Hamilton joins the likes of Senna and Schumacher - by losing a win after the race

Lewis Hamilton will have to hand over his Belgian Grand Prix winner’s trophy to Felipe Massa (appeal pending).

It will be small comfort to him that plenty of other drivers have had wins taken off them in the past. Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher and others have lost race wins after the chequered flag. More encouragingly for Hamilton, a small number of them got their wins back

However by my reckoning only one driver has lost a win because of a racing incident, rather than a technical infringement or stewards’ mistake: Ayrton Senna. Here’s a look at some of these controversial races:

1976: James Hunt, McLaren, Spanish Grand Prix, Jarama

In 1976 F1′s governing body began setting limits on the dimensions of the cars. They used the McLaren M23 as the reference for the maximum width, because it was the widest car in F1 at the time. But when the team used a new construction of tyre at Jarama it failed to notice it made the car 1.8cm wider than the regulations allowed, and Hunt was disqualified after winning.

However his win was reinstated on appeal.

1976: James Hunt, McLaren, British Grand Prix, Brands Hatch

Later that same year Hunt was caught up in a crash on the first lap of the British Grand Prix. Ironically, it was triggered by the two Ferraris. Hunt was originally going to be barred from taking part in the re-start in his spare car, but after noisy objections from the crowd the race organisers relented and let him start.

He won the race, but was disqualified afterwards for using his spare car, handing the win to Ferrari’s Niki Lauda.

1980: Didier Pironi, Ligier, Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal

Didier Pironi crossed the finishing line at Montreal in 1980 about 40 seconds before Alan Jones’s Williams. But Pironi had been given a 60 second penalty for jumping the start which dropped him to third behind Jones and Carlos Reutemann in the other Williams.

1982: Nelson Piquet, Brabham, and Keke Rosberg, Williams, Brazilian Grand Prix, Jacarepagua

FIA rule enforcement at its most bonkers. After an especially hot and gruelling Brazilian Grand Prix (Piquet collapsed on the podium) Piquet and Rosberg were disqualified because their teams had been using ‘water-cooled brakes’ as a means of getting around the minimum weight regulations.

Their disqualification promoted Alain Prost’s Renault into first place. Behind him were John Watson (McLaren) and Nigel Mansell (Lotus), both of whom were also using ‘water cooled brakes’ but were not disqualified. Given how close Watson came to beating Rosberg to the championship, a major embarrassment was only narrowly avoided.

1985: Alain Prost, McLaren, San Marino Grand Prix, Imola

In 1985 refuelling was not allowed, turbo engines were thirsty, fuel tank size was restricted, and the technology used to monitor fuel levels was crude. At races where the rate of fuel consumption was high cars would often run out of petrol in the final laps.

Prost’s McLaren just made it across the line on dregs of fuel at Imola in 1985. But he had so little fuel left in the car it fell underweight, he was disqualified, and victory went to Elio de Angelis in the Lotus. The disqualification rankled with Prost, and he has said he feels he has won 52 races instead of 51. Including, of course, that controversial Brazil ’82 win.

1989: Ayrton Senna, McLaren, Japanese Grand Prix, Suzuka

One of F1′s great controversies. Senna was trying to pass team mate Alain Prost on lap 47 when Prost turned in on him. The pair interlocked wheels and slithered off the road (perhaps this is what would have happened if Hamilton had not driven off the track at Spa last weekend?)

Prost got out of his car and retired – he knew that with Senna out of the race he would be champion. Undeterred, Senna re-gained the circuit via an escape road, pitted for a new front wing, caught new leader Allessandro Nannini, and won the race.

Or so we thought. But the stewards chose to disqualify Senna for missing out part of the track. McLaren appealed the decision but found themselves asked to answer a series of additional charges when they confronted the FIA. Senna’s disqualification stood, and Prost became champion.

1990: Gerhard Berger, McLaren, Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal

In a bizarre repeat of circumstances at the same track a decade earlier, Berger was the winner ‘on the road’ but a 60s penalty for jumping the start left him fourth. Team mate Senna collected the win.

1994: Michael Schumacher, Benetton, Belgian Grand Prix, Spa-Francorchamps

Having led all but one lap of the 1994 Belgian Grand Prix it was particularly galling for Schumacher to be disqualified for excessive wear on the plank on the underside of his car. The planks had been introduced by the FIA earlier in the year to force the teams to run higher ride heights for safety reasons.

Benetton argued the wear had been caused by Schumacher’s spin across the kerbs on the exit of Fagnes. But their appeal against the exclusion failed and Damon Hill inherited the win. Others suggested that the changing conditions throughout the weekend and lack of data on running with the planks caused Benetton to set Schumacher’s ride height too low.

1995: Michael Schumacher, Benetton, and David Coulthard, Williams, Brazilian Grand Prix, Interlagos

The Renault-powered duo of Schumacher and Coulthard were originally excluded because of fuel irregularities. But on appeal the FIA chose to give the drivers their points back, but not the teams. The rationale was that a technical breach had been committed but no advantage had been gained by the drivers.

This unusual decision was not seen again until last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix, when McLaren were stripped of their constructors’ points following the infamous qualifying incident.

1999: Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher, Ferrari, Malaysian Grand Prix, Sepang

Another famous controversy. Ferrari had finished one-two in the inaugural Malaysian Grand Prix but after the race both drivers were disqualified because their barge boards were deemed to be 1cm outside the tolerances allowed by the regulations. This meant Mika Hakkinen was the winner not only of the race but also the world championship.

On appeal Ferrari convinced the FIA that the barge boards had not been accurately measured by the Malaysian Grand Prix stewards and were in fact legal. The FIA accepted this claim, reinstated the Ferraris, leaving the final round to decide the championship.

McLaren’s Ron Dennis felt the stewards had allowed Ferrari to get away with a deliberate misinterpretation of the rules in order to guarantee an exciting championship finale:

I believe, along with probably every technical director in Formula One, that the manufacturing tolerance referred to under article 3.12.6 of the Technical Regulations has no bearing on any other aspect of the car other than the vertical flatness of the horizontal surfaces that form the underside of the vehicle. We think the push for our sport has inevitably become quite commercial. Everybody wants to have an exciting race in Japan, but I think that the price we have paid for that one race is too great.

