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Spanish GRAND PRIX
Only 6 Finish In The Rain
Andrew Frankl
TACH European Bureau
After the wet and windy Monaco Grand Prix everyone expected the Spanish Grand Prix to be hot and sunny. Not unreasonably, as the sun came out the morning after the race in the Principality, and the region has had nothing but warm weather without a drop of rain for two weeks. Without a drop of rain until the early hours of Sunday morning when it started to pour.
The traditional half an hour warm up session was conducted under impossible conditions. Anyone who has ever driven on a highway at 55 miles per hour in the rain can imagine what it must have been like at 150. Except that these guys are sitting much lower, are driving cars which are much lighter and which are several times more powerful than what we are used to. Oh by the way, they don't have airbags either. So it came as no great surprise that several of them were spinning off the track, but it did surprise all of us when the German driver Heinz-Herald Frentzen lost it in the biggest possible way down the straight and wrote off his Sauber-Ford in very spectacular fashion. When he stopped spinning there was one wheel left on the car. Practice had to be stopped as bits of this former racing car were strewn all over the track.
He did emerge from the wreck without any injuries to himself if we exclude pride.
The race itself started off under appalling conditions and the rain did not let up for two hours. The French Canadian Jacques Villeneuve managed to heat his teammate Hill off the line and got to the first corner ahead of the field. He was followed by Jean Alesi who was a few yards behind. Both Hill and Schumacher made bad starts. It transpired that that the double world championship had clutch problems. What
Hill's problems were remained a mystery. For someone leading the championship he drove badly, spun off several times and was forgotten half way through the race as he crashed out in front of the grand stand. In the meantime: Schumacher recovered and started to pass one car after another. It seemed almost uncanny how he managed to find new lines and how -- without any major dramas -- he fought his way to the top and into a lead which he was not going to surrender even during the pitstops.
Behind him there were cars all over the grass and gravel. His team-mate Irvine crashed out, as did over half the field. Some, like the Brazilian Barrichello did well for quite a while only to drop out with mechanical troubles. It was not by any standards a great motor race, apart from Schumacher's absolute mastery. Alesi realized that it made no sense to chase Michael and he just hoped that the Ferrari would have some mechanical problems.
Villeneuve had similar thoughts. He too was driving to survive and to get some points. All in all shore were just 6 finishing with Frentzen, Hakkinen and the Brazilian Diniz bringing up the rear. The result makes the championship a great deal more exciting. Hill is still in the lead with 43 points but Schumacher and Villeneuve are beginning to close the gap with 26 points each.
Jean Alesi is still very much in the reckoning, today's sewed place gave him six points -- 17 in all.
Monaco's hero Olivier Panis dropped out, leaving his team mate, the rent-a-driver Diniz (his father is seriously rich) some of Ligier's glory.
Now the circus moves to North America, to Montreal, and to a circuit which will mean a great deal to today's third-placed driver. It is named after his father, the late, great Gilles Villeneuve who so tragically lost his life during practice for the Belgian Grand Prix in 1982.
