EXCLUSIVE TACH COVERAGE

Australian Grand Prix: Hill leads the F1 Championship

by Nicholas Frankl, TACH European Bureau

Damon Hill has won the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne and in doing so equalled his late father's victory tally of fourteen race wins. His performance was marred by the fact that up until the last 6 laps he had been lying second to team mate Villeneuve who in his Grand Prix debut looked like turning pole position into the top spot on the podium. It was only down to a technical fault on his Williams car, and more precisely an oil leak from the Renault engine, that prevented the Indy car Champ from keeping Hill from overtaking.

The Williams duo were inseparable from the start, which was red flagged due to Martin Brundle's huge accident on turn 3 his Jordan colliding with Coulthard and Herbert, launched itself into the air and barrel rolled at over 180mph. Miraculously the Brit emerged unhurt, his car which had broken in half as a result of the impact was cleared away and Brundle ran back to the pits to jump into the T-car while receiving a standing ovation from a capacity crowd of over 150.000 spectators.

The second start saw the Williams pair and Irvine, in the Ferrari, breaking from the rest of the field. Brundle's race ended at turn three once again, with a spin into the gravel. " It's been the weekend from hell!" he said. Elsewhere battle's were raging.

Lap 10 saw Alesi characteristically try for a space which didn't exist with Irvine helping to make it even smaller, the resulting contact took the Benetton out of the race with suspension damage, whilst Irvine escaped unscathed.

Schumacher was first to pit on Lap 20 for fresh rubber and fuel, he rejoined in fourth. There after the cars continued at a steady pace, the high temperature( 26'C) making overtaking more difficult and most of the drivers happy to sit back and wait as attrition took it's toll.

By the 30th lap only 14 cars were still racing and Schumacher was third - some 41 seconds behind the dynamic duo. Both Villeneuve and Hill ran one stop strategies, pitting on laps 30 and 32 respectively. At no time were the two cars separated by more than a second and a half, and pressure from Hill forced the rookie into his first error. Off at turn one and onto the grass.

"Amazingly the car got straight again, cos I really thought it was all over" reported Villeneuve.

In fact he rejoined still ahead of Hill who admitted he had been scared of taking advantage of the opportunity and running into his team mate. One source of relief was Schumacher's retirement from his first race with Ferrari.

" We made good progress this weekend and the car ran well throughout the race, but then I had a serious brake fluid leak and this caused us to stop. I am very happy for Eddie he drove a good race and deserves this result for the team".

After this, the only excitement came from back markers and their ability to fowl up the pursuing leaders. Both Williams suffered near misses in traffic and the gap opened up to all of 1.3 seconds between them. The race was always going to be one of two horses, but the domination shown by the pair can only spur the opposition, particularly Ferrari and McLaren, into serious testing schedules before the next race in Brazil. Irvine by this stage was nearly a minute behind and all looked good for a remarkable one, two, with JV the first man since Farina to win his first race, in 1950. But it was not to be. The writing was on the wall, or rather all over Hill's car and visor:

"I knew Jaques had an oil problem, I had a face full of Elf and I was getting a bit worried cos I'd run out of tear-offs".

Sure enough, just as Damon must have been wondering how the hell he was going to take the lead, the pit crew held out a "slow" sign and "low oil". Villeneuve obeyed, his lap time dropping from a high of 1.33.421, to around the 1.42's and Hill needed no further invitation, passing to go into the lead with just 6 laps remaining.

It was a result that took no-one by surprise, the cars had performed brilliantly all winter and had come to the first race as clear favourites. The surprise was that the Ferrari of Irvine stayed together, a miracle considering the fiasco and failures that had plagued the car since it's late introduction. That he finished third ahead of Berger, in the once all powerful Benetton, will not go unnoticed, this may yet prove to be the prancing horses best year since the Eighties.

Hill meantime has managed to establish a comfortable lead over who he assumed would be his main rival. Villeneuve's surplus of ability and quiet confidence however, will no doubt take the British ace to the edge this season.

In the post race press conference his number two summed it up beautifully:

"I never thought about winning this race, just doing the best I could. Of course I still have a lot to learn and as you saw today it doesn't matter how many laps you lead just whether you lead the last one"!

The circus will now pack up and return to their respective HQ's for rebuilding a updating before departing for the long haul to South America for two back to back races. Brazil and Argentina. If Melbourne is any thing to go by the 1996 season could well be a fine vintage.