1998 Season, now I get it
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In 1998 I was too busy listening to “beats”, smoking, and chasing girls and I had stopped following F1 for a bit. To my loss I know! I have of course in between then and now, read about that season, watched some highlights, seen the famous Belgian GP mass crash etc. But I had not really looked into the season in depth.
I just finished watching the FIA 1998 Season Review and wow wow wow what a fascinating year. I was interested to watch it after reading here on F1 Fanatic members views of their favorite seasons and 98 constantly was popping up.
Not only for the on track stuff, the review shows a lot of the strange stuff going on in the pitlane and paddock. Sylvester Stallone at nearly every race it seemed. I guess he had made a deal with Bernie to do a F1 movie and somehow that turned into “Driven”? Team bosses routinely walking over to other teams and asking for assistance in letting their quicker cars through? Don’t see that anymore! Patrick Head giving Jean Todt an earful after another in a countless list of Schumi dangerous moves. Eddie Jordans ridiculously obvious wig. Damon Hill talking quite candidly about just about anything and how on earth did he end up at Jordan? A hideous livery on the Williams team and the engine named “Mechachrome”. HAHA, you can’t base a teams performance on their livery and engine name, but you just had a feeling with that combo on a Williams it was never going to work.
I saw something that had me wondering.
I knew that paddle shift systems came out in the late 80’s and all the cars still had a clutch for starts and stops and I actually thought they had this up until maybe ten years ago. But here in 98 the cars already don’t have a clutch pedal, so how was the clutch handled, on the steering wheel like now? Schumi stalled in the pits at a race, how did he do that? And also his major stall at the Suzuka start.Although I only witnessed this season on a review, it is now definitely in my top two or three seasons.
1998 was my first season and I still remember it vividly. I also have a lot of magazines from back then, and you’re right, Stallone originally wanted to do Driven about F1, but he found the teams and drivers to be unwilling to cooperate. If I remember correctly, Jordan wanted Hill for the 1997 season, but he could get a better deal at Arrows for 1997, but eventually joined for 1998. Hill even did a split interview with Schumacher at the end of the season and it was quite the candid interview, for both of them.
There’s a bunch of races and highlights on YouTube, including longer clips of DC and Schumacher touching in Argentina, Hill and Schumacher’s ideas about what happened in Canada, the team orders at Jordan in Belgium, etc. Not too sure about the clutch system though, but I’ll take a peek in my magazines from that year, there used to be lots of technical stuff in a Dutch magazine, provided by Benetton and Jordan.
I knew that paddle shift systems came out in the late 80′s and all the cars still had a clutch for starts and stops and I actually thought they had this up until maybe ten years ago. But here in 98 the cars already don’t have a clutch pedal, so how was the clutch handled, on the steering wheel like now? Schumi stalled in the pits at a race, how did he do that? And also his major stall at the Suzuka start.
It was either a paddle or a button. Surely anti-stall systems were at early development, so it happened a lot more often. Every now and then you got one driver waving arms before the lights went off…
I though the clutches were hand operated lever type, back then and still now. Am I wrong? Just what I thought
Scratch that just googled it and saw how they’re operated these days. I always thought they were the lever type, so must’ve got that from somewhere, can find anything on what they used before the paddle type though so dunno
Me too. 98 was actually the first time that I have started watching any sport. And boy what have I seen:F1, WRC, Le Mans, World cup – I’ve seen it all (at least a bit)
I didn’t watch the 1998 season, but I remember one thing that someone mentioned in a comment somewhere, regarding the 1998 season. It was the first year of the grooved tyres, and the biggest problem was that front tyres had three grooves, while rear had four. Some drivers, supposedly, complained on the lack of balance because of that. Is that correct?
Here is the 1998 FIA Season Review if anyone wants to see it.
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