1994
Pacific Grand Prix
Report
Before the Grand Prix.
Jean Alesi injured his back in Mudgello crash on Marth 30th and for The Pacific GP was replaced by Ferrari's test-driver Nicola Larini.Eddie Irvine's ban was increased up to three races and his place in Jordan for Japan race took native Agury Suzuki.
Thursday.
So far as Pacific Grand Prix have never been in F1 schedule and Tanaka International have never hosted any stage of F1 championship, according to the rules, an extra practice session was given to the drivers on Thursday.The first time clocked amazing Schumacher's Benetton (1'11.307). Senna was the second only with 1'12.572, more than 1.2 second behind the the German. The third fastest was Hill, fourth - Hakkinen, fifth - Verstappen (!) and sixth - Fittipaldi.
Friday.
On the next day things differently changed - on the morning practice session Senna was ahead of Schumacher on one second. Senna's team mate - Hill without 'Brazilian' optimism showed the fourth result. But who was third?It was the biggest sensation of that GP - Erik Comas on modification of last year car with Ford HB VII had the 3rd result - 1'12.230 (on Thursday he had 9th result more than a second behind his Friday's), 0.09 s ahead of the second Williams!
After the practice session FIA's technical delegate Charlie Whiting asked Ferrari not to use an "engine modulation system". The cars with this system were for the first time taken to the GP and it wasn't some secret. As it was suspected the system was some sort of banned traction control, because it was limiting the engine power on low gears, allowing to avoid the spinning.
Ferrari team decided, after a talk with Whiting, to remove that system (it was just a small program in engine's computer). Flavio Briatore said about it, that: "The problem is that the FIA introduced this rule which cannot be policed, and it is up to the FIA to deal with these matters, not the teams. How can you prove it one way or the other."
On qualifying, no one was surprised with Senna's clocking the first time - 1'10.218 (that was the ever fastest time of that circuit). Schumacher, like in the morning session, was second, more than 0.2 s. behind Brazilian. The third fastest Hill was very happy with his result: "I enjoyed that session. I broke it up into three runs and I was pleased with the first two one. We have got stiff competition from Benetton-Ford, there is a very small margin between us all but I think we have only just started to dip into the area where the car will show its true potential." The next was a pair of McLaren splited by Berger's Ferrari. Nicola Larini on the other Ferrari had 7th time. Top-ten was complited by Barrichello, Verstappen and Fretnzen. The morning sensation - Comas on Larrousse-Ford - clocked 1'13.111, it was just 14th result.
Saturday.
The Saturday's weather was much hotter than Friday's and after practice sessions it became clear that improving Friday's time was almost impossible. Qualifying confirmed it - only seven pilots could do it.Cristian Fittipaldi could improve his qualifying position from 15th place to 9th. But Fittipaldi had some mechanical problems - with fuel pump and gearshift - on Friday's sessions and so that day he couldn't show all his potencial. The similar situation had Roland Ratzenberger, who got to the 26th place - on Friday's practice he crashed his Simtek into the wall and in qualifying couldn't do any lap.
All other pilots - Blundell, Alboreto, Suzuki, Herbert and Belmondo - could improve just time without improving the position. The most stupid situation had so called "pilot" Paul Belmondo - he improved his by time by 1.221 s. but it wasn't still enough neither to qualify for the race, neither to be ahead of the team mate. But Belmondo wasn't so unhappy with this fact: "Being one of only seven drivers to go quicker today, it was just not enough to get into the grid, I realised there were a few minutes left after my time so I felt Bertrand should be given a chance to represent the team. We know there are areas for improvement but our engine problems have not helped over the last couple of days. "
Some other pilots, like Jos Verstappen, had problems on previous timed practice too, but on this session were not able to go better.
So the starting grid was organised mostly according to Friday's qualifying times, with Senna and Schumacher on the first row. By the way, both Senna and Hill had some handling problems with their Williams-Renaults in the same slow corner. Brazilian descibed it so: "When I was on my first run the car felt fine, the engine, everything worked okay, it was a reasonable lap, the grip was good, but I really don't know what happened to be honest. It is odd it happened the same for both of us, and I really don't understand because the car was nice. I had a good direction into the corner, with one of the best positions I have had at that corner throughout the weekend, so it should have been no trouble at all. It was disappointing and frustrating, but it was better to happen today and not tomorrow!"
