It’s amazing the difference it can make. For example, you could be driving all day during a test at somewhere like Snetterton in Norfolk and the car isn’t as you like it. You think you are driving like a plonker and you wonder if it’s you or the car. Then you make one change to the setup and go half a second faster almost immediately. All of a sudden you are driving well. You think you are good again, and the car is doing all the work.
The only positive thing to be said was that Argentina was the sort of circuit where you could probably get away, to a lesser degree, with having such difficulties because there were no high speed corners which would really highlight the problem. Even so, it was so difficult to drive that I couldn’t see where I could pick up any more time; I just couldn’t go quicker.
I qualified in tenth place. I was a bit annoyed because I had been held up during my fast lap and we could tell from the read-out that my predicted time for that lap would have been worth sixth or seventh place. I had Coulthard ahead of me and he pulled out of the way to let me through. Damon, who was immediately in front of David, didn’t see me and he was slowing in order to try and get a clear piece of road ready for a quick lap. I was briefly trapped between the two cars and that was enough to screw up the lap. It was a bit of a shame, but these things happen.
Michael had qualified alongside Hill on the front row. You could understand why he gets paid so much money. He’s on the pace every time, whether the car is good, bad or indifferent. He has the ‘Senna Factor’; in other words, even if the car is bad, he can drag it onto the front of the grid. They can make changes to the car and, okay, Michael may say it feels better as a result. But, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what the car is like, he will simply find the lap time from within himself. That was very evident in Buenos Aires.
From my point of view, things seemed to go from bad to worse during the warm up on race morning. I did a lap and then the car broke down. It was an engine-related problem and I had no option but to park by the side of the track and watch everyone do their thing. We had made some changes to the set-up: softer on the rear springs to try and make the car more forgiving on the entry to a corner; more front wing in order to try and help the front of the car turn in to the corner.
Not having had an opportunity to try the changes during the warm-up, I managed a couple of laps before going to the starting grid. The car suddenly felt much better. It was the first time such a thing had happened at this stage in a race weekend. Usually, the car felt at its best with less fuel on board. This time, it actually felt better with more fuel. I approached the race feeling a lot more confident than I had before.
I made a good start. At the second corner, I was trying to go round the outside of Villeneuve when he moved me wide and put me onto the grass. To be honest, I would have done exactly the same thing had I been Jacques! Heinz-Harald Frentzen passed me as a result; then I got back in front of the Sauber again. And that was it. Stalemate. I was stuck there.
Barrichello, running in seventh place, was holding everyone up and it became clear that the only way positions were going to change was through different refuelling strategies and faster pit stops.
For instance, I was holding ninth place and running right behind Mika Hakkinen when he pulled into the pits to refuel. Since I was not due to stop for another eight laps, he had been running with less fuel than me, so the Ferrari was therefore quicker. I knew that, if I could push hard for the next few laps, I would eventually get ahead of the McLaren once my first stop had been made. I caught Barrichello quite quickly but, unfortunately, he was on a one-stop tactic, which explained why he was so slow. That, in effect, wrecked my plan because, with overtaking being next to impossible on this circuit, my pace was being dictated by the slow Jordan. Realising that I was going nowhere, the team told me to come in for my first stop – which turned out to be a bit slow – and I rejoined behind Frentzen. I was going backwards!
Then came another twist just before half distance when the Safety Car suddenly appeared and the field had to form up behind it. A car had overturned and the marshals needed to work on it in safety. Just as they were about to sort that out, there was another emergency when a Ligier, which had just made a pit stop, caught fire in a big way and spun off.
The driver, Pedro Diniz, was lucky to escape with burns to one hand but I thought The Sun produced the headline of the year when the following day’s paper had the words ‘Diniz In The Oven’ above a picture of the Brazilian sitting in his blazing car. Otherwise, this affair was certainly no joke.
A refuelling valve on the side of the car had not shut properly and the Ligier was brim full of fuel. It doesn’t need much fuel to spill onto the hot car before you have a big blaze. I had been through a similar experience when my Jordan caught fire during the previous year’s Belgian Grand Prix.
I really can’t see what refuelling adds to a Grand Prix; if anything, it screws up the racing. The whole thing has become too complex with teams trying to work out their strategy, while outguessing everyone else. The spectators haven’t a clue what’s happening; it’s just plain stupid.
This is supposed to be Grand Prix racing. We should fill up the cars and go for it. That way, there is more skill involved because the driver has to look after his tyres while running with a full load of fuel; he has to think about that aspect much more. He’s actually got to overtake the guy in front rather than rely on pit stop tactics. Granted, he might be able to overtake during a tyre stop, but the chances of that happening are less, which is as it should be. Motor racing is not about overtaking in the pits.
But, having said all that, the most serious problem with refuelling is the threat of fire. The sport is dangerous enough, without having that extra risk. I would like to see a referendum carried out among the informed people in Formula 1. I know what the answer would be. And so, I suspect, do the people in charge. Just ask any mechanic who has to stand there, waiting for a red hot car to come into the pits with up to 100 litres of fuel under pressure just behind his shoulder. Refuelling has its place at Le Mans; it’s necessary, a genuine part of endurance racing. But it seems totally false in Formula 1.
As I said, Diniz was lucky. And it was fortunate that the accident happened while the Safety Car was already out on the track. It meant we were stacked up behind the official car for three of four laps and, during that time, my water temperature rose to a critical point, something which would play a part later in the race.
It is the luck of the draw when the Safety Car appears. In this instance, it worked in Barrichello’s favour because he was able to make his single stop and lose very little ground while the Safety Car was out. The rest of us, meanwhile, knew we would have to make a second stop once the race was under way.
When the Safety Car pulled off, I got behind Frentzen and dummied to go down the inside of the Sauber. He pulled across to block me – and lost control at the braking point for the next corner. Round he went and into the gravel. I was pretty pleased with that! Once the final pit stop had been made, I chased after Coulthard and harried him for the next few laps. Eventually he made a mistake and I nipped into fifth place. I knew I could take it easy during the final ten laps. Jos Verstappen was sixth in the Arrows but, even though he was closing, there was no way he could catch me. Or so I thought.
With four corners to go on the last lap, my car became stuck in sixth gear. It seemed as if I had actually stopped, because whenever I braked, the engine just went ‘blauggghhh’. I thought, ‘Oh shit! That’s it. Four corners from home and two points gone.’ I was gutted after such a good race; I had really enjoyed it after the trials and tribulations of practice and qualifying.
Verstappen caught me very quickly. I was pulling at the paddle on the steering wheel, desperately trying to select a lower gear. The problem was that the exhaust had broken and that, in turn, had overheated the part which makes the transmission change gear. It was seizing up. Eventually, I got it to change down through the