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<td><font face="Arial"><strong>Argentinian Grand Prix
1997 - Race Report</strong></font></td>
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<td valign="top" colspan="2"><font size="3"><em><strong><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
The Canadian, suffering as Hill did last year, from
‘</strong></em><strong>a severe dose of the trots</strong><em><strong>’,
was clearly keen to get the race over...<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</strong></em></font><p><font size="3"><strong><i>"He(Fisichella)is
very angry now and I understand this, as the mistake was
my fault."</i></strong><em><strong><br>
</strong></em></font><font size="2"><em>Ralf Schumacher
talks about how he took his team-mate out of the race...</em></font></p>
<p> </p>
</td>
<td> </td>
<td valign="top"><p align="left"><font size="2"
face="Arial"><strong>Race Day : April 13th 1997</strong></font></p>
<blockquote>
<p><font size="3" face="Arial"><b>Argy-Bargy at
Buenos Aires and the luck of the Irish takes
Villeneuve to the line in the 600th Grand Prix</b></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Arial"><b><img
src="carg97.gif" align="left" hspace="0" width="170"
height="121"></b></font><font size="2" face="Arial">It
seems that the young <b>Olivier Panis</b> having been
bestowed with unerring pearls of wisdom from Guru,
team boss and four times world champion’ <b>Alain
Prost </b>and the emotional <b>Rubens Barichello,</b>
fathered and molly-coddled by ‘Dad’ <b>Jackie</b>
in the upstart <b>Stewart Racing</b> team, have both
given the Formula one fraternity the novel prospect
of mid-running teams threatening to take over the
positions in the traditional latter half of the top
four. It just goes to show, that if you treat your
pets right they will reward you in the end. With
extremely poor showings from both <b>McLaren</b> and <b>Benetton
</b>in qualifying, the grid for the <b>Argentinian
Grand</b> <b>Prix </b>is peppered evenly with the
‘grand’ and the ‘not so grand’.
The tyre war that looked so benign in Melbourne, is
gradually developing into a critical factor in the
final positioning on the grid and even allowing for
the supersonic capabilities of the <b>Williams FW19</b>’s,
the decision to use soft <b>Bridgestone</b> rubber by
both Stewart and Prost, has undoubtedly given them a
distinct advantage. The choice of a hard <b>Goodyear</b>
compound by the Benetton team and a time over two and
a half seconds slower than <i>‘pole
meister’</i> <b>Jacques Villeneuve</b>
illustrates this point well. <b>Gerhard Berger</b>
said after qualifying 12th, a mere 3 hundredths of a
second in front of the wayward <b>Arrows</b> of <b>Damon
Hill</b>,<b><i>"</i></b><i>I think that first of
all, we made the wrong choice of tyres. During the
session the sun disappeared and it got a little bit
cooler. Therefore, it would have been better to run
on soft tyres"</i>. Technical Director<b> Pat
Symonds</b> agreed but, trying to explain his
mystifying decision to take the ‘hard’
line, he said,<i> "We decided that we wanted to
run on hard tyres, a decision which is always going
to give you some disadvantage in qualifying. But we
hope that it might give us a chance to catch up
tomorrow in the race."</i> This however, proved
to be the wise choice as, with a track temperature
climbing from 31 degrees at the start to over 35 by
the finish, the softer compound Goodyears began to
blister.</font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">Hard or soft tyres,
light or heavy fuel loads, one, two, or three pit
stops, the mix was perfect and, as the red lights
went out, Villeneuve’s Williams predictably made
a perfect dash for the first corner. The Canadian,
suffering as Hill did last year, from <i>‘a
severe dose of the trots’,</i> was clearly keen
to get the race over so that he could resume his
enforced relationship with the bathroom. Still, true
to form, the coming together of Carbon fibre was
inevitable. This time it was the other red Ferrari.
Rubens Barichello in the Stewart making a good
getaway, was harried into the long right hander by <b>Michael
Schumacher</b> trying to dive down the inside.
Understeering badly he careened wide and into the
Stewart Ford. <i>"I got off the line ok and was
running wide at the end of the straight to keep out
of trouble," </i>Said Barichello afterwards, <i>"but
suddenly I just felt a touch on my rear wheel, so I
presumed that was Schumacher. It took me off - I spun
and lost the nose cone."</i> Schumacher sensing
a red flag situation sprinted back to the pits with
the hope of re-starting in the spare car. The race
was deemed yellow however and the Safety car was
brought out and an extremely angry German disappeared
into his motor home. In the ensuing mayhem, cars were
diving for the dirt and any piece of grass verge to
avoid the carnage. Separate accidents occurred when
the other Stewart of <b>Jan Magnussen</b> had a
collision with the <b>Sauber Petronas </b>of <b>Nicola
Larini </b>and the <b>West McLaren</b> of <b>David
Coulthard</b> lost a wheel in a brush with <b>Ralf
Schumacher’s</b> <b>Jordan Peugeot</b>. <i>"Either
Hakkinen or Coulthard touched me on the right tyre
with his wing." </i>He said, <i>"I thought
he had destroyed it, but I was lucky."</i>
Coulthard wasn’t lucky and echoed his
premonitions back in the pits, <i>"I expected
something in the first corner but not this."</i>
The Benetton of Berger did not escape either. Taking
to the dirt, he was pushed to the back of the line, <i>"I
got involved in the accident and basically I started
the race from the end"</i>, he said later.</font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">With a painfully slow
pace car keeping the snaking bunch in check, thoughts
of Imola in 1994 came to mind (when <b>Ayreton Senna</b>
crashed and died immediately after a similar
situation involving a slow pace car) and as tyres
cooled and engines overheated on a track that was
rapidly warming up, it was imperative that the race
got underway with the shortest possible delay.