Sunday.
On the morning practice the first fastest were a pair of Williams-Renaults - Senna with 1'12.872 and Hill with 1'12.916. The third fastest was Berger on Ferrari. Schumacher was more than a second slower than Senna and had 5th result. It seemed that pre-season predictions at last would come true and Williams with Senna or Hill would score the first win.But the start refuted that. Schumacher could get to the corner ahead of Senna who was pushed by Hakkinen (he didn't brake not hard enough). Senna spun and stopped at the edge of the track while Hakkinen with cracked nose passed by. Few tenth of a second latter Larini, who had not enough room, collided with Senna. Williams lost the front wheel and Senna all chances to continue the race.
It wasn't the last collision of the first lap - at Hairpin Comas couldn't share the track with Blundell, they collided and after it Blundell wasn't able to go further.
After the first lap Schumacher was leading the race with Hakkinen some seconds behind. The third - Damon Hill was pushing very hard but Hakkinen locked him and didn't let to overtake (this wasn't a very hard task thanks to track's configuration and width). After them were going: Berger, Barrichello, Brundle and Fittipaldi.
Nothing chanded in this group till the fourth lap, when Hill another time tried to overtake 'hot Finn' Hakkinen, but did it like novice and went off the track. He got back to the track but only on 10th position. Nine laps latter he grabed back his 3rd by overtaking Jos Verstappen on lap 6, Heinz-Harald Frentzen on lap 7, Cristian Fittipaldi on lap 9, McLaren of M... just Martin Brundle on 12th lap and Barrichello's Jordan on lap 13.
So after the 13th lap Hill came back almost to the situation of the first lap with Hakkinen in front of him. But another duel between these two drivers didn't occured - both turned to pits on lap 18 (3-stop strategy).
After it they returned to the race on 9th and 10th place. But soon - two laps latter - Hakkinen had to stop with gearbox failure. So Hill moved up to 9th. On the next lap he overtook Morbidelli and after pit stops of Frentzen, Fittipaldi and Verstappen occupied 5th.
On lap 26 Berger (2nd) and Brundle (4th) went to boxes for fuel and fresh tyres and Hill, after outstriping Berger in Hairpin became 3rd. Four laps latter Barrichello was the last man who go to the pits for refuling and tyre changing.
So the race order was so: 1st - Schumacher; 2nd (more than 40 seconds behind) - Hill; 3rd - Berger; 4th - Barrichello; 5th - Fittipaldi; 6th - Brundle; 7th - Verstappen; 8th - Frentzen; 9th - Morbidelli and 10th - Wendlinger. The natives Katayama and Suzuki were on 12th and 14th, but it was not for too long. On lap 43 Katayama's Yamaha lost all its power and stalled. Suzuki had another problem on lap 45 - he was as usual entering into the last track corner, but suddenly he understood that the moving of the steering wheel lost any connection with turning of the car's wheels - something broke in the steering - and quite soon Japanese came to the gravel trap.
Five laps latter Hill, who was the only man that had some chances to catch up Schumacher, retired with transmission problem. And the second Schumacher's win became the reality.
Berger finished second and was very happy (like everybody who could finish that hard race):"I had to push very hard for the first three quarters of the race because I had to fight off Barrichello and also the two McLarens were pushing hard. I could not go any quicker with the 412 T1 in its current state of development. We have a lot of work to do to improve the car but I think we will soon be capable of getting other good results. I am very happy for the team because they all did the maximum and the result will be a good boost to morale."
Barrichello finished 3rd scoring the first podium for Jordan team on the 50th GP, delighting Eddie Jordan and moving to the second place in the championship (!):"I'm really, really pleased for me and for all of the team. We decided to go for Bs with the first two runs and then leave 20 laps at the end for Cs. I just had a problem with the last pit stop when the engine died; I said to myself "I can't belive I am not going to the podium today." I wanted to cry. Then Brundle went out and I saw I was 3rd again and I said "I just have to make it to the finish". On the podium I was so happy. In Brazil when I finished fourth I couldn't stop the tears. Here I was thinking that there were so many people watching me and the TV and everything - I was determined to keep cheering. It was a great job by everybody."
Fittipaldi, Frentzen and Friday's sensation - Comas shared all remained points.
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TBFOC, 2003.