Read more about the 1999 Malaysian Grand Prix

2003: Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren, Brazilian Grand Prix, Interlagos

The final example concerns a driver and team who hadn’t actually broken any rules at all – instead the FIA stewards were at fault in failing to follow the rules correctly.

The 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix was red-flagged to an early halt following a severe crash for Fernando Alonso. This came shortly after Giancarlo Fisichella had passed Kimi Raikkonen for the lead. However the rules for stopping the race meant that the final positions would be those on the lap before the race was halted. This, they felt, meant Raikkonen was the winner.

However it was only when they studied replays of the race and timing data afterwards that they accepted Fisichella had complete one more lap than they initially realised. Therefore he was in fact the winner, and Raikkonen handed over the winner’s trophy to him at the following round at Imola. It was Fisichella’s first and Jordan’s last Grand Prix win.

Can you remember any other instances where drivers lost F1 wins after the race? Which of these did you think was particularly fair or foul? have your say in the comments.

Rubens Barrichello scored his last win at Shanghai in 2004

David Coulthard and Rubens Barrichello, who scored their first wins in 1995 and 2000 respectively, are the first active drivers in this series looking at F1′s 100 race winners.

Plus two famous one-hit wonder of the mid-90s: Jean Alesi and Olivier Panis.

81. Jean Alesi

First win: 1995 Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal
Total wins: 1
Nationality: French

When Alesi burst onto the scene with Tyrrell in 1989, scoring fourth on his debut, he was tipped as a future world champion.

A full season with Tyrrell in 1990 brought mixed results but he was still in demand among the top teams. Faced with the choice of joining Williams or Ferrari he picked the latter – which turned out to be a mistake.

Ferrari failed to win at all between 1991 and 1993 – something which seems difficult to believe given their recent levels of success – but began to recover after the arrival f Jean Todt as team principal.

Alesi came close to wins on several occasions but things finally went his way at Montreal in 1995 and he scored an emotional first win – and the last for a Ferrari carrying number 27, which had been associated with Gilles Villeneuve since his death 13 years earlier.

But he found himself squeezed out of the team as Todt brought in Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine. Alesi failed to win with reigning champions Benetton in 1996, switched to Sauber in 1998, then Prost in 2000. Alesi retired at the end of 2001, having substituted for Heinz-Harald Frentzen at Jordan, the team for whom he had won the Formula 3000 championship back when his career seemed to hold so much promise.

Read more about Jean Alesi: Jean Alesi biography

82. Johnny Herbert

First win: 1995 British Grand Prix
Total wins: 3
Nationality: British

Herbert was one of the bright young things of F3000 but he broke his legs very badly in a huge crash at Brands Hatch in 1988. Nonetheless he made his F1 debut for Benetton in 1989 and scored points in his first race, despite still in severe pain from his injuries.

He was dropped by the team mid-way through the year as he struggled to get up to full fitness. After driving for Lotus he returned to Benetton at the end of 1994 ahead of a full season in 1995.

On two occasions that year team mate Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill would collide and Herbert was handily placed to scoop up the wins – at Silverstone and Monza. But he was out of the team at the end of the season.

Herbert moved to Sauber for 1996 which offered him no more than occasional points and podium finishes. Joining the improving Stewart team in 1999 he took advantage of mixed weather conditions in the European Grand Prix to give the team its first win – and his last. Stewart became Jaguar over the winter and Herbert suffered a frustrating year as the team declined in form. He left F1 at the end of the year.

83. David Coulthard

David Coulthard joined Red Bull after leaving McLaren

First win: 1995 Portuguese Grand Prix, Estoril
Total wins: 13
Nationality: British

The first active driver in this series, almost 13 years have passed since Coulthard scored his maiden win for Williams in the Portuguese Grand Prix. He had driven intermittently for the team in 1994 following Ayrton Senna’s death, then got a full-time seat for 1995.

Coulthard joined McLaren in 1996 and would stay there for nine years, spending six alongside Mika Hakkinen. In 1997 he ended the team’s four-year winless streak at Melbourne and gave the McLaren-Mercedes partnership its first of many wins.

However the final round at Jerez was a sign of things to come as Coulthard was asked to make way so Hakkinen could score his maiden win. Coulthard voluntarily gave up the lead in the season-opener at Melbourne in 1998, this time after Hakkinen had accidentally made an unnecessary pit stop. It set the tone for the next three seasons and Hakkinen usually held the upper hand, Coulthard only occasionally having the beating of his team mate.

In 2000 Coulthard was fortunate to escape with his life after a light aircraft accident which killed the plane’s pilots. At France that year he was in top form and passed Michael Schumacher to win. He did the same at Interlagos in 2001 and briefly challenged Schumacher for the championship, but couldn’t keep pace with the F2001 over the course of the season.

Paired with Kimi Raikkonen for 2002 Coulthard took an excellent win at Monte-Carlo but otherwise the season was one to forget. So it was in 2003 as well when, despite winning at Melbourne once more, it was Raikkonen who took the championship battle to the finale instead of Coulthard. He toiled through 2004 with the uncompetitive MP4/19 before being dropped for Juan Pablo Montoya.

Many expected him to retire but instead he switched to Red Bull. He gave the team its first podium finish in 2006 but at Silverstone this year announced he will retire at the end of the year.

Read more about David Coulthard: David Coulthard biography

84. Jacques Villeneuve

Jacques Villeneuve in his final race at the Hockenheimring in 2006

First win: 1996 European Grand Prix
Total wins: 11
Nationality: Canadian

Son of Ferrari hero Gilles Villeneuve, Jacques caused a storm by beating Williams team mate Damon Hill to pole position on his debut at Melbourne. But for a broken oil line, probably incurred while bouncing across the grass while defending his lead from Hill, Villeneuve surely would have won.

He didn’t have to wait long though and scored his first win by the fourth round, and chased Hill for the title all year. An excellent win at Estoril, achieved by passing Michael Schumacher around the outside of the Parabolica corner, set up a championship decider at Suzuka, but a lost wheel thwarted Villeneuve’s hopes.

