1995 Brazilian Grand Prix

Background

The race was the first round of the 1995 Formula One World Championship after a four month break since the last race of the 1994 season in Australia. Over the winter months, the Autódromo José Carlos Pace race track was resurfaced in an attempt to reduce its bumpiness. The drivers were unhappy with the resurfacing work, though, as the track became more bumpy than in the previous year. Williams driver David Coulthard described the track as "bumpy as hell, quite unbelievable". Heinz-Harald Frentzen claimed that the bumping was so bad that he was close to passing out; the Sauber car handled badly over the bumps throughout the weekend.

The race marked the first Brazilian Grand Prix to be held since the death of three-time champion Ayrton Senna the previous year in a racing accident at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. As such, various tributes were paid to him throughout the weekend, including a parade lap on the back of a truck with all the drivers waving Brazilian flags; a display from the Brazilian Air Force which resulted in a large "S" trail in the sky; and the renaming of a local highway to Rodovia Ayrton Senna. The São Paulo city authorities had planned to rename the circuit after Senna, but the family of Carlos Pace, the existing dedicatee, objected. Barrichello also sported a special helmet design as a personal tribute to his compatriot. As a result of Senna's death, the event was lower-key than in recent years: fewer spectators turned out to watch practice and qualifying, but the race itself was watched by a capacity crowd.

The threat of a drivers' boycott over the terms of their 1995 FIA Super Licences, which allowed the FIA to demand promotional appearances and forbade the drivers from criticising the championship, was defused by the governing body prior to the race, ensuring full driver participation in the championship. Although the Super License issue was resolved with 14 teams and 28 drivers on the official 1995 entry list, the Larrousse team with drivers Éric Bernard and Christophe Bouchut did not make an appearance at the circuit for any of the on-track sessions. This was due to the team running short of money: in the period prior to the event, with French government aid not forthcoming and a 1995 chassis not yet built, team owner Gérard Larrousse elected to miss the first two rounds of the season in the hope of competing from the onwards.

The construction of some of the cars was only just completed prior to the beginning of the season; the Footwork FA16 and Simtek S951 chassis arrived at the event with virtually no testing, having been completed shortly beforehand. Of the initial 1995 drivers, Pedro Diniz was the only "complete" rookie, having not been officially entered in any other Formula One race meetings, while Andrea Montermini started his first race after failing to qualify for the 1994 Spanish Grand Prix due to injury. Mika Salo and Domenico Schiattarella had competed in two races, with Taki Inoue competing in one race the previous season.

At the front of the field, Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill in the Benetton and Williams cars respectively were the favourites to battle for the Drivers' Championship, with Schumacher anticipating a "struggle" for the championship. Hill arrived at the event with the psychological advantage of having set the fastest time at the final pre-season testing session at the Autódromo do Estoril, 0.35 seconds faster than Schumacher's best around the circuit. The Williams team had also completed 2,500 miles of testing with its FW17 chassis, significantly more than Benetton; the team had encountered some reliability problems with its own B195 chassis.

Heading into the new season, attention also focused on the McLaren team and its driver Nigel Mansell. He was initially announced as the partner of Mika Häkkinen; however, a week before the first race, McLaren announced that Mansell would not compete in the first two races of the new season, as he could not fit into the MP4/10 car. Mansell's arrival at McLaren was due to demand from the team's sponsors, including Philip Morris, whose brand, Marlboro, was on the car, who wanted to enjoy the publicity associated with the World Champion's return even if it meant him performing worse than teammate Häkkinen. His place at McLaren for the first two races was taken by the team's test driver, Mark Blundell, as McLaren worked to build a wider monocoque to accommodate Mansell. Intertechnique traced the problem to a faulty valve within the equipment, which caused 10 kg of fuel to leak, and modified the parts accordingly. Intertechnique and the FIA advised the teams to refuel the cars slowly and carefully during pitstops to avoid any further leaks, a situation that was considered unsatisfactory by many of the team principals and mechanics. The rule change had been proposed by the Elf oil company in 1993 and unanimously supported by the other F1 suppliers in order to speed up the fuel-testing process.

