Before the 1994 Formula 1 season had even ended, it had gone down as one of the most dramatic and tragic in recent F1 history. The banning of traction and launch controls, as well as the outlawing of active suspension, lead Ayrton Senna – now at Williams – to predict that it would be a season with heavy accidents. After only three races, one of these accidents claimed the life of Senna himself. The weekend also claimed the life of Roland Ratzenburger. It was one of the worst weekends in F1 history, at the San Marino GP.
1994 Japanese Grand Prix: Hill Takes it to the Wire
Damon Hill, Senna’s team-mate, was left in the position of being Williams’s outright number 1 driver and to carry the team’s hopes of recovering the season. Hill closed the gap on the commanding championship lead of Benetton’s Michael Schumacher with some impressive drives, and with the help of Schumacher’s three-race ban for overtaking Hill on the parade lap at the British Grand Prix, the gap was five points in Schumacher’s favour with two races to go.
Qualifying took place under wet weather conditions with Schumacher taking his 6th pole position of the season in front of Hill, with Sauber’s Heinz-Harald Frentzen taking an impressive third ahead of the sister Williams of Nigel Mansell. Johnny Herbert qualified 5th for the first race of his second stint at Benetton.
The race started in appalling and torrential conditions, with Schumacher leading from Hill. On lap 3, Herbert, and local hopefuls Taki Inoue and Ukyo Katayama all fell foul of the rain and crashed into the pit wall on the start-finish straight. On lap 14, with no sign of the rain letting up, Footwork’s Gianni Morbidelli suffered a heavy shunt before the first Degner curve. Whilst debris from the accident being cleared-up, the McLaren of Martin Brundle crashed at the same place, breaking the leg of a marshall. It proved to be the final straw and the red flag was brought out.
After some delay and much discussion between drivers and race officials, the race restarted albeit under the safety car and resumed with aggregate timing. Schumacher pitted soon after and took on a heavy fuel load, the Benetton team believing the race distance would not be completed before the two hour time limit. On lap 36, Schumacher took the lead on aggregate but the rain began to let up and it became clear that the race would be completed in time, forcing Schumacher to pit again, leaving Hill to retake the lead of the race. Meanwhile, Mansell and Ferrari’s Jean Alesi were locked in a battle for third place, albeit on the circuit. Mansell attempted to overtake Alesi on numerous occasions but found no way past the Frenchman, the battle continuing until the end of the race.
With time against him, Schumacher began a late charge, closing on Hill’s aggregate lead, providing a nail-biting finish for all concerned. With Hill finishing first on the track at least, there was a nervous wait for Schumacher to come past, the gap eventually being 3.3 seconds, enough for Hill to claim one of his most impressive victories of his career, and to take the championship gap down to a single point into the final race in Australia. Mansell claimed a moral victory over Alesi by eventually overtaking him on the final corner on the last lap, but Alesi still claiming the final podium place on aggregate timing. The 1st and 4th places gave Williams a five point lead in the constructor’s championship.
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