The following year, with Hill replaced by Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Villeneuve won the championship. The last race was infamous as Schumacher hit Villeneuve while trying to keep the Williams behind, but Villeneuve hung on to take the title.

Williams slumped in 1998 as they had lost their works Renault engines. So Villeneuve embarked on an ambitious new project headed by manager Craig Pollock to form a new team, BAR. It got off to a disastrous start, Villeneuve failing to score all year.

Arguably he wasted the beat years of his career on the BAR project. It was only when Pollock was ousted and David Richards installed as a replacement that the team started to come good. But Villeneuve and Richards didn’t get on and the Canadian driver left the team on the eve of the 2003 season finale.

Villeneuve made a brief return with Renault at the end of 2004 before joining Sauber in 2005. He had an indifferent season alongside Felipe Massa but stayed with the team as it became BMW in 2006. But halfway through the season he was dropped for Robert Kubica.

Read more about Jacques Villeneuve: Jacques Villeneuve biography

85. Olivier Panis

First win: 1996 Monaco Grand Prix, Monte-Carlo
Total wins: 1
Nationality: French

Panis was the last driver to score a victory for the Ligier team and the last Frenchman to win a Grand Prix, triumphing at a damp Monaco in 1996. He was aided by the retirements of Damon Hill and Jean Alesi but he used a mixture of patience and belligerence to move up through thr field early in the race.

He would never repeat that win though he looked on course to do so during 1997, after the team had become Prost. But he crashed badly at Montreal, breaking his legs, and although he was back in the car by the end of the year he seemed to have lost his edge.

Prost quickly dropped down the order so Panis took a gamble on becoming a McLaren test driver in 2000 before returning to race action with BAR in 2001. He moved on to Toyota in 2003 and left F1 late in 2004.

86. Heinz-Harald Frentzen

First win: 1997 San Marino Grand Prix, Imola
Total wins: 3
Nationality: German

Frentzen was favourably compared to Michael Schumacher during their junior teams and arrived in F1 with Sauber, the team that had run both drivers in sports cars. After a string of impressive drives he was picked up by Williams but largely struggled in 1997, despite winning at Imola.

He fared better in 1998 but was dropped and joined Jordan where he reminded everyone of his earlier promise by winning twice and putting the team in the hunt for the championship.

In 2000 the car’s pace and reliability were less good and Frentzen found himself under pressure from team mate Jarno Trulli. He was dropped by Jordan halfway through 2001 and moved to Prost. Frentzen began 2002 with Arrows but the team collapsed halfway through the year. After a final season with Sauber he left F1.

87. Mika Hakkinen

First win: 1997 European Grand Prix, Jerez
Total wins: 20
Nationality: Finnish

Hakkinen became a McLaren tesst driver after racing for Lotus and got his break late in 1993 when Michael Andretti left the team. Hakkinen impressed by out-qualifying Ayrton Senna on his first race for the team but the following years would be a slog as McLaren went through a series of engine partners.

He finally had a winning car under him in 1997 but suffered a pair if failures while leading at Silverstone and the Nürburgring. His first win finally came at the end of the year and he went into 1998 on a high.

With the rapid MP4/13 at his disposal he won eight times and beat Schumacher to the championship. Despite a few wobbles he made it back-to-back titles in 1999.

In 2000 McLaren and Ferrari were neck-and-neck for pace and Hakkinen and Schumacher fought it out for the championship once again. Hakkinen scored the best win of his career at Spa-Francorchamps, passing Schumacher in a thrilling three-wide move at Les Combes to win. But Schumacher pipped him to the title.

In 2001 the fight seemed to have gone out of Hakkinen and a crash in the season-opener at Melbourne brought back memories of his near-fatal shunt six years earlier. It put retirement on his mind and although he suggested he might take a sabbatical in 2002 he never returned to F1 racing. However he did drive a McLaren in a post-season test in November 2006.

Read more about Mika Hakkinen: Mika Hakkinen biography

88. Eddie Irvine

First win: 1999 Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne
Total wins: 4
Nationality: British

Irvine was making a decent living racing in Japan when he was picked up by Jordan to race in Suzuka in 1993. He famously un-lapped himself from Ayrton Senna and was punched by the former champion when the pair argued about it afterwards.

After two more years with Jordan he was picked up by Ferrari to become Michael Schumacher’s team mate. He lagged behind Schumacher at first but in 1999 he won an attrition-hit season opener at Melbourne and became more outspoken about his desire to be allowed to compete with Schumacher.

When Schumacher broke his leg at Silverstone Irvine took over the role of team leader. He took wins at Austria, Hockenheim and Sepang – the latter pair handed to him by Mika Salo and a returning Schumacher respectively. When it came to the deciding race at Suzuka Irvine could do nothing to stop Hakkinen winning the title again.

With that he was off to Join Jaguar but the team made little progress in three years and he was dropped.

Read more about Eddie Irvine: Eddie Irvine biography

89. Rubens Barrichello

First win: 2000 German Grand Prix, Hockenheimring
Total wins: 9
Nationality: Brazilian

Now F1’s longest-serving driver, Barrichello made his first Grand Prix start in 1993 with Jordan, and stayed with the team for five years. After that he joined Stewart and scored an emotional second place for the team at Monte-Carlo in 1997.

The 1998 season was without such highs but the 1999 car proved very competitive and Barrichello was in the running for victory at Interlagos before retiring. He missed out on scoring the team’s first win – Herbert winning it instead – but took Irvine’s seat at Ferrari for 2000.

Although he rarely got on terms with Michael Schumacher he scored his first win at the Hockenheimring partly thanks to a safety car intervention and partly thanks to a brave gamble to stay on track on dry-weather tyres as rain started to fall.

He didn’t win again until 2002 – he should have been first at Austria that year but he handed the win to Schumacher on Jean Todt’s instructions. After winning for himself at the Nürburgring he was handed victory at Indianapolis and it was hard to avoid the impression that some of his wins in 2004 came the same way.

