March 10 1996

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All of the information in this section was obtained from a bloke down the pub, which means that while we believe all the following information to be true, we couldn't swear that it is.

What we will say however, is that usually, "there's no smoke without fire".....

Previous Issues

Hill Wins In Australia
Brundle Off To A Flying Start
Villeneuve Takes Pole
Hill Fastest On Friday
Protesters Issue Statement
Protesters Set On Disruption
Villeneuve Sets Pace on Thursday
Inoue Replaced For Melbourne
Villeneuve Determined To Succeed
Qualifying Sessions
Hill Ready To Win
Drivers Praise Melbourne Track
Jordan Announce New Sponsor


Hill Wins In Australia

Damon Hill won his 14th GP in Melbourne. Hill had started 2nd on the grid, and stayed behind team mate Jacques Villeneuve for most of the race. His car was covered in an oily film from being behind his team mate and on lap 53 out of 58 Villeneuve was given a SLOW sign from the pit crew. This allowed Hill to pass and secure his 14th GP victory, matching his fathers tally. Villeneuve managed to finish second, with a smoking Renault engine, Irvine was third, Berger fourth, Hakkinen fifth and Salo sixth. Full race report available from the reports section.

Headlines

Brundle Off To A Flying Start

Martin Brundle's 1996 campaign got off to a flying start when his Jordan was launched into the air and landed upside down in the gravel.

The incident occured at the entrance to turn 3 on the first lap. David Coulthard was nudged from behind (possibly by Rosset), which caused his McLaren to fish tail and move quickly to the left while slowing. Johnny Herbert was forced to brake hard and move left to avoid contact with Coulthard. Martin Brundle was closing on the Sauber of Herbert, but could not react quickly enough to the emergency braking from Herbert and Coulthard. Brundle's Jordan hit the back of the two cars and was launched into the air. He was mid way through his victory roll when he passed over Coulthards head !!

The Jordan landed upside down in the gravel and crashed into the retaining wall. When it came to a standstill and the dust had settled, it was clear that the driver cell was intact. The car itself had broken into two parts, the rear engine section had snapped off during the accident.

As the marshalls raced to the scene Brundle climbed out, to cheers from the crowd. He then raced back to the pit to collect the spare car. He ran the full length of the pits to see Professor Sid Watkins (FIA Medical Advisor) to get the OK to race.

On the restart Brundle had to start from the pit lane.

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Villeneuve Takes Pole

Jacques Villeneuve has secured pole position in his first ever GP race. The young Canadian set the second fastest time so far and continued to improve on his times. Williams team mate Damon Hill is second on the grid. Hill's Friday time was the quickest set on the track, but Damon couldn't repeat his performance during qualifying. Eddie Irvine showed how well he would do at Ferrari whe he outpaced team mate Michael Schumacher to secure third. Schumacher is fourth and a back on form Mika Hakkinen is in fifth.

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Hill Fastest On Friday

Damon Hill set the fastest time on Friday. Most drivers knocked around two seconds off their Thursday efforts, once again everyone except the two Forti drivers were within the 107% rule. Hill had been 7th fastest for most of the session, but a late flying lap secured him the fastest time of the day. Other drivers to improve were Berger, Coulthard and Salo. Top honours go to Montermini who knocked 22 seconds off his previous best !!

Headlines

Protesters Issue Statement

This story from Peter Fitzgerald in Melbourne

News just announced by the protesting group in Melbourne (Friday AM) is that they will stage no further protests during the race weekend, which ends any further threat of the speculated international incident. I was at the track on Thursday when the small group of anti grand prix people tried to get into the administration area. They were gently escorted away to several grandstands full of spectators booing them on their way.

Headlines

Protesters Set On Disruption

Protesters in Melbourne have again stated that they will cause a "major international incident" with the intent of stopping the Australian GP from taking place. One of the protesters stated that they were not planning any action that would endanger the lives of any drivers, spectators or protesters, phew !.
They are said to be angry that trees have been felled to make way for track improvements, and say that an inner city park is not a venue that should be used for a GP.

Headlines

Villeneuve Sets Pace on Thursday

Jacques Villeneuve set the early pace during Thursday's familiarization session at the Albert Park track. His team mate was second fastest though almost a whole second behind. Alesi was third, Schumacher fourth and Jos Verstappen in a flying Arrows was fifth. Mika Hakkinen, Mika Salo and Gerhard Berger all failed to match their impressive Estoril performances. Applying the new 107% rule would only exclude Luca Badoer and Andrea Montermini the two Forti drivers. Montermini was over 30 seconds behind the lead time, perhaps he called in at the Burger King Drive Thru on his way round ? :-)

Headlines

Inoue Replaced For Melbourne

Taki Inoue will not race in Australia. He has some sponsorship problems and his place will be taken by 1994 Italian Formula 3 champion, and test driver Giancarlo Fisichella.
Fisichella had been linked to the second Ferrari seat before Irvine moved from Jordan.

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Villeneuve Determined To Succeed

Jacques Villeneuve is determined not to follow the same path as other Indy champions that crossed into F1. Mario Andretti took 3 seasons before he won an F1 race and Michael Andretti well......... his team mate was Ayrton Senna who was not a current champion. Compare their results and see how hard it is to cross into F1 from Indy.
Jacques has looked impressive in testing, lets hope he can carry that form into the races. He will win races, no doubt about that, it's just a question of when.

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Qualifying Sessions

This year qualifying for a Grand Prix is slightly different. There are no Friday qualifying sessions.
Teams will be allowed to have two free practice sessions of one hour, limited to 30 laps on Fridays (Thursday at Monaco).
On Saturdays the teams will have two 45 minute sessions. The Qualifying session is limited to twelve laps and there will be a cut off point of Pole position time plus 7% for qualifying. Though the FIA have given race stewards the right to waive this in exceptional circumstances.
We will just have to wait and see.

Headlines

Hill Ready To Win

Damon Hill has said that he had a great winter and can't wait for the start of the season. Many people hold the opinion that this year is the best chance he will get of winning the title. Martin Brundle said that "Damon can only lose the title this year". In the final testing at Estoril Damon was the quickest driver on five out of the seven days that he tested. Coulthard has said that Damon "is the one to watch".
The Williams car is certainly one of the best, if not the best and has covered almost 9000 miles of testing.

Headlines

Drivers Praise Melbourne Track

The Drivers have all praised the Melbourne track. Michael Schumacher commented that the track was "fast and exciting" and with the cars likely to reach over 300 KPH on some sections the race should be exciting.
Jacques Villeneuve added that there were "six potential overtaking places" on the track which should help get the season off to a lively start.

Headlines

Jordan Announce New Sponsor

The Total Jordan Peugeot Team have annonced that they will be sponsored by Benson And Hedges. This is contrary to rumours that they would be sponsored by Camel.
The Jordan cars will be decked out in the distinctive Gold livery of the Benson and Hedges packaging.

The last Gold coloured GP car that springs to mind is the Arrows of the late 70's when Warsteiner were their sponsors.

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