David Coulthard has been disqualified from his second-place finish in the Brazilian GP because it was discovered in the post-race examination of his car that the front wing was too close to the ground. The front wing is supposed to be at least 50mm off the ground and Coulthard’s was only 43mm. Even after allowing the 5mm variance he was still 2mm too low.
Apparently all but one — Benetton — of the top six finishers had excessive wear on the underbody plank which maintains an allowed ground clearance but they were excused because of the extremely bumpy surface of the Interlagos circuit.
McLaren have appealed the decision and blamed the bumpy track for damaging the underbody and wings of the car. They claim that the vibration caused the wing end-plates to become loose and rotate causing the difference in ground clearance.
This appeal is vital for McLaren as Coulthard’s second place would have been their only finish of the season so far.
Posted: Monday, March 27th, 2000
The disqualification of David Coulthard’s McLaren from second place in the Brazilian Grand Prix has moved all of the other finishers up one place. This means that — should McLaren’s appeal fail and the revised result stand — Jenson Button will score a championship point for finishing sixth. This is remarkable in that it will make him the youngest driver ever to score a championship point.
Posted: Monday, March 27th, 2000
Michael Schumacher took the lead from pole-sitter Mika Hakkinen on the first lap of the Brazilian GP in Sao Paulo today, swapped it back and forth with him and then — apart from pit stops — held it to the end of the race.
At first it looked like it could be another Ferrari one-two but on lap 28 local favourite Rubens Barrichello’s engine suffered a hydraulic failure. Hakkinen had regained the lead when Schumacher made his first pit stop but three laps later he too pulled into the garage and retired.
David Coulthard in the second McLaren had been passed by both Ferraris and dropped back from the three leaders, when Barrichello and Hakkinen retired he inherited second place and, in the last dozen laps, he steadily closed the gap to Schumacher who was nursing his Ferrari home. Coulthard, who had lost third gear early in the race, made it to within four and a half seconds but could not quite catch Schumacher.
Giancarlo Fisichella was third in the Benetton followed by the Jordans of Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jarno Trulli. Ralf Schumacher in sixth took the last point for Williams with his teammate Jenson Button close behind.
The constantly improving Arrows team of Jos Verstappen and Pedro de la Rosa were followed by the BAR of Ricardo Zonta. The Minardi of Gaston Mazzacane in 11th place was the last car running, albeit two laps down.
It was another disappointing day for the Jaguar team, worse for Prost and worst of all for Sauber who pulled out of the race during yesterday’s qualifying because they had doubts about the safety of their rear wings — which had failed twice in the previous two days.
Brazilian GP results.
Posted: Sunday, March 26th, 2000
In a surprise announcement the Sauber team of Pedro Diniz and Mika Salo was withdrawn from the Brazilian GP mid-way through the qualifying session today in Sao Paulo. One of the Sauber cars suffered a rear wing failure yesterday in practice and the team engineers discovered another problem with the wing’s "structural integrity" during today’s session. It was too late to diagnose and replace the affected parts and so they had no choice but to pull out of tomorrow’s race rather than risk a similar failure during the race itself.
This is the second piece of wing-related bad luck for Salo who was disqualified from a points paying sixth position two weeks ago in Australia for having an illegally sized front wing.
Posted: Saturday, March 25th, 2000
The qualifying session for the Grand Prix of Brazil will have to be remembered as one of the strangest ever seen. On three separate occasions the red flag came out and the session was halted because parts of an overhead advertising sign for Marlboro cigarettes broke off and fell onto the track The pieces, each several feet long, came down in the area of the start/finish line, the third section falling right in front of Jean Alesi’s Prost which smashed through it and carried on.
There are sure to be complaints from the teams as with only twelve qualifying laps allowed — including the warm up and slow down laps — several of them lost almost half of their laps due to the problems on the track.
Dark storm clouds had been approaching throughout the session and after all of the delays the rain started just as the track was opened and qualifying was effectively over. After the storm had passed the drivers came back out onto the track and took a few practice laps to get some experience and finish out the allotted time but there was no chance that they would improve on their earlier lap times.
Posted: Friday, March 24th, 2000
In what is becoming a regular event Mika Hakkinen once again put his McLaren-Mercedes on the pole, this time for tomorrow’s Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo. Hakkinen will be joined on the front row of the grid by his teammate David Coulthard.
Michael Schumacher qualified third in his Ferrari with his teammate and local crowd favourite Rubens Barrichello next to him in fourth.
Posted: Friday, March 24th, 2000
There have been rumours for some time that Renault was planning to return to Formula 1 and today they announced what those plans actually were. In a deal signed yesterday they purchased the Benetton F1 team for $120 million. The Benetton name will apparently stay on the car for at least the next two years as a sponsor.
It seems that Renault wasted no time in getting settled in as they have already replaced (former) Benetton team boss Rocco Benetton with Flavio Briatore, who was the team manager at Benetton during the Michael Schumacher era.
This move is a continuation of the recent trend of major automobile manufacturers buying into F1 teams. Last year Ford bought the Stewart team outright, BMW invested in Williams and there has been speculation that Honda and Toyota might also be lining up an acquisition.