But that was not true of his two wins in 2003, which must rate among his best. He out-raced Kimi Raikkonen to win at Silverstone that year and ran away with victory at Suzuka.

In 2005 his number two status to Schumacher finally started to rankle and he left the team at the end of the year. It proved poor timing as Schumacher himself left at the end of 2006 and Barrichello might have had the chance to succeed him at the team.

Instead he joined Honda where he generally trailed Jenson Button in 2006 and 2007 but has beaten Button several times this year – and took a fine third in the rain at Silverstone.

Read more about Rubens Barrichello: Rubens Barrichello biography

90. Ralf Schumacher

Ralf Schumacher scored six wins to his brother's 91

First win: 2001 San Marino Grand Prix, Imola
Total wins: 6
Nationality: German

The younger brother of Michael Schumacher, Ralf found it hard to shake of suggestions that his surname got him into F1 – even after he started winning races.

He spent his first two years with Jordan, scoring an early podium in 1997 at Argentina though only after running into team mate Giancarlo Fisichella. He left the team to join Williams in 1999 and easily out-paced Alessandro Zanardi but the following year Jenson Button got too close for comfort on more than one occasion.

In 2001 he had another new team mate – Juan Pablo Montoya – and although rumours quickly spread that they didn’t get on they remained team mates until 2004. Ralf broke his duck at Imola and further wins followed at Montreal and Hockenheim. The new Williams wasn’t fast enough to contend for the title in 2002 but he won once more, at Sepang.

The following year he and Montoya had a competitive Williams and Ralf won at the Nürburgring and Magny-Cours. But a crash in practice for the Italian Grand Prix spoiled his end to the season.

He suffered another heavy impact at Indianapolis the following year and had to miss six races. After then he never seemed quite as quick as he had been although he scored consistent points throughout 2005, now with Toyota.

The team fell off the pace in 2006 and 2007 and Schumacher’s motivation seemed to vanish along with it. He left F1 at the end of 2007.

Read more about Ralf Schumacher: Ralf Schumacher biography

Guest writer Journeyer concludes his two-part guide to the Monaco Grand Prix.

If you thought part one yesterday was great, then you’ll love part two!

This covers some of the more recent Monaco magical moments from the 1980s up to 2007:

1981: This was a key win in Gilles Villeneuve’s career. It was his first win in car number 27, and Ferrari’s first turbo win. It was also a win against the odds, after Nelson Piquet (Brabham) was forced into a mistake by Alan Jones (Williams), who then began to slow due to a cutting engine.

1982: Rene Arnoux (Renault), Alain Prost (Renault), Didier Pironi (Ferrari), Andrea de Cesaris (Alfa Romeo),Derek Daly (Williams) – all of them led the race at some point, and all of them went out while they were leading. It was left to Riccardo Patrese (Brabham) – who also spun off while in the lead – to tiptoe through to his first Grand Prix win.

Oh, and I just love the narrator of this year’s season review (Clive James). If only he still did them now…

1984: If 1982 saw a shower, in 1984 there was a monsoon. Conditions were so bad that Murray Walker and James Hunt kept losing both their audio and video feeds.

Prost, now with McLaren, dominated the race, especially after Nigel Mansell spun off in the Lotus, but he wanted the race stopped at around the same time a young Ayrton Senna began to close in his Toleman. Jacky Ickx saw Prost waving his hands and duly decided to stop the race – controversially, without consulting the other stewards before the decision.

Prost hung on to win on a day title rival Niki Lauda did not score, Prost only scored 4.5 points for a win at half-distance instead of 6 for a full-distance second place. At the end of the year the French driver lost the title by half a point…

1988: Many of you probably know the story: Senna way ahead all weekend, duly dominating the race. Then Ron Dennis asked him to slow down so he didn’t make a mistake. Senna slowed down – then made a mistake at Portier, handing the win to Prost on a plate. Senna jumped out of the car and runs to his condo where he hid for the rest of the day.

However, there have been recent theories that there could have been a deflating tyre involved, which meant that Senna did not have full control of his car when he went into the wall at Portier. Whatever it was, this was one of the most shocking moments in Monaco history.

1992: Four years on, and it was Mansell (now with Williams) who was way ahead all weekend, duly dominating the race. Then out of nowhere, he ducked into the pits, suspecting a deflating tyre. He came out behind Senna, duly starting one of the greatest battles in Monaco history.

1996: It was like 1982 all over again. Just as in 1982, it was rainy. Just as in 1982, the person who occupied the lead seemed to be cursed, as Schumacher (Ferrari), Damon Hill (Williams), and Jean Alesi (Benetton) all held P1 at some point, only to go out of the race soon after. And just like 1982, someone tiptoed to his first F1 win – in this case, Olivier Panis (Ligier).

Oh, and do take note of David Coulthard’s helmet when you see it in this clip. You’ll notice something… different.

1997: Yet another rainy race. But Michael Schumacher did not make the same mistake twice, dominating this race from start to finish to give Ferrari their first win since Gilles in 1981. Rubens Barrichello also gave Stewart their first ever podium here by holding off Eddie Irvine for 2nd place.

The clip below is actually Part 1 of the full race, you can just check the related videos for the other parts.

2001: David Coulthard (McLaren) has usually run well at Monaco, and this year was no exception – at least on the Saturday. He took a brilliant pole, only for it to be wasted when his electronics gave up on him, stalling the car. Those who watched the race will never forget his battle with… Enrique Bernoldi’s Arrows. Not quite a front-runner, but still, lots of fun to watch.

Michael Schumacher won the race though, effectively ending any further opposition to his 2001 title.

2006: There was one corner that was the talk of the town that year: Rascasse.

As we all know, Schumacher stopped on track at this corner after making a mistake. Fernando Alonso (Renault) was furious to see his last chance at pole ruined. Was it on purpose or not? Take a look at the video below and be the judge.

As for the race, Schumacher’s pole was dropped, leaving him at the back of the grid, just like Coulthard five years back. And just like Coulthard, he managed to fight back to fifth. And as for Alonso, the road was clear for him to take his first Monaco win.

