F170: GRAND PRIX RACING’S YEAR OF TURMOIL
It was while watching a rerun of the 94 Japanese Grand Prix that I felt inspired to write a piece about that season of F1. The whole season was full of drama and intrigue from the start and as we all know the tragic events of Imola were to have profound effects of the sports future.
There were some big changes for that season both from a technical and driver perspective. Firstly on the technical front all driver aids were outlawed, gone was active ride, traction control abs and all the electronic devices that had started to become a big part of the sport. The consequences of this ban would feed into the overall narrative of 1994 as will be discussed later.
On the driver front the reigning and now four time world champion Alain Prost had departed the Williams team and the sport and his place had been taken by Aryton Senna. It was Senna’s arrival that had been the catalyst for Prost’s departure after the Frenchman refused to be team mates with Senna again. The move from McLaren was a big one from Senna after so many years and such a good partnership but Mclaren no longer appeared to offer the Brazilian the title winning machine he required. It has been said that Senna was initially at least a little unsettled by the move, still asking McLaren man Joe Ramirez to arrange certain personal things for him but a new move for anyone can be a difficult time and things take time to settle.
The season started in Senna’s homeland of Brazil and for him at least it was not one to remeber, He spun out of the race after pushing the car too hard. This allowed Benetton’s Micheal Shumacher to take the win and this result would be a sign of things to come from the young German.
Senna’s non finish in Brazil leads us onto a significant point! The Williams of 94 was a difficult machine to drive, second driver Damon Hill would attest to that, and Senna was having to push it too muchr to compete at the front. The aforementioned driver aids ban had possibly hurt the Williams team more than most as they had been right at the forefront of that technology. The team seemed to struggle to get round the new regs and certainly the FW16 was not one of Adrian Newey’s finest creations. It was the car’s difficlut nature that caused Senna to spin out of the race in Brazil. Damon Hill did manage a second p;ace at that first race in Brazil and as with Schumacher’s win this would foretell the story to come with Hill and Schumacher the main protagonists.
Round two at Aida saw another DNF for Senna and another victory for Schumacher. It was at this race though that another big story of the season was to unfold and the ban on driver aids would start to become a major talking point. While Senna was sat at the side of the circuit after his retirement from the race watching Schumacher circulate at the head of the field he became convinced that the Benetton was using traction control, the car’s exit of the corners seemed to appear to indicate this to him. Other people had and would go on to notice similar things but Senna mentioned it to friends and was very upset about being in what he saw to be an unfair battle. The Benetton would be accused and checked by the authorities and essentially cleared to race but rumors continued to persist and still do for that matter that the car was running illegal software. There is not time here to discuss this whole matter, maybe that will be the subject of another blog but it is enough to say that Senna was sure he was on the receiving end of some unfair play.
The next race was at Imola and this weekend has gone down in the annuls as one of the worst weekends of the sports history. Tragedy struck the F1 circus in a way that it hadn’t for a very long time and it was made to wake up to the fact that F1 racing was still a very dangerous sport. I don’t need to tell you that Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna lost thier lives that weekend, it is something that is burned into our minds. Imola 94 sends a shiver down all our spines.
I myself hadn’t at that time developed such a deep passion for the sport as I would go on to do very shortly but I can remember exactly where I was the weekend that Ratzenberger and Senna died. The enormity of the situation didn’t hit me at the time but as my interest in the sport quickly escalated from this point I understood fully that it was a dark day for Formula One.
The Imola weekend was a traumatic one from the very start as Friday qualifying session saw a huge shunt for Senna’a countryman Rubens Barrichello in the Jordan. Thankfully Rubens escaped badly shaken but with no serious injuries from the 140mph crash but signaled the start of what was to come.
Ratzenberger lost his life in Saturdays qualifying which as can be imagined shock up the paddock completely and Senna was clearly very upset by the tragedy, his friend Sid Watkins, the sport medical chief even suggested that he shouldn’t race on Sunday afternoon. Then at the start of the race an accident involving JJ Letho and Pedro Lamy brought more carnage.
Even Senna’s crash on lap seven of that race was not the end the turmoil as two weeks later in Monaco Karl Wendlinger crashed heavily in practice and ws in a coma for a month as a result. He would make a return to F1 but with little success.
A raft of safety changes were quickly introduced such as chicanes to slow cars at fast sections of circuits, even the famous Eau Rouge at Spa had one of those, and slid planks underneath the cars to prevent them from bottoming out. Still though horrifying accidents happened. Pedro Lamy, involved in that start line shunt at Imola had an almighty crash at Silverstone while testing and the incident was so violent that the car flew over the catch fencing, a wing failure was to blame. Lamy broke both kneecaps and a thigh in the crash but fortunately he was not hurt any worse.
