July 1997

31 July 1997 Williams used its option on Villeneuve for next year.

28 July 1997 Ralf Schumacher is to stay at Jordan for another season.

27 July 1997 A great return to racing for veteran Gerhard Berger, who started from pole position, took the lead and kept it to win the German GP. Berger had missed the last three GPs due to a operation for a sinus infection and has had to come to terms with the death of his father two weeks ago. Young Italian Fisichella took second place at the start and would have been on the middle step of the podium if he hadn't suffederd from a burst tyre, which also damaged his car as he was trying to get back to the pits, only five laps from the end. Fisichella's retirement left M. Schumacher is second position, taking his lead on Villeneuve (who span and retired on lap 35) in the Championship table to 10 points. Hakkinen was third, Trulli fourth, R. Schumacher fifth and Alesi sixth. Both Frentzen and Irvine had to retire when the collided at the start. Irvine had a great start and managed to get up several positions, only to be rammed from behind by Frentzen. Coulthard retired on the first lap and Herbert and Diniz got entangled and both had to retire on lap nine.

25 July 1997 Prost has been given permission to move his headquarters from Magny Cours to Versailles. The move will allow him to be based close to Peugeot, who will be providing him with the engines for next season.

25 July 1997 Gerhard Berger, back in the seat of the Benetton after his sinus infection, confirmed that he intends to leave Benetton at the end of the year, but that he wants to carry on competing in F1.

24 July 1997 The latest rumour about Damon Hill is that he'll joing R. Schumacher at Jordan next year.

23 July 1997 Fontana will be in the Sauber in Germany for the secong GP running.

22 July 1997 The final word about the Portoguese GP seems to be that it's not going to happen this year. Apparently there was no unanimous decision from the teams, despite the fact that the improvements to the track would be finished by the agreed deadline. If the modifications to the track are approved, Portugal will host a GP next season.

21 July 1997 I (site mantainer) have not been able to access the network for the past 10 days for reasons beyond my control. I am now back on line and will try to bring this site up to date as soon as possible.

20 July 1997 Germany will be hosting two GP, the GP of Germany at Hockenheim and the GP of Luxembourg at Nurburgring, until the year 2001.

19 July 1997 Giancarlo Fischella will be racing for Benetton in 1988. Apparently he will take the place of Alesi, who might be going to the Prost team.

18 July 1997 Berger will be back in the Benetton seat for the German GP. The Austrian also said that he intends to continue racing in F1 for another two or three seasons.

17 July 1997 Prost threatened to pull out of F1, unless he's allowed to move his headquarters closer to Paris. Prost's base currently is located at Magny Course and he believes that the distance from Paris has prevented him from securing several finance deals. He believes that he is being held up by red tape.

14 July 1997 Villeneuve was given a one race suspended ban for lapping too close to the safety car during the British GP.

13 July 1997 A day to forget for Ferrari, a good day for Villeneuve and Benetton and a memorable day for Damon Hill. Villeneuve won the race despite problems with a pit stop in which one of the tyres got stuck and took over 30 seconds to change. M. Schumacher was ahead and looked like another win for him when his car broke down and the championship leader was forced to retire. The same thing happened to his team mate Irvine some 10 laps later. M. Schumacher's retirement left Hakkinen in the lead, but he too suffered a breakdown. Second was Alesi and third Berger's replacement, Wurz. Coulthard and R. Schumacher finished fourth and fifth. Damon Hill managed to secure his very first point this season by finishing sixth. Frentzen stalled his engine at the start, so that the start had to be repeated.

11 July 1997 Lotus said that they are getting back into F1 in 1999.

10 July1997 Benetton secured a sponsorship deal with the Federal Express Corporation (FedEx).

10 July 1997 Last hearing of the Senna trial before the summer break. The witnesses were Nosetto and Dal Monte for the prosecution, Minelli, Marchionna, Saliti (general secretary of Csai) for the track and Muscioni (inspector and security member of Fia). Lawyer Causeo, defender of Bruynseraede (present in court for the first time) attacked the conditions of the escape routes and the kerbs at the time of the accident.

Nosetto, director of Santerno (the company which took care of the track) from '80 to '89, said that there are two rules, that of Csai of '62 and the international one, which had changed in time. The rules had been followed for the wall against which Senna crashed: the wall was made of deformable concrete, built to absorb shocks and was built at an angle of no more that 30 degrees, as for regulations (Senna's impact was at 22 degrees). After 1989, when Nosetto left, behind the grassy area a concrete zone 9-13 metres wide was built to allow emergency manouvres.

The magistrate said that on leaving the track the front wheels of Senna's car lifted off, in fact it is possible to see the tyre marks where the wheels left the ground and where they fell back off on it. The passage from the grass to the concrete area, with braking distance of 38.5 metres, took place in 0"6. On the track deceleration was of 4G, on the grass/cement of 0.8G.

Del Monte said that the car lost grip. The average slope of the track at the time was +3.1%, that of the escape area +2.1%. At the Tamburello there only was a grass/concrete area and not a full escape route, as it is required by the rules, because of lack of space.

The escape area should have had the same slope as the track. There can be slight variations, as long as the ideal line track-escape area is constant, without bumps and with a maximum radius of 50 metres.