2007: One year on, and Alonso and the now retired Schumacher seemed to be good pals (as you’ll see at the start of this video). Alonso (now with McLaren) now focused his attention on teammate Lewis Hamilton, who challenged him for much of the race. Although Alonso won, word leaked that Hamilton was brought it early so that he wouldn’t challenge Alonso (which could have resulted in a collision taking both of them out). Hamilton fanned the flames saying that he was being treated as a number two driver. Thus began the war between Alonso and the rest of McLaren.

You may also be amused by Raikkonen’s qualifying mistake at Piscine and his subsequent stop at a corner which seems to be reserved for Ferrari. His stop also nearly caught Massa out, meaning they were nicely parked beside each other.

And finally, we reach 2008. The stage is set for the most glamorous race of the season. Of the current grid, only Alonso and Coulthard have won this race more than once. Who will rise to the occasion and win here at Monaco?

Read part one: Monaco GP history 1929-73

Share your experiences of visiting the Monaco Grand Prix here.

This was a guest article by Journeyer. If you’re interested in writing for F1 Fanatic look at the information for guest writers here.

I’ve just had a look through the Sunday Times’ annual list of the 1,000 richest people in Britain to see who they reckon the richest Britons in motor racing are.

Here are the ones I was able to find – do let me know if you think I’ve missed any. No prizes for guessing who came out on top…

24th Bernie Ecclestone (and Slavica Ecclestone) £2,400m – Owns the commercial rights to F1
136th Paddy McNally £610m – Former owner of Allsports which sells advertising signage at F1 races
214th Lawrence Tomlinson £400m – Runs care homes and owns Team LNT which runs Le Mans Endurance Series and Formula Ford teams
558th Martin Birrane £144m – Runs Lola and owns Modello Park racing circuit.
616th The Marquess of Bute (Johnny Dumfries) £125m – Aristocrat who drove for Lotus alongside Ayrton Senna in 1986
616th Tom Wheatcroft £125m – Former owner of Donington Park which held the 1993 European Grand Prix
644th Flavio Briatore £120m – Team boss at Renault and owns several business interests including his Billionaire brand and QPR football club
644th Eddie Irvine £120m – 1999 championship runner-up and former team mate of Michael Schumacher who made money out of property after retiring from F1 six years ago
701st Paul Stoddart £115 – Australian who owned Minardi from 2001-2005 and made his money running an airline
724th Ron Dennis £110m – Mclaren boss whose estimated wealth grew by £30m since last year despite the spygate episode

Also at 158th I noticed John Christodoulou – I wondered if he was related to Formula Renault drivers Riki and Adam?

There were some ore familiar names in the list of richest young people (those aged 30 and under):

9th Valentino Rossi £75m – Italian multiple Moto GP champion who lives in Britain
13th Jenson Button £35m – Honda F1 driver
34th Lewis Hamilton £15m – McLaren F1 driver
65th Dan Wheldon £7m – British Indy Car champion and Indy 500 winner
65th James Toseland £7m – British Moto GP rider

Although I can’t condone speeding, nor can I say ‘I’m holier than thou’ – I picked up a ticket of my own this year. Ironically enough I was returning from the Goodwood Festival of Speed at the time…

Hamilton is not alone – thousands of British motorists are ticketed for speeding every week. And F1 drivers from Jenson Button to Jean Alesi have had their collars felt by the long arm of the law. But some of them took it rather more seriously than others.

Nelson Piquet

Three-times Formula 1 world champion Nelson Piquet was disqualified from driving in June this year for various offences including speeding and parking violations.

His wife Viviane also lost her licence and the pair had to attend classes and sit an exam to get their licenses back. Meanwhile Nelson Piquet Jnr will make his F1 debut for Renault in 2008.

Giancarlo Fisichella

The former Renault driver had his licence taken away after he broke the speed limit in Italy in 2005. Fisichella later said he was in a hurry to return home to his unwell son.

He said: “I understand that even in these situations you must always avoid going too fast and respect the speed limits. I’m aware of having made a mistake so I apologize and I’m ready to pay for it. My commitments towards road safety remain strong.”

Juan-Pablo Montoya

Seven times Grand Prix winner Montoya was caught doing 200kph in France in 2003. He was less repentant than Fisichella, saying: “Who doesn’t go at 200 clicks on those motorways? I tell you, that car does 240kph no problem. I was taking it easy.”

The gendarme issued an on the spot fine which Montoya paid in cash right away with wife-to-be Connie at the wheel: “Connie and I had been chatting and she told me to go steady because there might be police about so I was only doing 200km/h. Anyway, after I paid the policeman, I just handed over to Connie and told her to drive.”

Eddie Irvine

Irvine was arrested for allegedly speeding on a scooter in London, without insurance.

He failed to turn up in court and a warrant was subsequently issued for his arrest, and three years later the police were still looking for him…

Jean Alesi

Alesi retired from Formula 1 in 2001 and two years later was (like Hamilton and Montoya) caught speeding in France.

Alesi said: “I assume full responsibility and acknowledge my mistake. You learn from your mistakes and I will try to behave better than this in the future.”

Jenson Button

Button was caught speeding during his debut season in 2000, also in France. He clocked 230kph in a diesel-powered BMW – being 20 years old at the time he was only allowed to drive diesel cars in Europe.

Photos: Daimler | BMW Media

More on Lewis Hamilton

• Lewis Hamilton matches Jenson Button on Top Gear
• Video: Raikkonen & Hamilton get started in karts

To me this seems an unacceptably long amount of time to wait for such an important decision. Howls of criticism have been hurled at McLaren for choosing to appeal, but I think the real villains here are the FIA and stewards for taking so long.

Waiting

Appeals against the results of races are nothing new. The most celebrated such case concerned the Ferraris of Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher in the 1999 Malaysian Grand Prix. Initially disqualified (making McLaren’s Mika Hakkinen world champion) they were later reinstated, and the championship was decided at the subsequent Japanese Grand Prix.

On that occasion the FIA mobilised itself quickly enough to hear the appeal in the two-week gap between the two races. This year the appeal against the finishing positions of the Williams and BMW cars in the Brazilian race will take place 25 days after the chequered flag fell.