Frentzen having lost a full two seconds in the first
lap after suffering clutch engagement problem at the
start of the warm-up lap, was now back on
Villeneuve’s tail and ever watchful for the
lights of the pace car to go out.</font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">Lap 4 saw the race
resume and by lap 5, Frentzen was coasting to a halt
with his Drivers Disengagement System malfunctioning
again, leaving him with no drive and once again no
points. Olivier Panis was boiling now and, looking to
catch Villeneuve’s Williams, started making
initial gains of three tenths of a second a lap.
Unusually, Irvine had stayed clear of the fracas,
choosing to collect dirt on his tyres rather than
tangle with a slow starting Frentzen. <i>"I was
half alongside Frentzen and I couldn’t overtake
him. I didn’t want to stay out that wide, so I
had to back off and pull in behind him, because I was
out in the dirt. That slowed me down for the first
couple of laps,"</i> He said later,<i> "as
the fuel came off and the tyre pressures came up, the
car came good." </i></font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">Meanwhile the Jordan
twins of Ralf Schumacher and <b>Giancarlo Fisichella </b>were
making extremely good progress behind the front three
and looking strong for a double point tally. By lap
14 both Panis and Villeneuve had traded fastest laps
and track records and it was clear that this weekend
at least the Frenchman was getting the better deal
out of Villeneuve’s Stomach bug.</font></p>
</blockquote>
<p align="center"><font size="2" face="Arial"><img
src="opbr9701.jpg" width="300" height="204"><br>
</font><font size="1" face="Arial"><em>Panis showed
remarkable form in Argentina</em></font></p>
<blockquote>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">Damon Hill, again
driving magnificently in 7th place in a car quite
frankly not fit for the track, having had no time for
any form of set-up due to a water leak during
Saturday qualifying, was keeping his head down and
holding off an agitated Jean Alesi and it was set in
stone that he would have a crazy crack at passing
Hill at the earliest opportunity. This he did on lap
16 in a pointless and premature manoeuvre that left
them both spinning in the dirt on both sides of the
track. They both got away, with Hill losing 4 places.</font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">Lap 18 saw the
cruellest retirement with Olivier Panis cruising to a
halt with a hydraulic fault. A faultless drive such
as his should have been rewarded with a podium finish
but it is only a matter of time now before this
resurgent Honda/Panis combination comes out on top.</font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">The first of the pit
stops were made on Lap 22, Villeneuve pulling out of
the pit lane barely a car's length in front of
Irvine’s Ferrari. The Ulsterman was to pit a lap
later, in turn handing second place to a charging
Giancarlo Fisichella. The battling Jordan
‘chums’ obviously wanting to make their
off-track coolness a touch chillier, managed to get
entangled a little further round the bend. In a
futile attempt to find space on the inside at turn 3
Schumacher knocked his teammate for six, sending him
spinning out of a well deserved 2nd spot. Young Ralf
showing uncomfortably similar traits that his older
brother Michael demonstrated throughout the ’94
season arrogantly dismissed any concept that it could
have been totally his fault, <i>"He(Fisichella)is
very angry now and I understand this, as the mistake
was my fault." </i>He could have left it at that
but added a rather barbed,<i> "He made a mistake
in the corner before the back straight, and I thought
he really opened up the gap, and then he closed the
door. We have to talk about that later."</i>
Pity poor innocent Giancarlo who until then had not
put a foot wrong. Down the road, Rubens Barichello
was shutting up shop for the day and must have been a
great disappointment for Jackie Stewart after such a
promising drive. <i>"I lost a mirror,"</i>
said a continually optimistic Rubens, <i>"It
came into the cockpit and as it had a cable on it, I
had to pull hard to get rid of it and lost a lot of
time. Then I just lost the hydraulic pressure. A pity
because today would have been a podium, not just
points."</i></font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">Meanwhile Alesi was at
it again scrabbling past Hill and going wide,
allowing the World Champion to retake his position.