The defense produced a CD, based on the telemetry data, containing a large number of diagrams, which Giavotto used to reconstruct the real and optimal braking times. According to this interpretation, Senna hit the wall at 188 km/h versus the 216 km/h calculated by the prosecution experts. In ideal conditions he would have crashed at 167 km/h (the prosecution experts had calculated 140 km/h). In both cases the front right wheel would have become detached, hitting Senna's head in the same point with enough violence to kill him.

Next hearing will take place on 16th of September, after the summer break.

9 July 1997 Sauber has confirmed Argentinian Norberto Fontana for the British GP.

9 July 1997 Gerhard Berger's father, Johann, was killed in a light craft accident in the Tirol, probably due to thick fog. He was 62 years old.

9 July 1997 Today the 18th hearing of the Senna trial will take place. This is the last hearing before the summer break and the trial will restart in September.

8 July 1997 Jordan has signed a deal with Mugen-Honda to supply engines for the 1998 and 1999 racing seasons. The deal involves a straight swap with Prost, who will be using Jordan's Peugeot engines next year. TWR Arrows had hoped to get the Mugen-Honda deal to replace the underperforming Yamaha engines and the failure to get the Honda engine is likely to convince current WC Damon Hill to move on at the end of the season.

8 July 1997 Berger is going to miss the British GP, as he has not completely recovered from his sinus infection. The Austrian driver also said that he will not stay at Benetton and will soon take a decision as to whether to move to another team or leave F1 altogether.

7 July 1997 Despite recent rumours, Damon Hill is going to stay with Arrows until the end of the season.

5 July 1997 Prosecution won the 17th round of the Senna trial. With the help of Cineca, specialist in elaboration of digital images, magistrate Passarini re-examined the images from Senna's camera. These are the same images already shown, but they are now in better in Betacam. Two fixed points on Senna's steering wheel are identified to follow their movement: a yellow button and a V-shaped mark. The button is 83 mm away from the centre of the steering wheel and the V-shaped mark is 55 mm away. The arches of the movement of the two points are drawn in two moments of the race, the phase following the safety car and immediately before the crash. Then the magistarte showed a new video, taken during the practice session. In this it can seen that the circompherence drwn by the yellow button corresponds with the movement of the car body, while just before the crash the yellow button goes down to the same level as the V-shaped mark, with a displacement of 28 mm. Magistrate Passarini commented that the images are very clear and that the yellow button obviously moved that much as a consequence of a unusual situation. The Williams technician had said that 13-155 mm would be enough to break the steering column.

Williams tried a reinterpretation. Dominioni showed a video taken from the team's museum: the steering wheel of the spare car can be seens with a flexibility of 15 mm. Forghieri commented that any driver would refuse to drive with such an unstable steering wheel. Stirano, Williams expert, replied that the the on-board cameras are not completely fixed, so that measurements taken from them are not very precise. Moreover, setups and weights change between practice sessions and races.

4 July 1997 New hearing at the Senna trial. Gary Woodward, a William technician, testified. At the time of the '94 San Marino GP Woodward was responsable for the mechanic of the front of Senna's car. He said that after every GP the cars are subjected to crack-tests utilising penetrating liquids to reveal any crack in the suspensions and the steering column. The steering column is also subjected to further testing to check that its axis is correct and the column is substitued halfway through the season. The checks before the San Marino GP did not show any defect in Senna's steering system.

Passarini asked him whether he was aware that the column had been modified. Woodward replied that the column had been redesigned to increase the amount of available space within the limits of the regulations. The same modification was carried out on all three cars before the Brazilian GP.

Second witness was Simon Scoin, electronic engineer, responsable for the download of the telemetry data. He was the one who removed teh Williams black box from the car after the accident. Scoin said he could remeber his shock when he lifted the cloth with which the car had been covered. The black box was above the gearbox, 180 cm away from its usual position. Three of the four connectors were disconnected or damaged. Back in the pits he tried to connect the black box to the power supply to extract the data, but the power system in the black box had failed and it was improbable that the data could be extracted. He tried to insert the ram card, but without success. He did not touch the Renault black box.

Brian O'Rourke, responsable for compound materials at Williams, added that the violent impact of the right wheel against the wall caused an inverted tension on the steering column which broke it. Today the trial continues with a new examination of the Cineca elaboration.

2 July 1997 Gerhard Berger has not completely recovered and was forced to drop out of testing. There is a strong possibility that he will miss the British GP on 13 July. Norberto Fontana too is awating to find out whether he will drive the Sauber at Silverstone.

1 July 1997 Damon Hill could move to Prost from the next GP if all the parties involved manage to reach an agreement. Flavio Briatore is prepared to allow Prost to give TWR Arrows the Honda engines in exchange for Damon Hill, but only if Ecclestone, Arrows and Prost together will manage to obtain the Mecachrome engine (which costs 29 billion It. Lire) at a "political" price for Benetton at least for the 1998 season. Benetton's involvement in the deal derives from the fact that Flavio Briatore (ex Ligier owner) is the person who put together the Mugen-Honda-Ligier deal and has some sort of right to tell Prost whether he can give the Honda engine to Arrows or not.

Last updated on 4 August 1997 by Federica Massagrande