The second race is now over and has proved to be, to my mind, a better race than the Australian GP. All the ingredients were there and some good racing took place.
Before The Race
Once again, the practice sessions seemed to hold few surprises with most of the teams sitting in the positions that they usually do. The Arrows and Tyrrell teams seemed to do well in practice. The Williams of Villeneuve spent most of the sessions getting to grips with the Interlagos circuit as expected and Hill's car was slower than expected but he said he was concentrating on the race and not a qualifying setup. The Ferrari's were, after the job they did in Melbourne, uninspiring and had reliability problems even though they had the back end (the gearbox and suspension) from last years car.
The Ligier of Diniz and the Minardi of Marques (another new driver) were both disqualified, and later reinstated, after going off during qualifying and getting a push start rather than taking out the spare car to continue their efforts.
The best performance of the weekend was that of the Benson and Hedges Jordan-Peugeot team. Barrichello spent most of the weekend running in the top 6 and was joined by Martin Brundle for the race.
The biggest surprise, and happiest team I'd imagine, was Forti-Ford qualifying both cars for the race. Badoer and Montermini benefited from the bad luck of the Diniz's Ligier-Mugen Honda and were not last on the grid.
Yet again the field diminished before the race started. As far as I can see, the Forti-Ford of Andrea Montermini failed to make any effort to start any part of the race from the track itself and Herbert's Ford v10 expired forcing him to start from the pitlane.
The Race
The first thing that everyone will have noticed as they switched on to watch the Grand Prix, was the rain. About 12:15, local time, the black clouds that had formed over the track, opened and drenched the whole circuit. Some parts of the track were said to have standing water on them and the race looked likely to be postponed. The clerk of the course, however took the decision to start the race and after an uneventful formation lap, the race started.
At the start, Hill seemed to make the best getaway with all of the first six runners pushing each other hard for places. Villeneuve pushed Hill for first in the Senna Esses but Hill managed to keep his position into the straight. All of the other drivers made it into the straight without incident also with Jos Verstappen in the Arrows-Hart moving up from his starting position and Gerhard Berger making a poor start in the Benetton. At the end of the lap, 20 of the 21 starting cars crossed the line, with new boy Marques spinning the Minardi at the start of the uphill straight at turn 11. Hill by this point was over 2 seconds clear of Villeneuve who was being pushed hard by both Jean Alesi and Rubens Barrichello.
From this point onwards, Damon Hill started to push out a lead that would stabilise at around 17 seconds with Villeneuve about 2 seconds ahead of a four way battle for 3rd place, involving Alesi, Barrichello, Schumacher and Frentzen. The strangest things then began to happen, the fastest race laps were falling to drivers who are never usually near the times of the leaders. Frentzen, Panis and Verstappen were all to hold this mantle for a handful of laps and once again it was proven that rain is the big equaliser in car performance and the drivers were in some control of their own results. Verstappen, sadly, came into this pits on lap 18 with an engine problem and ended his race on lap 19.
On lap 22, David Coulthard drove his McLaren-Mercedes into the pitlane for the first of the stops. Interestingly he was the first driver (indeed the only at this stage) to go onto slick tyres, and he also had a gurney flap removed to decrease the amount of downforce the car was producing. This is a mistake I thought at the time but only time would tell. 2 laps later, Schumacher came in for his first stop and took on another set of wet tyres as well as his fuel. The commentators were now saying that Coulthard and McLaren were wrong to go onto slicks but he quickly set the fastest lap and they changed their minds. All the while, Alesi and Barrichello were having the best fight I have seen in F1 for a long time. Every other lap for about 10 laps, the gold Jordan was all over the back of the Benetton coming into the home straight and coming into the Senna Ess, Barrichello would pass, only to be repassed by Alesi on the Curva do Sol. Someone who has no more than a passing interest in F1 was watching the Grand Prix with me and was on the edge of his seat, urging on Rubens which seems to indicate that the excitement is on the up in F1. Some might say that it's still not what it was, but I only really started watching the Formula 1 World Championship in 1992 so I've never seen the "Golden Years" of F1.
On lap 26 the biggest accident of the race occurred when Ricardo Rosset managed to put his Arrows into the pit wall and end his race, the car also managed to keep the man with the yellow flag quite busy as it couldn't be removed from the track.
The first major upset of the race happened on lap 27 when Villeneuve spun off while fighting for his place with Jean Alesi. The Canadian star tried to drive around Alesi when Jean passed him on the inside going into the Subida do Lago, but his attempt failed and he drove the car into the gravel trap. This was surely a result of his lack of experience in the wet and was an accident waiting to happen. Saying this won't make me any friends but while Jacques is surely a future champion, he is disadvantaged at circuits he has never tried and, like all newcomers to F1, is bound to make a few mistakes.
The following lap, lap 28, Gerhard Berger drove his Benetton-Renault into the garage to retire. Berger had been complaining about a lack of straight line speed (around 8 m.p.h.) and poor handling compared to his team mate's car. Berger had spent the first part of the race dropping back behind slower cars and this alone seemed to hold out his comments. The other retirement on lap 28 was Johnny Herbert who is having his worst season for a long time (at least the Lotus finished races in 1994). Herbert was interviewed by Tony Jardine of the BBC in the pitlane and, as anyone who heard it will verify, he sounds less than happy with the new Ford engine given to him. 2 laps later on lap 30, Coulthard drove his car off the track, onto the slippery grass and couldn't get it started again. David seems to be having difficulty getting to grips with his new team, however his lack of pace relative to Mika Hakkinen could be showing his true colours out of the superior Williams chassis.
Between lap 30 and 33, Brundle and Hakkinen also stopped for wet tyres, but Hill and Alesi (slowly catching Hill) were staying out and it was becoming clear that both of them (as well as Salo and a few others) were on for one stop only. Lap 36 saw Frentzen's retirement for what I can only assume was an engine problem. Hill's stop came on lap 39 and he became the first person since Coulthard to take on slick tyres. The Williams team decision was vindicated when Schumacher came in for a second stop and also drove out on slick tyres. At this point, Alesi was lapping at about 1m35.123s on his wet tyres and, by the time he came in on lap 41, Hill was lapping at around 1m26.000. This meant that Hill was 25 seconds ahead when Alesi drove out of the pitlane on slicks ready to give chase. Barrichello had also pitted around the same time and was giving chase to the Ferrari of Schumacher.
By lap 56, Hill was only 3 seconds behind the battle for third between Schumacher and Barrichello. The battle was a repeat of the Alesi-Barrichello fight earlier in the race with Barrichello having a go at passing in exactly the same place, with the same result on lap 60. Unfortunately, Barrichello seemed to be having fun copying prior events on the race track and decided to follow Villeneuve into the gravel at Subida do Lago. To be fair, there did seem to be no reason as he didn't lock up or seem to be going very fast, but out is out and yet again the Brazilians started to leave the circuit when their favourite was gone.
2 laps later, Hill drove past Schumacher, much to his delight I'm sure, to put the German 1 lap down. For the rest of the race, Hill seemed to set the fastest lap nearly every time round and bar the spin and consequent retirement of Brundle, lead the field of 12 cars home without incident.
Analysis