Renault have a long history in F1 as a constructor from 1977 to 1984 and then as an engine supplier from 1986 to 1997. They were often innovators and were the first team to use a turbocharged engine. Although their cars never took the top honours, they were the dominant engine builder of the 1990’s powering the winners of six straight Constructors’ titles (1992-1997) and five Drivers’ championships (1992, 1993, 1995-1997) with Benetton in 1995 and Williams for the rest. Even after Renault left F1 at the end of the 1997 season their engines have remained, being sold through Mecachrome in 1998 and Supertec from 1999 onwards, but their age and lack of development is showing and they are definitely not the powerplant of choice amongst the better funded teams. The Supertec versions have also been badged by Playlife and Telefonica.
Benetton had their best results in 1994 and 1995 when Michael Schumacher drove them to back-to-back Drivers’ titles and also collected the Constructors’ championship in 1995, at which point Schumacher left for Ferrari and Benetton have been struggling to find their old form ever since.
Posted: Thursday, March 16th, 2000
In a dream start to the 2000 Grand Prix season Michael Schumacher led his new Ferrari teammate Rubens Barrichello home to an impressive 1-2 victory in Melbourne today, gaining maximum championship points for both himself and his team. Adding to his victory was the fact that neither of the McLarens — who are viewed by many as the only other contender in the familiar two-horse title race — managed to finish the race or score a single point.
At one point it looked like things might be going wrong for Schumacher as Barrichello first caught and then passed him but almost immediately afterwards he pulled into the pits and it became apparent that, unlike his teammate and most of the others, Barrichello was on a two-stop strategy.
The season opener in Australia was, as usual, a race of attrition with only 10 of the 22 starters still running at the end. This has come to be expected as problems in new components come to light when they are pushed to the limit under race conditions for the first time.
The McLarens of Mike Hakkinen and David Coulthard had qualified on the front row of the grid and pulled away strongly at the start with only the Ferrari of Michael Schumacher seemingly able to keep up. He may just have been biding his time as both of the McLarens had been given replacement engines after an unknown problem had appeared during their morning warm-up session. Sure enough on lap 12 Coulthard came to a halt while running second and seven laps later Hakkinen pulled off while in the lead. The DNF’s were later blamed on failures in the hydraulic valve-trains in the Mercedes engines.
Ralf Schumacher was third with an unexpected podium finish for Williams on their first start with their new BMW engines. Rookie Jenson Button made an excellent debut in the second Williams and had reached as high as sixth place before retiring with a blown engine.
Jacques Villeneuve who failed to score a single point last year for the new British American Racing (BAR) team also benefited from a change of powerplant and came home in fourth place with new Honda power. His Williams teammate Ricardo Zonta was less than a second out of the points in seventh place after a closely-fought battle with Salo and Wurz.
Giancarlo Fisichella was fifth for Benetton with his teammate Alexander Wurz not far behind in eighth after a close contest for the last couple of scoring positions. Mika Salo scored a point for Sauber in sixth place on his first drive for them.
The Jaguar Racing (nee Stewart) team had a baptism of fire on their first outing after changing their name and their livery. Johnny Herbert went out on the first lap with clutch failure and Eddie Irvine spun out five laps later trying to avoid Pedro de la Rosa’s Arrows which was spinning out of control after suffering a front suspension failure and crashing. The second Arrows, driven by Jos Verstappen on his return to F1, also had suspension problems and retired soon after despite both cars making an impressive start and looking more competitive than usual following their switch to Supertec engines. Arrows have recently signed a multi-year sponsorship deal with British mobile phone company Orange and, unusually, have now got one of the biggest budgets in F1.
Both of the Jordan cars suffered gearbox problems, new recruit Jarno Trulli failing first and then Heinz-Harald Frentzen four laps later.
New Prost driver Nick Heidfeld was the last car running, two laps down, in 10th but the team had a dismal weekend with Jean Alesi starting the spare car from the pit lane after the primary car had problems on one of the pre-race reconnaissance laps. Alain Prost is apparently very unhappy with engine supplier Peugeot who have made their World Rally program their biggest priority this year. There are rumours that Prost is working on a deal for Mercedes power for next year.
Australian GP results.
Posted: Sunday, March 12th, 2000
Mika Salo’s Sauber was disqualified from its sixth place finish in the Australian GP after failing the post-race technical inspection. The stewards declared that the front wing endplates were 20mm outside of the allowed dimensions which far exceeds the 5mm variance which teams can now expect following the Ferrari appeal after their exclusion from last year’s Malaysian GP.
This exclusion is doubly unfortunate for Salo as this was his first drive for the Swiss Sauber team and scoring a championship point for them in his first attempt would have been an impressive way to mark his return to a full time F1 drive.
If Sauber do not appeal this decision — and it seems unlikely that they will as they have agreed with the findings of the stewards — the BAR of Ricardo Zonta will be promoted to sixth place.
Posted: Sunday, March 12th, 2000
Bob Varsha, former F1 and CART commentator for ESPN, made a welcome return to F1 coverage this weekend on Speedvision. Varsha — who also co-anchors their Raceweek news show — joins Sam Posey and David Hobbs to provide the only live GP coverage available in the U.S.
Posted: Sunday, March 12th, 2000
