The cars lined up cleanly on the grid, and got away just as well. Some better 
than others, especially the McLaren (sporting the fetching third wing again) 
of Hakkinen who moved up from 5th to 3rd, and Blundell in the sister car 
making similar progress. Hill was pulling away well at this stage, helped 
by his team-mate - Coulthard - holding up the Benetton of Schumacher. 

Lap 3:
Hill
Coulthard +2.6
Schumacher +3.621
Berger +7.330
Hakkinen +8.135
Brundle
Alesi
Irvine
Herbert
Frentzen

On lap 4, Hakkinen stopped making progress, and retired. At this stage, 
Schumacher was clearly fed up of waiting behind the Scot, and was pushing 
very hard for second place, as Hill extends his lead to over 6 seconds. 
On lap 7, Hill showed who was in control, with a fastest lap of 1m20.550s - 
and at the same time extended his lead over Coulthard to 9 seconds. And so 
the gap increased lap after lap.

Lap 9:
Hill
Coulthard +11.068
Schumacher +11.683
Berger +22.198
Brundle +22.905
Alesi +24.093

Moreno retired in his Forti. Coulthard was going very slowly, compared 
with his team-mate. His laps being roughly 1 second slower than Hill's. 
Could this be part of the Williams' strategy? Only time would tell.....

On lap 10, the positions were  as follows:
Hill
Coulthard
Schumacher
Berger
Brundle
Alesi
Irvine
Herbert
Frentzen
Panis
Blundell
Barrichello
Salo
Badoer
Lamy
Katayama
Papis
Inoue
Boullion
Montermini
Diniz
Moreno

By this stage, Ferrari were preparing for a pit stop. Diniz, in the 
Forti, allowed the battling Coulthard and Schumacher through very 
cleanly. Coulthard, though, had a bit of a wobbly, and lost ground to 
the German, who took full advantage of the situation and dived through. 
Schumacher now had 15 seconds to find to Hill, with 67 laps to go....

Further drama further down the field. The Arrows of Taki Inoue lets go, 
and vast amount of smoke bellows from it. Inoue eventually gets out, and 
a marshal gives a quick squirt of extingusher. However, this isn't the 
end of the drama, as an emergency response vehicle comes to assist, and 
hits Inoue, who bounces off the windscreen and onto the ground. He is 
rushed to the medical centre, and at time of writing had a suspected 
fracture (of what wasn't known).

Schumacher gets the gap down to 13.9 seconds - clearly the Scot had 
been holding up Schumacher. Coulthard came in for a 12.8 second stop, 
and drops behind the battling Berger-Brundle-Alesi-Irvine train. If 
ever there was a recipe for excitement, here it was in full. By lap 
17, Schumacher got the gap down to 12.5 seconds. Hill came in for his 
stop (9.6 seconds), with Schumacher following likewise with a 6.7 
seconds stop. Stop. 6.7 seconds? Somehow, at the same stage of the 
race as Hill, he needed nearly 3 seconds less fuel (or roughly 30 
litres). Could it be that the German was planning a 4 stop race? Surely 
not. With Benetton, though, you can never be sure.

There followed a sudden surge of pit lane activity, when all and 
sundry came and went with various times, though few getting by 
others at the same time.

Lap 18:
Hill
Schumacher +11.629
Alesi +17.607
Herbert +19.459
Coulthard +20.961
Frentzen +24.798

Hill, unusually, makes the better job of the traffic, cleanly 
scything his way through. For once, it was the German who appeared 
to have the trouble. 

Lap 20:
Hill
Schumacher +8.215
Coulthard +19.914
Frentzen +26.909
Blundell +27.399
Barrichello +31.933

On lap 22, Schumacher showed he meant business, and put in a fastest 
lap of 1m20.506s. With it, he took Hill's lead down to 6.9 seconds. 
On lap 26 Schumacher came in for a 9.0 second pit stop. Eh? It was 
barely one-third distance, and already the German had stopped twice. 
What was going on? How many stops would he have by the end? Schumacher 
rejoined the action barely a second ahead of Coulthard. Let the battle 
commence.