Controversy also surrounded the new Ligier JS41 car, with rival team owners comparing it to the Benetton B195 car because of their similar design, the only apparent difference being the engine in each car. The Ligier team was being run in 1995 by Tom Walkinshaw, who had been Benetton's Engineering Director the previous season. Commenting on the design similarities, Walkinshaw said:

One of the rule revisions stated that the minimum weight limit of 595 kg applied to both car and driver together. Prior to the first session of the season, all of the drivers were weighed to establish a reference weight to be used on occasions when the two were weighed separately, or if the driver was unavailable to be weighed. As such, a small competitive advantage could be established if the driver attempted to register a weight as heavy as possible, so their actual weight when driving the car would be lower. When Schumacher was weighed after the race, his weight had decreased to 71.5 kg, although this weight, when combined with that of his car, still left it above the limit, at 599 kg.

Practice and qualifying

Two practice sessions were held before the race; the first was held on Friday morning, with the second held on Saturday morning. Both were held in damp conditions due to overnight rain with the track drying towards the conclusion of the respective sessions. Both sessions lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes. Qualifying was split into two one-hour sessions; the first was held on Friday afternoon with the second held on Saturday afternoon. The fastest time from either of the two qualifying sessions counted towards their final grid position.

In the first practice session, Hill was fastest with a time of 1:21.664, two thousands of a second ahead of teammate Coulthard. Schumacher was third, with the Ferrari cars of Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger, who had been the leading two for most of the session, close behind. The two Ferrari drivers used different pedal layouts in the 412T2 chassis: Berger's car was equipped with two pedals and a hand-operated clutch, whereas Alesi preferred the traditional three-pedal system.

Hill set a provisional pole position time of 1:20.081 during the first qualifying session, ahead of Berger, Coulthard, Alesi, Häkkinen and Schumacher. The problem was determined to be a steering failure, specifically a joint in the car's steering column. Replacement steering components were sourced from São Paulo by Benetton engineer Tim Wright, and the team did not encounter any problems over the remainder of the weekend.

The second practice session was held in wet but drying weather conditions. However, he still set the fastest time of the session (1:23.607) after a change to his car's ride height proved beneficial to its performance. The top six was completed by Berger, Hill, Häkkinen, Alesi, and Olivier Panis' Ligier.

Schumacher also set the fastest time in the second qualifying session with a lap of 1:20.382, but it was not good enough to beat Hill's fastest time overall set in the first session. However, a hole was punched in the bottom of Herbert's monocoque chassis during the session as a result of damage, leading to a night of repairs in order for him to be able to take the start in his designated race car. The Simtek team's testing time was limited on Friday as the mandatory onboard fire extinguishers for its cars failed to arrive in time; a similar problem with the late arrival of parts affecting Martini's Minardi. The times in the second session were generally quicker, with only Hill, Badoer and Wendlinger setting their quickest lap times during the first session.

Qualifying classification

Warm-up

The conditions for the race were dry, with a capacity crowd of some 40,000 fans turning out to watch the race. Minutes before the race started, a press release from the FIA was given to all media and team personnel, notifying them that the chromatographic analysis of the Elf fuel samples taken from Schumacher's Benetton and the Coulthard's Williams during qualifying did not match the sample provided by the fuel company before the start of the season for reference purposes, thus rendering both cars illegal. Neither Schumacher nor Coulthard were informed of the situation, as the teams did not want to unsettle their drivers before the race start. Samples from Ferrari's Agip and McLaren's Mobil fuel were also tested; both were in accordance with the regulations.

Race

Hill had a bad start from pole position, allowing Schumacher to overtake him into turn one. By lap five, Herbert had dropped down to tenth position, unhappy with the handling of the spare car and having been overtaken by Irvine, Salo and Katayama. Alesi was the first of the leading drivers to make a scheduled pit stop on lap 17, rejoining the track in eleventh place. Barrichello, Irvine's teammate, retired a lap later, driving into the pit lane slowly with a gearbox problem. On the same lap, Verstappen retired his Simtek car with a clutch problem.

The Benetton and Williams teams were employing different pit stop strategies – the Benetton team were planning a three stop strategy whereas the Williams team were only planning for two stops. Schumacher exited the stop behind Berger, but overtook the Austrian driver at the beginning of the next lap. Several other teams experienced problems with attaching and detaching the refuelling nozzles, and occasional small sprays of fuel were observed, reinforcing the problem experienced by McLaren with the equipment before the race meeting. By this stage Gachot had retired his Pacific car after it got stuck in fifth gear. dropping him back to seventh position. Alesi fell behind Salo and Häkkinen after the first set of pit stops, Salo overtaking him on lap 25, with Häkkinen moving past three laps later as Alesi was held up behind the lapped Montermini.