In Germany Jos Verstppen in the second Benetton was engulfed in flames as fuel was spilt over his hot engine and probably the biggest pit-lane fire of modern times took place, again fortunately with no serious injuries to those involved. The Benetton team themselves were found to be at fault with this as they had tinkered with the refueling system to increase fuel flow. Everyone was Ok and able to recover from these last few incidents thankfully but it seemed that the turmoil would not end.
The worrying run of accidents seemed to come to an end and left the sport to focus on improving safety standards for the years to come. That terrible weekend at Imola and the incidents that followed it taught the world of Formula One a valuable lesson and it is no exaggeration to say that its effects are still felt today in the safety improvements that have been made since.
The drama of the 94 season didn’t stop there though as a tense, controversial and at times bitter fight for the title had been brewing between Schumacher and Hill. Damon had fitted well into the role of effective team leader that he had been thrust into after the death of Senna and had taken a win in Spain while Schumacher had been handicapped with a gearbox issue that had seen him stuck in fifth gear for much of the race. That win for Hill though had provided a much needed lift for the Williams team and shown everyone that the team was still in the championship hunt.
Hill took another win in front of his home fans at Silverstone to continue his charge, his win in the British GP being the first for the family as his father Graham had not managed to take a home win. This all meant that heading into the second half of the year Schumacher while still leading the standings had some pressure on him. It would be after the Belgium Grand Prix at Spa that the race for the title would really hot up however.
In that race Schumacher had taken another fairly straight forward victory but in so doing he had spun his car over a curb and a post race technical inspection revealed that the wooden plank under the car, one of the raft of safety changes that were made post Imola had worn away beyond normal tolerances. The Benetton team of course appealed but the win was taken away and Hill, who had finished in second position was handed the win and the ten points that went with it.
It was from here that the championship really hotted up. For the next two races Schumacher would be on the sidelines while serving a two race suspension for inexplicably overtaking Damon Hill on the formation lap at Silverstone. The German was disqualified from second place in that race and with his two race suspension and disqualification from Spa had four points paying races taken away. Hill won those two races in Italy and Portugal and could have challenged Shumacher on his return at Jerez in Spain had there not been a strategy mix up that forced him to carry more fuel than was needed in the race. Instead Schumacher took the win to get his assault back under way.
This took the F1 circus to the brilliant Suzaka circuit in Japan for the penultimate race of the season and here the extremely wet conditions were a test for every driver. The race was stopped after a few laps because conditions were unsafe and then restarted shortly afterwards meaning that then race would be decided by the aggregate results form the first and second parts. Hill out drove Schumacher to take the undoubtedly the best win of his career, not many ever outclassed Schumacher in the rain. The Benetton team were also outdone by Williams on the strategy calls and this set up the championship showdown at Adelaide in South Australia.
Nigel Mansell, making the last of his four starts for Williams that season after being called back to help the team recover from the loss of Senna started from pole in Adelaide but dropped behind at the start and Schumacher and Hill set off up front to battle it out alone for the title.
We all know what happened next and we I’m sure all have our own opinion’s on it but it has gone down as one of the most controversial moments of the sport’s history. Hill was putting pressure on his German rival and both were pushing to the limit, Schmoacher made a mistake, went off the road hit the wall and made his way back on to the circuit. Hill hadn’t seen the Benetton make contact with the wall and assumed that he had just run wide. Seeing the gap into the next right hander her made his move and the German closed the door. The Benetton was out on the spot but the Hill’s Williams made its way back to the pits, but it was obvious that the damage was too great to repair and Damon dejectedly vacated his car.
Schumacher took his first title and Hill’s dream was over. The championship decided in the worst way possible. Mansell went on to win the race, his last victory and helped Williams clinch the constructors championship but that was little consolation for Hill.
After such a season though, with so many twists and turns, tragedy and turmoil it seemed apt somehow that the title was decided on another controversial moment. The whole season from start to finish was dramatic in the extreme. it will be remembered for many things and we could talk about all the aspects here for many more pages but what the years will be remembered for the ,ost is the tragic loss of life of Ratzeberger and Senna. Those two drivers remain in our thoughts as much today as at any time. RIP gentlemen your are very much missed. And it seemed apt that as we approach the anniversary of that Imola weekend we take the chance to look back at the crazy year of Grand Prix racing.
My F1 talk 