis.
By the end of the lap Villeneuve easliy passed Schumacher to take the
lead and keep it. Berger soon also found a way to pass Schumacher
All teams except Prost and Arrows were on a 2 stop strategy. The single
stop strategy seems to have worked for Panis on Bridgetone tyres as he
came third.
Villeneuve had no real threat to his lead apart form the last few laps
when Berger was closing in as it looked liked Villeneuve wanted to save
his car.
With the exception of Benetton, all the other top teams had their other
driver a long way back. Frentzen strated from 8th and only managed 9th,
Coulthard started 12th and manged 10th, Irvine started 14th and managed
only 16th
Damon Hill had a much better race than in Melbourne, where at one stage
he was running fourth however the single stop strategy didn't seem to work
well for Hill and only 3 laps before the finish he retired with fire all
over his gearbox.
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The start of the race saw Damon Hill retire on the warmup lap, Jacques Villeneuve, Jonny Herbert and Eddie Irvine crashed on the first lap after Irvine forced both Villeneuve and Herbert off the track. Ralph Schumacher didn't survive the first lap either after spinning.
Alesi retired running out of fuel !! and Michael Schumacher almost lost
his second position since he had to go into the pits for more fuel !!
A bad day for Williams, with Villeneuve out, all hopes were on Frentzen
who had a terrible second pit stop (16 seconds) and with 3 laps to go,
he spun out due to brake failureClick here
for the timed results
Villenuve was in a class of his own during qualifying, will it be the same tomorrow ?
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