Once in front of Schumacher, Hill was able to gradually extend his lead to 3.4 seconds by lap 30 despite carrying a heavier fuel load for one fewer planned pit stop. Schumacher made his second pit stop on lap 37, exiting in second position behind Coulthard. battled over third position until lap 39, when Salo, suffering from cramp and driving with one hand, spun at the final bend. He made a pit stop soon after for fresh tyres, dropping to eighth position. After his final stop, Schumacher gradually opened his leading margin 11 seconds, winning the race after 71 laps in a time of 1:48:49.972s, with Coulthard finishing second in his Williams. The Ferrari cars of Berger – who made his final stop on lap 49 without losing a place

Post-race

Moments after his spin, Hill was interviewed by the BBC, revealing that his spin was due to a gearbox problem; the Williams car losing second gear before apparently seizing completely. Hill also said that he was "very, very disappointed" with the result, and that "we could have beaten him [Schumacher] today". Further post-race analysis conducted by the Williams team, however, found that the problem was actually a broken left-rear suspension pushrod.

Schumacher felt lucky to win the race, conceding that "Damon was a little bit quicker than me...he ended up going off and that's racing, but I don't think I could have caught him." He also believed that his good start was fortunate, as it was the first one he had made in the new Benetton car; the team had not practised starts previously due to being short of time. He also specified his evasion of Barrichello's slowing car in the pit-lane entry while making his first stop as a crucial moment of the race. Coulthard admitted that he had been affected by his tonsillitis: "I wasn't able to match Michael and Damon's pace so I settled for running my own race". Berger, meanwhile, was frustrated to finish a lap down on Schumacher, saying that "He was faster everywhere: down the straights, going in and out of the corners. What can you do in these conditions? Okay, the car's roadholding is not bad. We must work very hard now. But at least I finished, that's something."

After the Grand Prix, Schumacher's Benetton and Coulthard's Williams cars were excluded from the race classification as a result of the illegal fuel sample "fingerprints", and Berger declared the new victor. Further samples of both cars' fuel were taken after the race; these also did not match the specified sample. Patrick Head was surprised by this outcome as he believed that "there was no question of disqualification until the fuel samples had been returned to Europe for further analysis". In addition to Benetton and Williams, fuel samples were taken from the Ferrari (Agip) and McLaren (Mobil) cars during the event, all of which were declared legal after FIA analysis. After an appeal was made by the two teams, the drivers were reinstated into the race classification at the hearing on April 13 (after the had taken place); however, the teams did not receive Constructors' points. The two teams were fined a further $200,000 during the hearing. It was generally agreed that the illegal fuel did not offer a performance advantage or break any of the regulations relating to chemical composition, only that it did not precisely match the sample that had previously been lodged with the FIA. Niki Lauda, an advisor to Ferrari, was not happy with the decision made at the appeal:

Berger also commented on the situation, saying "I no longer understand anything. Formula One has become a joke." In the lead-up to the San Marino Grand Prix, Schumacher was quoted saying that Berger should "concentrate on racing instead of thinking how he can criticise me. I have never understood how someone can celebrate a victory like that [Brazil] one lap down and winning after someone else has been disqualified." Berger responded to Schumacher's comments by saying:

Max Mosley, the president of the FIA, also responded to Schumacher's comments saying that his comments "reflect poorly on the sport and show a lack of adult attitude". Mosley also commented on the weight issue surrounding Schumacher saying that "it is a pity that it became a matter for public discussion, whether he drank a huge amount of water, didn't go to the loo or had a heavy helmet. It is just a pity he didn't take care that it didn't happen". Company representative Valerie Jorquera also highlighted the need for a consistent chromatographic analysis of fuel samples, drawing attention to the fact that the samples provided during the event had been analysed by a different company than the reference sample, and that the differences may have been caused by the use of different analytical machines and methods. From the San Marino Grand Prix onwards, an FIA mobile fuel laboratory accompanied the teams to each event to permit more detailed testing at the track, in addition to ensuring consistency between events.

Race classification

Championship standings after the race

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for the Drivers' standings. Only top two included for the Constructors' standings as only two teams had scored points. Benetton and Williams did not receive Constructors' points at this race.

References

Year_of_race = 1995 | Previous_year's_race = 1994 Brazilian Grand Prix | Next_year's_race = 1996 Brazilian Grand Prix

References

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