Qualifying for the
Hungarian Grand Prix
Schumacher Dances
to pole and Hill takes third by stealth
They say that if you
qualify in the top three places in Hungary, then
statistically, you have a 33% chance of winning the
race. Whilst the odds for Michael Schumacher,
who took command of the qualifying session at the Hungaroring
and never let go, are probably quite a bit shorter
than this, Damon Hill who did a spectacular
lap in the closing stages of the session can look on
his chances of a win with a great deal more optimism
than of late. Jacques Villeneuve again in a
late charge, took the 2nd place slot from Mika
Hakinnen who had been in good form for the best
part of the session.
With a cooling track
over the qualifying period, it was inevitable that
times would decrease. It also seemed inevitable that
the Ferrari would figure strongly and, fresh
from the blocks, the fourth man out, nimble and
balletic, danced to the quickest time and never
looked back. No one waited for the dust to be
cleared. Teams seemed desperate to take advantage of
the cloud cover which, as it turned out stayed for
the whole session reducing the track temperature by
some 10 degrees.
Even Schumacher’s
team mate Eddie Irvine looked rejuvenated and
at one point it looked as if it might have been a
Ferrari lock out, but further excursions by
Villeneuve and Hakkinen made sure that this was not
to be.
The McLarens
tried hard to disappoint and despite David
Coulthard’s manful driving, his brief 3rd
was knocked down to 6th and then 7th and eventually
8th by the burgeoning Gerhard Berger,
desperately trying to find the form in the Benetton
on this undulating track, that he displayed in
Hockenheim two weeks previously. His final
effort for a front row position ended 48 minutes into
the session with a spin at turn 12. "I had a
very good session until I spun." Said Berger
later. "It’s a pity because the lap I
was on was two or three tenths of a second quicker
and I know I could have improved my time in the last
two corners. I pushed too hard and I didn’t want
to lift off. I touched a kerb and the car just spun
off."
Despite early quick
laps Heinz Harald Frentzen found himself being
pushed down the order by Coulthard, Berger and
Hakinnen and throughout the session seemed ill at
ease with his set up.
Jordan were the
disappointment of the day. Unable to set their cars
up to their liking, they were both hampered by
problems. Giancarlo Fisichella, despite
driving well, suffered from a lack of grip and was
only able to manage 13th slot. A humiliation after
his ‘almost’ triumph in Germany. "I
knew today’s qualifying would be difficult as
the car was ‘nervous’ yesterday."
He said. "In the end the tyre choice cost us
a place but we had blistering problems with the Goodyear
sift compounds so this is why we chose
hard. The up-side is that it me be to our advantage
tomorrow in the race."
Team mate Ralf
Schumacher didn’t fare well either after
setting times that only got him 18th place on the
grid. A spin and an electrical fire forced him to use
the spare car that was set up for Fisichella and
suffering brake balance problems did well to improve
on his time to finish 14th. He said afterwards, "
I expected to be in the top six but we ran into
technical problems. Although I improved a little it
was impossible to make a real impact. There was a
small fire but we don’t know what caused
it."
Both Rubens
Barichello in the Stewart and Johnny
Herbert in the Sauber Petronas posted
identical times, Herbert setting his time first and
putting him into 10th position.
With just minutes to
go, the top guns were all back on the track. Frentzen
clawing his way beck to within seven hundredths of a
second of his team mate, but it was to be oh, so
brief and humiliation was but a few moments away.
Within seconds of each other, Schumacher consolidated
his pole position for the third time with a
definitive 1m.14.67s and Villeneuve, pulling all the
tricks out of the Williams bag, stole the march on
Hakkinen’s fine second slot just under two
tenths behind the Ferrari and knocking Frentzen back
down to 5th.
"It’s a
very difficult track to overtake on."
