1996 Monaco Grand Prix
| 1996 Monaco Grand Prix | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Race 6 of 16 in the 1996 Formula One World Championship
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| Race details | |||||
| Date | 19 May 1996 | ||||
| Official name | LIV Grand Prix Automobile de Monaco | ||||
| Location | Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo | ||||
| Course | Street circuit | ||||
| Course length | 3.328 km (2.068 miles) | ||||
| Distance | 75 laps, 249.600 km (155.094 miles) | ||||
| Scheduled distance | 78 laps, 259.584 km (161.298 miles) | ||||
| Weather | Overcast, mild, wet at first, drying later, light rain at finish | ||||
| Pole position | |||||
| Driver | Ferrari | ||||
| Time | 1:20.356 | ||||
| Fastest lap | |||||
| Driver |
 Jean Alesi | Benetton-Renault | |||
| Time | 1:25.205 on lap 59 | ||||
| Podium | |||||
| First | Ligier-Mugen-Honda | ||||
| Second | McLaren-Mercedes | ||||
| Third | Sauber-Ford | ||||
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Lap leaders | |||||
The 1996 Monaco Grand Prix (formally the LIV Grand Prix Automobile de Monaco) was a Formula One motor race held at Monaco on 19 May 1996. It was the sixth race of the 1996 Formula One season. The race was run in wet conditions, and set a record for the fewest cars to be running at the end of a Grand Prix race, with the three podium finishers being the only drivers who finished the race.
Olivier Panis scored his first and only win of his Formula One career, earning the last Formula One victory for the Ligier team, and the first win for engine manufacturer Mugen-Honda, after switching to slick tyres in a well-timed pitstop. Second place went to David Coulthard in a McLaren-Mercedes. Johnny Herbert was the last finisher in a Sauber, scoring his only points of the season.
This was the last win by a French Formula One driver until Pierre Gasly won the 2020 Italian Grand Prix. This was also the only win by a team outside the "Big Four" teams (McLaren, Williams, Benetton, and Ferrari) between the 1988 and the 1997 season[citation needed] and the last Grand Prix win by a car built in France.[1]
Practice and qualifying
[edit]Michael Schumacher had taken pole position but had caused controversy on his slowing down lap when he impeded Gerhard Berger right at the end of the session. Coming out of the tunnel Schumacher was cruising slowly, acknowledging the crowd, while Berger was on a fast lap. Schumacher tried to get out of Berger's way but the Austrian had to spin at high speed to avoid the Ferrari, entering the chicane backwards.
The Ligiers were 14th and 17th in qualifying, both below their expectations after the team had mis-firing issues,[2][clarification needed] preventing a top six position.
Qualifying classification
[edit]Warm up
[edit]Olivier Panis was fastest in the warm-up.[4] Jacques Villeneuve was 18th after running a wet-setup in preparation for the expected rain.[5] Between the warm-up session and the race, heavy rain fell at the circuit, and an additional 15-minute session was added to allow the drivers to get used to the changed conditions. It was the first time rain had fallen over the race weekend.[6][7][8] The session took place at 13:15 CEST (GMT +2).[9] Several drivers went off during the session, including Pedro Lamy, Pedro Diniz and Giancarlo Fisichella, but all continued.[10][11][12] Mika Häkkinen and Andrea Montermini both damaged their cars.[13][14] The damage that Montermini's caused his car, crashing coming out of the tunnel, prevented him from taking the start, due to the team lacking spare components. Jean Alesi suffered a puncture at the end of the session, but was able to return to the pitlane.[15] Several drivers opted to skip the session. The Footwork team chose not to participate as they did not have any spare parts, and any crash would have marked the end of their weekend.[16] Häkkinen was fastest, setting his time before his crash, with Alesi, Rubens Barrichello and Johnny Herbert behind. The two Williams cars were 7th and 8th, Villeneuve ahead of Damon Hill with Schumacher behind them in 9th.[17]
Race
[edit]The race started at 14:30 CEST.[18] At the start, Hill overtook Schumacher into Sainte-Dévote, while further back Jos Verstappen slid straight into the wall, having opted to start the race on slicks. The two Minardis of Pedro Lamy and Giancarlo Fisichella were then eliminated when they tangled coming out of the first corner. Hill began to pull away while polesitter Schumacher lost control coming out of Lower Mirabeau and hit the wall. Coming into the Rascasse, Barrichello spun and retired. After five laps, there were 13 cars remaining as Ukyo Katayama (accident), Ricardo Rosset (accident) and Diniz (transmission) also retired. A significant gap began to open between the leaders and Eddie Irvine in fourth with a queue of eight cars forming behind him. Berger retired from third place on the 10th lap with gearbox trouble leaving 12 cars, while Heinz-Harald Frentzen damaged his front wing trying to pass Irvine, dropping to second to last position, ahead of Luca Badoer.
On lap 31, Martin Brundle spun off, which left 11 cars in the race. Three laps later, Irvine was passed when Panis forced his way through at the Loews hairpin. Irvine lost control, became stuck and had undone his seatbelts before he restarted his car with the assistance of the marshals. Hill had briefly lost the lead to Alesi when he made a pit stop on lap 30 to change to slicks as the track began to dry, but regained it a lap later when he reovertook Panis (who was still on wet tyres) on the track. Alesi made his pit stop shortly afterwards, allowing Hill to extend his lead to nearly 30 seconds and continue untroubled at the front until the 40th lap, when a failed oil pump caused his engine to blow coming out of the tunnel, his first retirement of the season. Alesi then led for 20 laps before his suspension failed, handing the lead to Panis. Luca Badoer was running six laps down in the Forti when he collided with Villeneuve at Mirabeau on lap 66, retiring both drivers.