Hill was now 30 seconds ahead of Schumacher, and he in turn was 
making time over Coulthard, who wasn't really troubling him. It then 
was reported that Benetton were having a problem with there fuel rig, 
and it was leaking fuel all over the pit. Could this explain the strange 
pit activity? On lap 34, Damon Hill set a new fastest lap of 1m20.247s. 
Hill's best lap was 0.25 seconds faster than Schumacher's, and was 
regularly 2 seconds a lap faster. Hill now had a lead of 23.7 seconds.

On lap 37, Hill came in for his second stop, and rejoined in the lead. 
1.8 seconds in the lead. Hill gets by the now-lapped Panis cleanly, and 
Schumacher gets by him as he dives into the pit road, firther demonstrating 
that today the Englishman had the upperhand in the traffic.

By lap 39, Schumacher was harrying Hill for all it was worth, and got the 
gap down to a scant 0.809seconds. The two of them now came up on 
Schumacher's Benetton team mate, Herbert, who let them both through cleanly 
- no sign of deliberate hold ups at Chez Flavio. It was now that Alesi's 
bad fortune got the better of him again, as he pulled into the pit to retire. 
Schumacher was now desparate to get by Hill, and made many stabs at the 
Englishman. Hill kept ahead all the way, despite wobbling like Coulthard 
did earlier at the same point, suggesting a "characteristic" of the Williams 
chassis.

And so the Benetton made more and more lurid attempts to get by the 
Williams, sliding this way and that, belching smoke from tyres. Schumacher 
was clearly rattled.

Lap 45:
Hill
Schumacher +2.434
Coulthard +33.743
Blundell +1m09.547
Barrichello +1m10.415
Berger +1m16.025

On lap 47, Hill came across the Ligier of Brundle. He failed to get 
by at turn 1 (about the only failed move of Hill during the race), but 
eventually gets by later on. He was just too far back to get by earlier, 
the Ligier clearly a "good" machine at the 'ring. Schumacher now comes in 
for his third stop, after failing to get by the Ligier. Katayama retires 
from 13th place.

On lap 49, the Blundell-Barrichello-Beger train comes in to pit, and all 
leave in the same order.  Lap 51:
Hill
Schumacher
Coulthard
Brundle
Herbert
Irvine
Blundell
Barrichello
Berger
Panis

On lap 54, Blundell retired. His engine was weak, 1500 rpm down, from 
the start and was getting worse. He decided the sensible thing was to 
retire before the thing blew. A shame. If this was a Merc down by 1500 
revs, then we can only look forward to seeing it on full steam.

On lap 58, Hill pitted in 8.3 seconds, and rejoined in the lead by 11.5 
seconds. Salo's Tyrrell retires. On lap 69, Brundle's car had enough, 
and retired. What was wrong "The engines broken, unfortunately". Was it 
a hard race? "Well, if it was easy, anyone could do it". Nice one Martin. 
In some teams, it seems that anyone can get to drive. On lap 71, Hill had 
a 9.7 second lead over Schumacher. Hill extended this to 11.5 seconds the 
very next lap. The race was well and truly under Hill's control. Irvine 
also retires now, and pulls into the pit.

All seemed settled, and then the whole applecart was overturned again. 
Schumachers car slowed to a crawl, and pulled  onto the grassy verge. 
The dry grass burning with the hot exhaust touching it. Hill's 4 point 
inroad into the Germans lead, looked now to be 10 points. Further back, 
the Barrichello-Berger-Herbert train was hotting up (though not really 
delivering). Into the last lap, it was Hill, Coulthard, Barrichello. And 
so it was at the last corner, but the last of the three suddenly slowed, 
and those behind pushed Barrichello down to seventh -  a bitter pill for 
the young Brazillian.

Hill
Coulthard
Berger
Herbert
Frentzen
Panis
Barrichello
Badoer


This report, and season so far, available at address below:
-- 
Stephen M Baines

 "[The Autosport sticker] started to peel off in the middle of Eau Rouge
 and it distracted me. In fact it was the first thing to hit the barrier"
    Tiff Needell - Jaguar XJR-15 Challenge - Interview with Autosport

       F1/TouringCars http://turnpike.net/metro/vollans/index.html