Dancing a Formula One car in the rain

As the world continues to be impacted by COVID, I found myself over the Christmas period delving back into the collection of Formula One books I have acquired over the years. Refreshing my memory about the 1993 season, the year in which Alain Prost claimed his fourth World Drivers title driving the Williams-Renault FW15C car (an even better version of the 1992 title winning car), I was struck that one race in particular feels overlooked.

Amongst many races in which Ayrton Senna showed the world how gifted a driver he was, especially when rain impacted a race, was the European Grand Prix that took place at Donnington Park. I’ve written about this race before; from my point of view the performance of Johnny Herbert never gets the credit it deserved – fourth place and only one tyre change all race!

However the earlier Brazilian race, for me at least, is another excellent exhibition of drivers excelling in changeable conditions. Ayrton won the race, during which rain forced many drivers to change from gripless slicks to wet weather tyres, although Alain Prost misheard a radio call from his pits, stayed out for an extra lap and was caught out by a combination of Christian Fittipaldi’s Minardi facing the wrong way and a total lack of grip, sadly at the same place at the end of the start / finish straight!

In the less fancied McLaren-Ford MP4/8, significantly outclassed by the Williams and possibly also the Benetton cars in terms of horse power, Senna had qualified behind the Williams pair of Prost and Damon Hill (making his 4th race start ever), pulled ahead of Hill early on and after Prost spun out of the race sat behind Hill behind the safety car. Not necessarily the first time a safety car had been used , but it was a very new concept to the sport.

Senna re-took the lead from Hill soon after the safety car pulled into the pits and racing recommenced, and as drivers changed back onto slick tyres as the track dried out Senna led Hill (a great performance), Johnny Herbert (in the Lotus-Ford) and Mark Blundell (in the Ligier-Renault). Michael Schumacher suffered a delay in his pitstop due to an issue with a rear jack and later a stop/go penalty for overtaking under yellow flags, and then in what was to become typical Schumacher style then drove every lap as if it was qualifying to work his way from 9th back into the top six.

Only on the last lap did Schumacher get past Johnny Hebert to claim the last step on the podium; Senna 1st, Damon Hill an excellent 2nd, Schumacher 3rd, Herbert 4th, Blundell 5th (for the Ligier teams 2nd points finish in a row, something the team hadn’t done since the late 1980’s!) and Alessandro Zanardi claiming the last point for 6th place.

Senna winning in a car that on paper at least was nowhere near as good as the Williams (over 1 ½ seconds slower in qualifying over one lap), Damon Hill showing real form that belied his relative experience in the world of Formula One, Schumacher driving through the field, Johnny Herbert dicing with future World Champion Schumacher…..all proving to me that the race is worthy of consideration as one of the best….of 1993 at least.

As a footnote Alex Zanardi’s sixth place for Lotus was the only time he scored a point in Formula One, slightly hard to believe given his performances in CART in America, but his F1 cars were midfield at best. Zanardi joined Lotus to replace Mika Hakkinen (who himself had joined McLaren because Ayrton Senna hadn’t committed to drive in 1993 for the team) leaving a test driver role for Benetton.

In the game of “what might have been” would Alex have been a natural team mate to Michael Schumacher in 1994 when Patrese retired, and if so how could the 1994 season have panned out? Zanardi has suggested in interviews that this might have been the case, and something potentially he regretted, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Either way I’m putting the 1993 Brazilian Grand Prix forward as one of the seasons most underrated races and well worth finding on Youtube to enjoy.