The race did not run its full distance as the two-hour time limit came into effect. Panis was leading David Coulthard by a small margin with only five other cars behind them. Irvine spun at the same point that his teammate Schumacher had crashed, and as he tried to rejoin, he was hit by Mika Salo, who was in turn hit by Häkkinen. All three of them retired, leaving only four cars circulating, with Frentzen running last. The German decided to pull into the pits on the final lap as he was already last anyway, far behind everyone else who had taken the chequered flag. Panis thus won his one and only Grand Prix, taking Ligier's first win in 15 years. Frentzen, Salo and Häkkinen were classified in the final points positions while Irvine was credited with seventh place.
Race classification
[edit]| Pos | No | Driver | Constructor | Laps | Time/Retired | Grid | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 9 | Olivier Panis |
Ligier-Mugen-Honda | 75 | 2:00:45.629 | 14 | 10 |
| 2 | 8 |  David Coulthard |
McLaren-Mercedes | 75 | +4.828 | 5 | 6 |
| 3 | 14 | Johnny Herbert |
Sauber-Ford | 75 | +37.503 | 13 | 4 |
| 4a | 15 |  Heinz-Harald Frentzen |
Sauber-Ford | 74 | Withdrawn | 9 | 3 |
| 5b | 19 |  Mika Salo |
Tyrrell-Yamaha | 70 | Collision | 11 | 2 |
| 6c | 7 | Mika Häkkinen |
McLaren-Mercedes | 70 | Collision | 8 | 1 |
| 7d | 2 | Eddie Irvine |
Ferrari | 68 | Collision | 7 | |
| Ret | 6 |  Jacques Villeneuve |
Williams-Renault | 66 | Collision | 10 | |
| Ret | 22 |  Luca Badoer |
Forti-Ford | 60 | Collision + Electrical | 21 | |
| Ret | 3 | Jean Alesi |
Benetton-Renault | 60 | Suspension | 3 | |
| Ret | 5 | Damon Hill |
Williams-Renault | 40 | Engine | 2 | |
| Ret | 12 | Martin Brundle |
Jordan-Peugeot | 30 | Accident | 16 | |
| Ret | 4 |  Gerhard Berger |
Benetton-Renault | 9 | Gearbox | 4 | |
| Ret | 10 |  Pedro Diniz |
Ligier-Mugen-Honda | 5 | Transmission | 17 | |
| Ret | 16 | Ricardo Rosset |
Footwork-Hart | 3 | Accident | 20 | |
| Ret | 18 |  Ukyo Katayama |
Tyrrell-Yamaha | 2 | Accident | 15 | |
| Ret | 1 | Michael Schumacher |
Ferrari | 0 | Accident | 1 | |
| Ret | 11 | Rubens Barrichello |
Jordan-Peugeot | 0 | Spun off | 6 | |
| Ret | 20 |  Pedro Lamy |
Minardi-Ford | 0 | Collision | 19 | |
| Ret | 21 | Giancarlo Fisichella |
Minardi-Ford | 0 | Collision | 18 | |
| Ret | 17 |  Jos Verstappen |
Footwork-Hart | 0 | Accident | 12 | |
| DNS | 23 | Andrea Montermini |
Forti-Ford | Warm-up crash | 22 | ||
| Source:[19][20] | |||||||
- ^a ^b ^c ^d - Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Mika Salo, Mika Häkkinen and Eddie Irvine did not complete the race but were classified as they had completed 90% of the race distance.
Championship standings after the race
[edit]
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- Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.
References
[edit]- ↑ The French-licensed teams Renault (in the period of 2002-2010) and Alpine built their winning cars in England.
- ↑ Edwards, Ben (commentator) (19 May 1996). Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. Event occurs at 08:25 (excluding commercials).
- ↑ "Monaco 1996 – Qualifications". statsf1.com. Retrieved 4 November 2018.
- ↑ Edwards, Ben (commentator) (19 May 1996). Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. Event occurs at 08:05 (excluding commercials).
- ↑ Edwards, Ben; Watson, John (commentators) (19 May 1996). Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. Event occurs at 01:00–01:20 (excluding commercials).
- ↑ Edwards, Ben (commentator) (19 May 1996). Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. Event occurs at 00:00–00:05.
- ↑ Edwards, Ben (commentator) (19 May 1996). Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. Event occurs at 00:57.
- ↑ Edwards, Ben (commentator) (19 May 1996). Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. Event occurs at 02:10–02:15.
- ↑ Edwards, Ben (commentator) (19 May 1996). Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. Event occurs at 15:37.
- ↑ Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. 19 May 1996. Event occurs at 05:00.
- ↑ Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. 19 May 1996. Event occurs at 07:30.
- ↑ Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. 19 May 1996. Event occurs at 12:45.
- ↑ Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. 19 May 1996. Event occurs at 13:45.
- ↑ Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. 19 May 1996. Event occurs at 15:56.
- ↑ Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. 19 May 1996. Event occurs at 16:56–19:00.
- ↑ Watson, John (commentator) (19 May 1996). Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. Event occurs at 18:45.
- ↑ Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. 19 May 1996. Event occurs at 19:47.
- ↑ Edwards, Ben (commentator) (19 May 1996). Monaco Grand Prix: Acclimatisation Session Live (Television production). London, England: Eurosport. Event occurs at 00:40.
- ↑ "1996 Monaco Grand Prix". formula1.com. Archived from the original on 1 November 2014. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
- ↑ "Monaco 1996 - Result". www.statsf1.com. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
- 1 2 "Monaco 1996 - Championship • STATS F1". www.statsf1.com. Retrieved 19 March 2019.