Hungarian GP: Tales of the Unexpected
	by Marcel Schot, The Netherlands

The history of the Hungarian Grand Prix is one of the shortest in Formula One - this year's race is just the 13th held at the Hungaroring, the tight and cornery track near Budapest. The first race had a rather major historic significance: back in 1986, it was the first race ever to be held behind the Iron Curtain. A massive 200,000 crowd attended the event, which saw a fierce battle between Brazilians Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna. While Senna took pole, the two were closely battling for the first win in Hungary, changing positions several times during the race. By the end of the two-hours race, Piquet struck a 17-second lead to Senna, with the rest of the field being lapped. Piquet repeated this triumph the year after, beating Senna to the checkered flag by a margin of 37 seconds. Nonetheless, Senna finally got his win at the Hungaroring in 1988. Much like today, it was the year of the McLarens and Senna's only rival was teammate Alain Prost. And though Senna led the race from start to finish, the gap at the finish line between the two was barely half a second. Senna would remain dominant in Hungary for years to come, but, as the decade turned, it was to be the era of utter Williams domination. The team's streak of wins began with a 1990 surprise: Thierry Boutsen took the last of his three Formula One victories and his only pole position in the strong Williams, even beating Senna - who scored his 4th 2nd position in 5 years - by just 0.288. Senna had it his way the year to follow, but Williams had the two other spots of the podium with Mansell and Patrese. However, Hungary is, if anything, the place where anything could happen and in that year Bertrand Gachot took the fastest lap with the famous Jordan191 in the debut season of the team. In the 1992 race, Ayrton Senna managed to get his third Hungarian victory, scoring seven consecutive podiums there. Meanwhile, Nigel Mansell in the all-too-dominant Williams actually secured his Championship title, as he finished second and earned a 52 points lead after only 11 Grands Prix. And by 1993 Williams introduced yet another Hungary master, with Damon Hill taking his first Formula One win in style, leading Benetton's Riccardo Patrese by more than a minute. Hill would finish on the podium in each of the five Grands Prix he attended in Hungary from that win on. He finished second in the 1994 Grand Prix, which was entirely a Michael Schumacher show. Moreover, after taking pole, fastest lap and win in the Benetton, Schumacher showed he could also be a team player, letting team mate Jos Verstappen unlap himself to take the third in the final lap. But 1994 was a temporary relapse and by the following year Williams was back to setting the pace. Damon Hill did the hat trick, and teammate David Coulthard pulled in second with the rest of the pack lapped. The next year Williams was as dominating as the year before. This time Jacques Villeneuve took the win, with Damon Hill coming in second. Only Jean Alesi in the Benetton finished the race on the same lap, but only barely - he had a one minute and 24 second deficit in the end. For McLarens, Hungary is not a Grand Prix with much good memories in recent years. Since McLaren teamed up with Mercedes in 1995 only one McLaren ever reached the finish line of the Hungaroring: Mika Hakkinen finished fourth in the 1996 grand Prix. Of the six times a McLarens-Mercedes started at the Hungaroring, two ended the race with engine problems. Speaking of Hakkinen, he didn't drive two of the eight Hungarian Grands Prix of his career: in 1993 he was out of a seat and the following year he was suspended after causing a massive start-line shunt at Hockenheim. For David Coulthard, Hungary didn't bring much more luck: out of four starts, he finished just once. Ferrari doesn't look much better in the last few years. Their only win in Hungary was that of Nigel Mansell in 1989, and although since the arrival of its current drivers the number of failures have decreased, the wins are yet to come. Michael Schumacher himself only once showed magic in Hungaroring. On other occasions he was luckless at best, and of the four times in his entire career that the German classified outside the top six, two were in Hungary. Eddie Irvine too did not perform very well there either, with 9th place as his best performance at the Hungaroring. While Ferrari and McLarens always had a hard time in Hungary, Williams were always dominant. The team won seven out of 12 events and 15 podium finishes out of possible 24, with current driver, Jacques Villeneuve having won the last two Grands Prix. However, last year Villeneuve and Williams nearly had to settle for a second place, when an Arrows car was ahead of the Williams for most part of the 77 laps. No, it wasn't a backmarker refusing to be lapped. It was World Champion Damon Hill, in one of last year's worst cars giving one of his best performances ever. What happened last year: Damon Hill came within a lap of giving both Arrows and Bridgestone their first win. After qualifying a stunning third on the grid, he fought his way to the lead and remained there ahead even after his second pit stop. However, towards the end of the race the Arrows' throttle acted up. Villeneuve passed him in the 3rd corner of the final lap, leaving Hill with only second place. Michael Schumacher took pole in 1:14.672, but come race day he struggled with tyre problems and finishes only 4th Eddie Irvine spun off the track in the final lap, enabling Shinji Nakano to finish sixth and earn his second World Championship point of his career. Both Ferraris and both Tyrrells were on a three-stop strategy, all other teams were on two stops. Heinz Harald Frentzen recorded the fastest lap, in 1:18.372, 0.7 seconds faster than anyone else. However, he retired on lap 29 due to fuel tank problems. At that point, he was leading the race.

Marcel Schot	© 1998 Atlas Fourmula One Journal.
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