Sabrina faija
09/01/2021 7:00
Clarín.com
sports
Updated 09/01/2021 7:00 AM
They were going to turn 30 on November 3, but the role of Belgium took the record for
the shortest Grand Prix in the history of Formula 1
.
In 1991, the last test of the season only lasted 24 minutes on the Adelaide street, where Ayrton Senna, who was already the champion, took his seventh victory of the year and when he got out of the McLaren he said:
"The biggest mistake that we committed was to have started the race "
.
Only one thing was being discussed in the Australian paddock that weekend: Ferrari's decision to remove Alain Prost from the team, who two weeks earlier had compared the Italian car to a truck.
Immediately, the Scuderia kicked him out, not letting him run the Australian GP and finish his second season with the team on the track.
"We are very happy with his performance. He is a great driver and tester
but his behavior in and out of the car meant that Ferrari had to end the relationship,
" was the explanation from Claudio Lombardi, the sports director.
Without Prost, the other novelty was
Nelson Piquet
, who had not renewed with the Benetton team so that presentation on the Adelaide street circuit represented
his last function in Formula 1
.
After a sunny Saturday and no surprises in qualifying, Sunday appeared as the day McLaren hoped to also win the constructors' championship, with Senna - owner of his 60th pole - and Gerhard Berger from the front row of the start, ahead of the Williams, top contenders for that title.
"I did not come here to commemorate my third world championship, I came to do my best. The season just ended after this Grand Prix,"
said the three-time world champion in the previous one.
But when the torrential rain broke, he thought about not running,
though he said nothing
.
Senna's victory in Australia 1991, the shortest GP in history until that of Belgium 2021, in the pages of Clarín.
"
We should never have agreed to go racing under those conditions
. I don't want to accuse the organizers, it was up to us, the drivers, in agreement with the team leaders to decide not to start. Personally, I did not do it out of respect for my team, but We should have had to say no, "he said after the test that stopped on lap 16, when he waved his arms desperately asking for the red flag.
It is that the Brazilian had managed to
dodge two cars
in the first major crash of a race that claimed on the fifth lap the abandonments of Jean Alesi (Ferrari), Nicola Larini (Lambo), Thierry Boutsen (Ligier) and Michael Schumacher (Benetton ) and that he no longer had Satoru Nakajima (Tyrell) from a turn earlier.
While the dangerous spins accumulated in the rest of the track, on lap 8
Pierluigi Martini
lost control of his Minardi, crashed it against a wall and bounced, returning dangerously to the track,
The shortest race in the history of # F1, Australian GP in 1991. 14 laps of 81 agreed, half points.
🎥: @ F1 pic.twitter.com/Tw8ABxvsr6
- Diego Mejia (@diegofmejia) August 29, 2021
But it wasn't until the Nigel Mansell (Williams) accident that the suspension was triggered.
After overtaking Berger and getting behind Senna, the Briton hit a wall and hurt his foot, while the Austrian did a double spin on the same lap.
Then, Senna saw that chaotic scene -with cars that were not removed from the track-,
waved his arms and on lap 16 the long-awaited red flag appeared
.
The organizers then decided to stop the competition on lap 14, when Senna had timed
24 minutes, 34 seconds and 899 thousandths
.
"I don't think it was a race, it was just a matter of staying on the circuit, and there was no point trying to go fast, it was impossible," said the winner, who took the podium with his teammate Berger (3rd) but not with Mansell (2nd), who left Australia with three points but injured and full of anger.
"It all seemed like a great joke," he
criticized.
On the podium.
Senna and Berger celebrate with champagne at the 1991 Australian Grand Prix. Photo: YouTube capture
It was not the same as the opinion of the race director, Mel Hemmerling, who defended himself in the midst of the criticism and the controversy generated: "
They are professionals
. The circuit is very safe and only the large accumulation of water in some areas forced suspension ".
When on Sunday Formula 1 made the incredible decision to give up points for a race in which only one lap was timed behind a safety car -3: 27.071 compared to 1: 59.765 of the pole of Max Verstappen the day before - Australia 1991 lost the record for being the shortest GP in history.
A record that has now passed into the hands of Belgium
and a circuit that knows dangerous races in the rain
.
Belgium 1998, from the 13-car chain crash to a final with just 8 drivers
On August 30, 1998, the Spa Francorchamps circuit, where F1 starred in the role of history last Sunday,
experienced a hellish race
.