Of course the court’s first priority is to arrive at the correct verdict. But there is no reason to believe the matter is being delayed to ensure the accuracy of the verdict by waiting for all the evidence to come to light. It seems the extent of the evidence is already available.

The court of appeal was originally scheduled to meet next week to hear the case between Williams and Prodrive over the use of customer cars (which is also pressing and due a resolution). Why can the Brazilian GP enquiry not be heard in this now-vacant slot?

Many argue that it would be injurious to the reputation of Formula 1 for the championship to be decided in a court room. I certainly agree with that point of view. But it is just as bad that there will be such a long wait to see the matter resolved.

Are McLaren right to appeal?

Another popular sentiment is that McLaren are being bad losers by appealing. They can’t win on the track, the argument goes, so they’re trying to win with lawyers.

It’s easy to see things that way especially at the end of another season scarred by controversy. But McLaren aren’t doing anything wrong.

The rules are clear and it seems that two teams broke them. The reaction of the Brazilian Grand Prix stewards to dismiss the case on the grounds of insufficient evidence might seem to some an attempt to dodge the issue on a technicality.

But this is not like accidentally using an extra set of wet weather tyres in non-qualifying practice – four cars might have gained a performance advantage by using fuel that was several degrees cooler than their rivals’ throughout a race. Whether that statement is true or false I cannot say – but it behoves the FIA to make sure.

McLaren has said that, “it does not question the integrity of either the BMW or Williams teams,” suggesting it feels the discrepancy was simply a mistake and not an attempt to gain a performance advantage.

How can McLaren appeal?

Writing in the Autosport.com journal Thomas O’Keefe argued that McLaren’s right to appeal might be rejected on various technicalities.

However the admission of the case to the appeal court would seem to set those issues aside. At any rate, denying McLaren the right to appeal against a decision that might have cost one of their drivers the world championship might not reflect well on the sport.

How will McLaren appeal?

On the face of it the smart money is against McLaren winning the appeal. But this season has been anything but predictable, and McLaren might be able to use their own expertise to transform what looks like a lost cause into a very difficult decision for the appeal court.

Whatever conspiracy theory nonsense has been devised about the FIA favouring Lewis Hamilton, there is no way the sport’s governing body will want to change the identity of the champion after the final race. It would be unprecedented and potentially even worse for F1′s reputation than the ‘spying’ scandal.

But this is not an appeal against Raikkonen’s championship victory. The question before the court is whether four cars (three of which finished in front of Hamilton’s) broke the FIA Technical Regulations article 6.5.4:

No fuel on board the car may be more than ten degrees centigrade below ambient temperature.

There are two key grounds for dispute. First the accuracy of the FIA’s track temperature may be disputed. The FIA put the temperate in the low sixties, but Bridgestone’s thermometers put it in the high forties.

McLaren may point to the fact that every other teams’ fuel was in line with the FIA’s figures, and that on past occasions when these figures have appeared incorrect the FIA have instructed the team to adjust that figure. No such order was given at Interlagos.

The second potential dispute concerns how hot the fuel in the car actually was. BMW and Williams were first investigated because the temperature of the fuel in their refuelling equipment was found to be too low. But would it have been sufficiently high once it had been transferred to their cars?

McLaren might be able to show from their own experience that the fuel would not have been heated to the correct minimum temperature by the act of transferring it into their car.

Much has been made of two supposed precedents that point to different outcomes. When the fuel in Mika Hakkinen’s McLaren was found not to match a reference sample he was disqualified and the drivers who finished behind him promoted in the points standings.

But two years earlier when a similar thing happened to Michael Schumacher and David Coulthard in the Brazilian Grand Prix, both drivers kept their points and their teams lost theirs.

Neither of these cases, however, were to do with fuel temperature.

Further action

The worst possible outcome would be one that leads to a further appeal – particularly if any party chooses to involve a higher authority.

It’s not likely, but with the championship at stake who’s to say this sorry mess might not drag on even longer?

Photos: Ferrari Media | Ferrari Media | Andrew Ferraro / LAT Photographic

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The great Italian team is the only outfit that was present in the first ever championship Grand Prix still competing in Formula One.

Until 1988 the team was headed by founder Enzo Ferrari. But it has won more races since the death of Commendatore in August that year.

Ferrari’s 200 wins

Ferrari’s first win came in the 1951 British Grand Prix at Silverstone when Jose Froilan Gonzalez beat his country Juan Manuel Fangio, in an Alfa Romeo, by over 50 seconds. While celebrating the team’s when Enzo was also moved to feel sadness that they had beaten Alfa, who he had worked for for many years.

The following year Alberto Ascari won six of the eight Grands Prix and became Ferrari’s first world champion. He repeated the feat the following year.

The constructors’ championship was not formed until 1958, and Ferrari were runners-up that year, winning it for the first time in 1961. That year Phil Hill was champion for the team, but only after his team mate Wolfgang von Trips died along with 14 spectators during the season finale at Monza.

Ferrari’s 50th win came in 1974 and it was a pivotal victory for the team – it saw the first victory for Niki Lauda, who under Luca di Montezemolo’s stewardship would win championships for the team in 1975 and 1977. He left following a row with Enzo, who was furious at Lauda’s withdrawal from the season finale at Fuji in 1976.

Ferrari endured a winless 1986 but bounced back at the end of 1987, Gerhard Berger winning twice. His victory in Adelaide that year was the last in Enzo’s lifetime – he died in August 1988, a season dominated by McLaren. But when the teams arrived at Monza that September fortune smiled on Ferrari, both McLarens failed to finished, and Berger led home a Ferrari 1-2. It was the only race McLaren failed to win that year.

It wasn’t until 1999 that Ferrari won its first championship for 16 years, taking the constructors’ title once again. The following season Michael Schumacher won the drivers’ title – the first for a Ferrari driver since Jody Scheckter in 1979. Making up for lost time, he won the next four in a row.

Schumacher’s name is write large in the annals of Ferrari history. Of their 200 wins, 72 are his – over one third.