Commented Villeneuve after the session. "Last
year we did the first part of the race with Michael
in front and me second it was fun. Hopefully with it
starting this way - it will finish like last year
too, then that will be good. The team has made big
improvements since Hockenheim and after some more
work tonight we intend to give Michael a run for his
money It should be an interesting run down to the
first corner - an interesting drag race!!"
A drag race it may be,
but unless he is hot off the mark, Schumacher proved
today that he is untouchable and the Canadian will be
burning his rubber in a vain attempt to keep up with
the Ferrari. "I made a small mistake on my
quickest lap, but it did not affect my time."
Said Schumacher. "I made some small changes
to the car before each run and they always brought an
improvement. The cooler temperature helped me to
improve, but not that much and the new chassis
allowed me to run closer to the weight limit, which
is very important on this track. The circuit is very
difficult as you can never move off the racing line
as you will end up in the dirt. Pole position is not
the key to winning the race, as tomorrow we must
choose the right strategy."
The surprise was still
to come however, as the world watched Coulthard
overcook it in his McLaren searching for those lost
seconds, World Champion Damon Hill, driving
with all the smoothness of the cream on a pint of
Guinness, was on a blinder and it wasn’t until
the Tag Heuer timing charts refreshed
themselves that we saw that Hill had placed himself
barely half a second behind Schumacher’s
tailpipes in 3rd and on the clean side of the track.
After maintaining positions of 12th and seventh in
his first two ‘outs’ his lap seemed to come
from nowhere and Hill seemed as bewildered as
everyone else. "Of course I’m absolutely
delighted but it was a bit unexpected" He
grinned. "I thought I had a chance of making the
top 10 or even the top 6, but third is truly
fantastic." Even through the PR speak that
followed, he made the obvious point regarding his
tyres. " My team have worked brilliantly and Bridgestone
have got the tyre mixture just right."
With a track eminently
suitable for the Arrows chassis and possibly
responding to John Barnard’s additional
‘go faster’ tweaks, Bridgestone
rubber must feature strongly in TWR’s
successful mixture. It could be too that with fewer
pit stops tomorrow and a reliable Yamaha V10
he could be in with a shout at a podium finish. That would
be something and coming at the Grand Prix
where he scored his first victory in 1993.
Once again Team boss Frank
Williams has been given further food for thought
as to the wisdom of letting Hill go, for his
replacement Frentzen with the best car in the world
and with a 100 horsepower advantage still can’t
get by the tank that is Arrows.
With all the rumours
circulating of clandestine meetings with Ron
Dennis, this performance, whether he scores in
the race or not, will no doubt have impressed the
McLaren team boss. Maybe Hill decided that Hungary
could be the shop window for the product that he
wants to sell. In which case there should be a few
bosses queuing up to buy.
Chris Richardson
Qualifying results
for the Hungarian Grand Prix
Aug 9th 1997
1. Michael
Schumacher Ferrari 1:14.672
2. Jacques
Villeneuve Williams 1:14.859
3. Damon Hill Arrows
1:15.044
4. Mika Hakkinen McLaren
1:15.140
5. Eddie Irvine Ferrari
1:15.424
6. Heinz-Harald
Frentzen Williams 1:15.520
7. Gerhard Berger Benetton
1:15.669
8. David Coulthard McLaren
1:15.705
9. Jean Alesi Benetton
1:15.905
10. Johnny Herbert Sauber
1:16.138
11. Rubens
Barrichello Stewart 1:16.138
12. Jarno Trulli
Prost 1:16.297
13. Giancarlo
Fisichella Jordan 1:16.300
14. Ralf Schumacher
Jordan 1:16.686
15. Gianni
Morbidelli Sauber 1:16.766
16. Shinji Nakano Prost
1:16.784
17. Jan Magnussen
Stewart 1:16.858
18. Jos Verstappen Tyrrell
1:17.095
19. Pedro Diniz Arrows
1:17.118
20. Ukyo Katayama Minardi
1:17.232
21. Mika Salo Tyrrell
1:17.482
22. Tarso Marques Minardi
1:18.020
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