Although since its first edition -on June 18, 1950- it witnessed unforgettable races, perhaps the most remembered is the one won by Damon Hill (Jordan).
Damon Hill added a victory two years after his title and gave Jordan the first victory in Belgium 1998. AP Photo / Dusan Vranic
The McLaren Mercedes of Mika Hakkinen - leader of the championship - and David Coulthard had dominated in the classification and started from the first row, in front of an escort and expectant Michael Schumacher, who with the Ferrari started from the fourth position. But as soon as the GP started, under heavy rain but without a
pace car
, the Briton lost control of the car and crossed the track causing
a multiple accident involving 13 cars
.
"I still don't know what made me confuse, although it is very likely that I made a mistake, I lost the car and from then on I became a passenger. At first,
I was convinced that I had been hit from behind
, but later I watched the video and couldn't see anyone nearby. In fact, no one could see anything, except for the cars hitting each other,
and the wheels and car parts flying in all directions in the middle of the spray cloud
"Coulthard wrote in a chapter in his book,
David's Diary: The Quest for the Formula 1 1998 World Championship
.
"I had no brakes, I could not control the steering wheel, nothing worked. I was sitting
with wheels hitting me up
and cars coming off everywhere," Eddie Irvine, one of those involved, contributed to the official website of Formula 1 in 2015.
The race came to a halt and
relaunched an hour later
, but Hakkinen didn't hold out for a lap: Schumi's Ferrari made him spin full at La Source and Herbert's Sauber hit him, causing him to be unexpectedly abandoned.
And, as if that were not enough, the Finn saw from the pits how the lead of the championship vanished because the German surpassed Hill and remained as the leader.
The incredible race in the rain that was held in Belgium in 1998 despite a multiple accident in the first corner, in the pages of Clarín.
The unexpected happened later on the slope towards the Pouhon curve, where Schumacher tried to get a lap out of Coulthard but, on the contrary and perhaps due to the poor visibility generated by the rain, he crashed him and lost his right front wheel.
"We radioed David to stay to the right and let Schumacher pass. That's what he did,"
they defended themselves from the McLaren box, where the German went when he reached the pitlane to display his fury.
"I couldn't believe it! My car lost the rear wing in the crash and I went to the pits behind Michael who somehow managed to get there on three wheels. The mechanics took me to the garage, where I got out of the car. I took off my gloves, Michael came running to our box yelling at the top of his lungs:
'You tried to kill me !?'
", related the Briton in his book.
At the time, Schumacher had confessed that he was "extremely disappointed."
"That was the reason why I went looking for him. I had the feeling that he had some intentionality," he had related.
However,
the stewards did not agree with him and concluded that it was a
racing
incident
.
Without the candidates on the track, Hill headed for his first victory after the world title won in Japan in 1996, Ralf Schumacher obeyed the team's order not to overtake his teammate and
Jordan took his first win after 125 zero races
.
Of the 22 cars that started, including the Argentine Esteban Tuero, only eight finished the race and
only five completed the 44 laps
.
In addition, with three races remaining, Hakkinen was the leader with a seven-point lead, which he held until the end to win his first title with 14 points more than Schumacher.
Belgium 2021, the sixth race to deliver half the points
The last Grand Prix
delivered half of the
established
points
despite the fact that there was no race, because the cars went out to turn behind the safety car and returned in single file to the pitlane three hours after the established time and in the middle of the same weather conditions they had forced the initial departure procedure to be aborted.
That (controversial) decision was not like
the other five times
in which a GP awarded 50% of the points by not having completed 75% of the test.
Max Verstappen, behind the safety car, as during the entire Belgian GP.
Photo KENZO TRIBOUILLARD / AFP
The first time it happened twice in 1975
: Austria, where 29 of the 54 laps were completed at the Österreichring circuit, and Spain, where Lella Lombardi became the only woman to score in F1. Both tests were marked by tragedy, since in the first one Mark Donohue and two commissioners died and in the other the accident of Rolf Stommelen caused the death of four spectators.
Afterwards, there was one per decade.
At
Monaco 1984
, which represented Ayrton Senna's first podium, the race was suspended on lap 31 due to torrential rain;
in the aforementioned
Australia 1991
, where Senna repeated;
and in
Malaysia 2009
, which was braked at 33 laps by rain and a complete lack of visibility while leading Jenson Button, then champion.
Look also
War in Formula 1 after the absurd Belgian GP: a all against all for the decision to distribute points without racing
The Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix: an absurdity that ended in the shortest race in history