Ferrari race winners

1 Michael Schumacher 72
2 Niki Lauda 15
3 Alberto Ascari 13
4 Rubens Barrichello 9
=5 Jacky Ickx 6
=5 Gilles Villeneuve 6
=7 Carlos Reutemann 5
=7 Alain Prost 5
=7 Gerhard Berger 5
=7 Felipe Massa 5
=7 Kimi Räikkönen 5
=12 John Surtees 4
=12 Clay Regazzoni 4
=12 Eddie Irvine 4
=15 Juan Manuel Fangio 3*
=15 Mike Hawthorn 3
=15 Peter Collins 3
=15 Phil Hill 3
=15 Jody Scheckter 3
=15 René Arnoux 3
=15 Michele Alboreto 3
=15 Nigel Mansell 3
=23 José Froilán González 2
=23 Tony Brooks 2
=23 Wolfgang von Trips 2
=23 Didier Pironi 2
=23 Patrick Tambay 2
=28 Piero Taruffi 1
=28 Nino Farina 1
=28 Maurice Trintignant 1
=28 Luigi Musso 1*
=28 Giancarlo Baghetti 1
=28 Lorenzo Bandini 1
=28 Ludovico Scarfiotti 1
=28 Mario Andretti 1
=28 Jean Alesi 1

*Juan Manuel Fangio and Luigi Musso shared victory in the 1956 Argentinian Grand Prix.

Ferrari statistics

F1′s longest-running team have started 757 of the 784 world championship Grands Prix. That dwarfs McLaren (629) and Williams (498) the sport’s two other active long-runners.

Two hundreds wins in 757 starts gives Ferrari a 26.4% hit rate – over one in four. McLaren’s is 24.8% (156 wins) and Williams 22.6% (113 wins).

Here are the rest of Ferrari’s achievements at 200 Grands Prix wins:

Pole positions – 194
Fastest laps – 204
Races with at least one podium finisher – 440
Laps raced – 86470
Distance raced – 445401km
Races led – 355
Laps led – 12419
Distance led – 64862km
Championship points – 4735.27

Constructors’ championships – 15:
1961, 1964, 1975-7, 1979, 1982-3, 1999-2004, 2007

Drivers’ championships – 14:
Alberto Ascari 1952-3, Juan Manuel Fangio 1956, Mike Hawthorn 1958, Phil Hill 1961, John Surtees 1964, Niki Lauda 1975 & 1977, Jody Scheckter 1979, Michael Schumacher 2000-4

Photos: Ferrari Media

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For an example of how one team has quite a bit more experience in the matter than the other, turn the clock back eight years to the Belgian Grand Prix of 1999.

The McLaren drivers fought over the win – and it was the man with the number two on his car came out on top – while Ferrari were forced to use team orders to shuffle its principal title contender into a lowly fourth place.

Schumacher refuses return

Ferrari had been thrown into disarray by Michael Schumacher’s crash at the British Grand Prix in July. Twenty years had passed since their last drivers’ champion – Jody Scheckter – and Schumacher had been runner-up for the past two years.

Hopes were raised before the Belgian Grand Prix that he might be about to return to the cockpit. He limped around the car at the pre-race test at Mugello, climbed in, and lapped 0.2s slower than team mate Eddie Irvine on his first flying lap. After a day’s testing – 65 laps – he was 0.3s quicker than Irvine.

But he made it clear that although his broken leg – which still contained a 25cm pin – did not impede his performance, he would not race at Spa. He targetted a return at the following round, Monza in Italy, but missed that and the European Grand Prix, finally returning at the Malaysian round.

Title battle

That left Ferrari fielding Irvine – championship leader by two points ahead of McLaren’s Mika Hakkinen – alongside Mika Salo. The weakness of the pairing had been underlined two weeks earlier at the Hungaroring, when Hakkinen had taken a commanding win, Irvine had slithered off the track and finished third, and Salo finished 12th, lapped twice, having started a miserable 18th.

Irvine was Ferrari’s only hope for the title, and Salo was there to support him. That much was clear when Salo had sacrificed what would have been his first Grand Prix win to Irvine at the Hockenheimring.

At McLaren things were different but, in common with today, there were rumours of discontent between the drivers and preference being shown to one over the other.

Hakkinen was in his sixth full season with the team, Coulthard his fourth, and Hakkinen had clearly had the beating of Coulthard when the Finn had taken the title the year before.

Nonetheless, just as today, Dennis pledged equal treatment for both drivers. Even if that meant the occasional horror show, such as at the A1-Ring one month earlier, when Coulthard spun Hakkinen at the start and then lost the win to Irvine.

Team mates crash

McLaren dominated qualifying. Before the nonsense of race-fuel qualifying was invented there was a simply measure of how much quicker the McLaren was over a 7km lap of Spa-Francorchamps than anything else – Hakkinen’s 0.909s advantage over third placed Heinz-Harald Frentzen, the German an outsider for the title. Irvine, sixth, was 1.5s down.

Salo, ninth, was just a tenth quicker than Jacques Villeneuve, despite the Canadian’s best efforts to destroy both himself and his BAR. Just as in 1998, he had tried to take the fast Eau Rouge sweep flat-out, and lost control and had an accident of similar gigantic proportions to the one he managed at Williams the previous year.

Villeneuve pointed out that since the barrier on the inside of the right-hand bend at Eau Rouge had been removed this year the psychological challenge had been lessened. Team mate Ricardo Zonta accepted his challenge of taking the bend without lifting – and had an even bigger crash. Thankfully, both were uninjured, but you had to pity their poor mechanics.

Team mates clash

Race day dawned bright, sunny and dry – a relief for those hoping not to see a repeat of last year’s dismal weather which prompted an enormous crash at the start.

As the drivers sat on the grid Hakkinen’s car twitched forward momentarily, then stopped. At the same moment the lights changed and Coulthard was immediately alongside his team mate, pinching his car against the barrier at the inside of the La Source hairpin.

The two made the briefest of contact – just like Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa did at Monza on Sunday – and Coulthard took the lead.

