Summary:
Martin Brundle was the fastest man on the circuit in this session. He took the fastest time from Schumacher 30 minutes into the warm up. Verstappen did an excellent job with his 8th place.
Notes:
Schumacher went off into the gravel with the Ferrari T-car in the same spot Villeneuve went through yesterday. Michael drove back to the pits with just three wheels touching the ground.
It was a very bad session for McLaren driver David Coulthard. He parked his car beside the track on his first lap. Rosset also parked his car in the grass.
The FIA had diqualified both Ligier drivers after the qualifying session because both cars were pushed after stalling their engines. After an appeal, the FIA allowed Pedro Diniz to start the race from the back of the grid, while his teammate Olivier Panis was allowed to start from his original grid position
Hill wins again
Summary:
Damon Hill lead the race from start to finish only giving up the lead to Jean Alesi when he made his one and only pitstop.
Verstappen did an excellent job with his Arrows-Hart; he went from 13th on the grid to 6th on lap 4 under very wet conditions. However, Verstappen soon made a mistake, and spun. He resumed the race in 11th place, only to retire with an engine problem on lap 19.
There was a huge battle going on for a long time between Alesi, Barrichello, Schumacher and Frentzen for second place. But nobody ever came close to Hill.
Notes:
Herbert didn't start the race because his engine wouldn't start.
Tarso Marques, 2nd seat at Minardi, stalled his engine after he hit Katayama.
Ricardo Rosset crashed his Arrows on the Start and Finish straight.
Berger had problems with the electronics of his Benetton and had to retire. During the race, Gerhard was unaware why his car was 11 km slower on the straight than Alesi's -- even with the same setup.
McLaren driver David Coulthard was the first to go onto slicks after th initial downpour of rain, but spun off a lap later in the race.
Villeneuve's day didn't go well. When Alesi tried to overtake him, Jacques, under pressure, braked too late and spun off on lap 27.
Barrichello had a huge dissapointment when he was fighting Schumacher for third place and spun off on lap 60. It was a sad ending to a great qualifying and race effort. To add further problems for Jordan, Martin Brundle spun off and retired just before the end of the race on lap 65.
Quotes:
Herbert: "It was another damn bad race.. The engine gave up on us."
Coulthard: "Well, I had a spin and we went to slicks. It started to rain again at the back and I spun again."
Hill on the race: "It was not an easy race because of the weather conditions, but I still had a good margin from the early part of the race and I'm delighted with the result."
Hill on his pitstop strategy: "Well, we decided that the race was going to be wet, at least for the first half so we decided that we take a bit of a pact on one stop and that worked absolutely perfectly. It fell right into the window that we needed for the change over from wets to slicks. Very good planning on behalf of the Williams team."
Hill on safety: "Just after I went out a bolt of lightning came right down in front of me. It gave me a real sense of foreboding. It was very risky out there, as when the rain comes in Brazil it is full blooded. There were rivers of water on the circuit because of the rain."
Hill on the next race: "I'm looking forward to Argentina. It's going to be fun."
Alesi on the race: "It was very difficult, because of the visibility. At the beginning I was sure the pace-car was going out because the point was not just the water on the track, it was just impossible to see anything. I was a little bit scared so I was a little bit careful and then I had to fight with Villeneuve and Barrichello but it was good."
Schumacher on Damon lapping him: "Not very nice, I have to say that."
Schumacher on the race: "obviously the weather conditions haven't been well to us and our strategy, it put us back a bit."
Results:
1. Hill 1:49:52.976
2. Alesi +17.982
3. Schumacher 1 lap
4. Hakkinen 1 lap
5. Salo 1 lap
6. Panis 1 lap
7. Irvine 1 lap
8. Diniz 2 laps
9. Katayama 2 laps
10. Lamy 3 laps
11. Badoer 4 laps
12. Brundle 7 laps