Alesi put it down to gear shift problems <i>"I
started to have problems shifting down: the gears
locked and this made me go straight into the dirty
parts of the track. I had constantly to try to clean
my tyres." </i>This did not prevent him from
doing a fastest lap however and to spare him further
aggravation, Hill retired his car on lap 33-his 3rd
DNF in a row. <i>"I got an overheating problem
and then I lost air pressure which meant ...the
engine broke and I had to stop."</i> He honestly
didn’t seem to care although he probably did.
Along with team mate <b>Pedro Diniz,</b> who retired
with another blown Yamaha 17 laps later, he
hadn’t had a good weekend. An underachieving
chassis, an engine with no power and a lot of human
error on the team's part, is no great advert for the
seemingly redoubtable reputation of <b>Tom
Walkinshaw’</b>s outfit. It says much for
Hill’s skills as both driver and diplomat that
he has not yet walked away in disgust.<i> </i></font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">With the second pit
stops up and coming and both front Bridgestone
runners out of the race, the result seemed like a
forgone conclusion but with a track temperature
approaching 35 degrees, Williams Renault having
elected to use the softer compound Goodyears, was
starting to have major handling problems. <i>"We
chose the wrong tyres." Said Villeneuve
afterwards, " With more rubber on the track
towards the middle of the race we suffered
understeer, consequently blistering the tyres, so it
was very difficult to keep the others behind. We
planned to do three stops but were not expecting
anyone to do one, so were a bit surprised and it
almost caught us out." </i>Villeneuve’s
second pitstop left Eddie Irvine to run free in first
place for six laps before he made his second stop.
Schumacher in the Jordan benefiting from the
‘hard’ choice of tyres and a single pit
stop, was easily outrunning the straggling 3 pack of
Herbert, Hakkinen and Berger by over 15 seconds who
in turn were all linked overall by barely 2 seconds. </font></p>
</blockquote>
<p align="center"><font size="2" face="Arial"><img
src="jvms9701.jpg" width="350" height="184"><br>
</font><font size="1" face="Arial"><em>Both Williams and
Ferrari had a lot to be pleased about<br>
in Argentina.</em></font></p>
<blockquote>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">The position was not
to change and as Irvine gave up his lead in the pit
lane, Villeneuve managed to put enough distance
between him and the Ferrari to maintain his lead
despite a third ‘splash and dash’ stop. In
the final six laps with Villeneuve nursing his tyres
to the chequered flag Irvine put on a charge that
briefly brought the race back to life and at one
point was less than a cars length from the
William’s rear wing. <i>"I was under his
wing coming out of the last corner,"</i>
explained Irvine, <i>"but he left me for dead on
the straight. I was on the limiter going accross the
start-finish line and there was no way I could
overtake him unless I just barged into him."</i>
In view of what happened at <b>Melbourne</b>, that
would probably give Villeneuve full licence to murder
the Irishman but luckily commonsense prevailed and
the two cars crossed the line a mere nine tenths of a
second apart.</font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">With the top six
places going to six different constructors and the
introduction of the <i>‘Bridgestone
factor’, </i>it is now becoming obvious that the
lions of yesterday are not able to pick off their
pray with the consummate ease with which they used to
do. There is less room at the watering hole, now that
the small teams are pushing to slake the thirst that
so many dry seasons have brought on.</font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Arial">A final word can go to
<b>Eddie Jordan </b>who’s Jordan Peugeot team
has survived 100 races and has still yet to quench
his thirst for glory. <i>"I have mixed feelings
about today’s result, as we could have had more
points. But it is fantastic to be on the podium and,
perhaps more importantly, to see that we have a car,
an engine and tyre combination which is capable of
running at the front. My neck is on the block, but I
think it will turn out OK. It is a good way to
celebrate our 100th Grand Prix. A podium finish is
what we needed."</i></font></p>
<p><a href="mailto:[email protected]"><font
size="2" face="Arial"><em>Chris Richardson</em></font></a></p>
</blockquote>
<p align="right"><a href="arg97qr.htm"><font size="2"
face="Arial">Qualifying <img src="licback.gif"
align="absmiddle" border="0" width="20" height="20"></font></a></p>
<p align="right"><a href="arg97rp.htm"><font size="2"
face="Arial">Race Preview <img src="licback.gif"
align="absmiddle" border="0" width="20" height="20"></font></a></p>
<p align="right"><a href="f1ch1997.htm"><font size="2"
face="Arial">1997 Championship Contents </font></a><a
href="f1ch1997.htm"><font size="2" face="Arial"><img
src="lictop.gif" align="absmiddle" border="0" width="20"
height="20"></font></a></p>
<p align="right"><a href="f1ct.htm"><font size="2"
face="Arial">Formula 1 Contents </font></a><a
href="f1ct.htm"><font size="2" face="Arial"><img
src="lictop.gif" align="absmiddle" border="0" width="20"
height="20"></font></a></p>
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