That decisive and controversial move on Coulthard’s part – a highly controversial one given what happened at the A1-Ring – won him the race. Hakkinen couldn’t get on terms with his team mate that day.

Team mates conspire

Further back Ferrari were using team orders to minimise the damage. Salo was running behind Irvine and keeping Ralf Schumacher back, slowing the German’s Williams by up to three seconds per lap, while Patrick Head fumed with rage. It bought Irvine enough time to exit the pits just ahead of the younger Schumacher following his second stop – although he inadvertently put Salo onto the grass in doing so.

That bought Irvine fourth, but there was nothing he could do about Frentzen’s third-placed Jordan. He could console himself with the thought that on a day when Ferrari’s policy of backing one driver had got him an extra point, McLaren’s policy of equality had cost Hakkinen four.

It was days like that which made you think that, even though Hakkinen had a faster car for much of the season, he was surely a more deserving champion than Irvine would have been.

Photo: Williams F1 Media

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But no driver that won the F3000 or GP2 championship has then won the F1 title.

In this four part series we take a look at the 22 champions – and what became of their F1 careers.

Erik Comas
1990 F3000 champion with 51 points (2nd Eric van de Poele, 31)

Having missed out on the title so narrowly in 1989, Comas made amends in 1990 in a year that boasted such talents as Damon Hill and Eddie Irvine.

He entered F1 with Ligier in 1991, but scored no points. With the same team in 1992 he suffered a huge crash at Spa-Francorchamps. That was followed by two unfruitful years at Larrousse after which he quit F1 for sports and touring car racing.

Christian Fittipaldi
1991 F3000 champion with 47 points (2nd Alessandro Zanardi, 42)

Emerson Fittipaldi’s nephew’s F1 career is best remembered for his somersault on the final lap of the 1993 Italian Grand Prix.

He entered F1 in 1992 with Minardi, scoring a point in the Japanese Grand Prix. He scored another five in 1993 before switching to Footwork. After that he moved to Champ Cars in America where he stayed until 2002, scoring two wins. He still races in the Le Mans series.

Luca Badoer
1992 F3000 champion with 46 points (2nd Andrea Montermini, 34)

Badoer’s F1 debut came with the hopeless BMS Scuderia Italia Lola team in 1993. They gave up before the end of the season. After a year as a Minardi test driver he was promoted to their race driver in 1995.

The next year was spent with another back of the grid team, Forti, which expired halfway through the season.

After a year of GT racing he became a test driver for Ferrari and in 1999 raced for Minardi again. He was not given the chance to replace Michael Schumacher when the German injured his leg – that opportunity instead went to Mika Salo.

Badoer famously broke down in tears after his Minardi failed him while he was running fourth in the European Grand Prix at the Nürburgring.

He never did score a point and when his F1 race career finished at the end of that year he had become the driver to have started the most races without scoring a point (49) a record he still holds.

He has remained a dedicated servant of Ferrari, however, testing both their road and race cars and playing an integral part in the success of the F1 team.

Olivier Panis
1993 F3000 champion with 32 points (2nd Pedro Lamy, 31)

Panis was a Ligier man for years, even after the team turned into Prost in 1997. Before that he gave the team its first win, an opportunistic gem at a wet Monte-Carlo in 1996.

Many said he was never the same after his leg-breaking crash at Montreal in 1997. He certainly never troubled the leaders again or in two years at BAR (2001-2) and Toyota (2003-4).

Jean-Christophe Boullion
1994 F3000 champion with 34 points (2nd Franck Lagorce, 32)

With three races to go in the 1994 championship Boullion was fifth with nine points, 19 behind Franck Lagorce. But he won the last three races and snatched the title.

That year he was also a test driver for Williams largely at the behest of engine supplier Renault. He replaced Karl Wendlinger at Sauber from the Monaco Grand Prix in 1995 and scored three points, but was dropped for the last two rounds when Wendlinger returned.

Bouillon remained a test driver for Williams, then Tyrrell in 1998. He now races sports cars and has been champion in the LMP1 category of the Le Mans Series for the past two years.

Vincenzo Sospiri
1995 F3000 champion with 42 points (2nd Ricardo Rosset, 29)

Many of these drivers could claim to be hard done by. But 1995 champion Sospiri deserved more than one DNQ in the appallingly slow Lola of 1997 (where he was team mates with Rosset) before being forgotten by Formula 1. He was also briefly a test driver for Benetton.

Photo: GP2 Media Service / Alastair Sately

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He happily gave the press quotes about how he would definitely be allowed to race Michael Schumacher, which later proved to be not entirely true…

“Ferrari will let me win” – Barrichello
Autosport, September 9th, 1999

“I’m not sure exactly what Irvine’s contract involved, but if I’m in front of Michael and driving better than him, I’m absolutely certain the team will let me win.” The cynics that sneered at Rubens Barrichello’s optimistic words on joining Ferrari were proved right when, three years later, Barrichello made way for Schumacher to win in Austria.

But this wasn’t the only interesting thing about the announcement in September 1999 that Eddie Irvine would be replaced by Rubens Barrichello – for at the time Irvine was battling Mika Hakkinen for the world championship. Hardly a vote of confidence…

Six-wheeled Williams for 1983
Autosport, September 2nd, 1982

Rumours surrounding Williams late in 1982 insisted that they would run a six-wheeled car in 1983 and were preparing to run either BMW or Honda engines in 1984.

The Honda deal happened for ’84 but the plan to use a six-wheeled car was scuppered by a change to the rules mandating four wheels. Their six-wheeler had run very quick in testing.

The BMW deal linked Manfred Winkelhock (late father of this Markus who made his F1 début at the Nürburgring) to the team, but didn’t come about. Williams used BMW engines much later, from 2000-5.

Asiatech team for 2004
Autosport, September 19th, 2002

Engine suppliers Asiatech (who, despite their name, were based in France) ended their supply of power plants to Minardi in 2002 with a view to returning as constructors in 2004.

Enrique Scalabroni designed a car for them. But their hopes of attracting support from a manufacturer never came to fruition and the car never raced.

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Tags: f1 / formula one / formula 1 / grand prix / motor sport