A New Dawn
If San Marino had been the nightmare, Monaco was the cold sweat. For Williams, a new dawn would rise in Spain. Before that race, Damon would fight another contest - this time for the title of team leader. With Patrese and Prost ruling themselves out, Ferrari insisting Alesi was not for sale and Lotus forbidding Herbert to move, all eyes were focused on Nigel Mansell as the only star driver possibly available. Hill, not one to take things lying down, was lobbying effectively for his own promotion. With the teams already in Spain, it was finally announced that Damon would head the assault accompanied by test driver David Coulthard. Mansell was still tied to his Indycar contract and looked only likely to be released for those F1 races that would not conflict with his Indycar work. Number One driver status had not been confirmed on Damon as a permanent fixture but he simply laughed off any speculation: "Nigel's coming back isn't he? He must be, because it says so in the Sun." Damon Hill did not need any reminding that it had fallen upon his father in 1968 to pull the Lotus team out of the depression caused by the loss of their team leader, Jim Clark.
Then as now, the race was the Spanish Grand Prix. Graham had won and Damon expected nothing less of himself. Schumacher was no doubt thinking similarly about his own prospects of winning and if fastest qualifying and race lap times guarantee a race, then the German looked favourite for another ten points. Damon struggled with the cars handling over the Friday and Saturday "It either grips or it lets go. It's like walking a tightrope." A monumental effort with his last set of qualifying tyres found him a front row place - still half a second behind Schumacher's best. When the green light beckoned the drivers away, Damon's V10 was unable to out-drag the Benetton's V8 down the start straight. His heart must have missed a beat when he saw the red and white McLaren of Hakkinen alongside his left wing, fearing a repetition of Monaco's first corner fiasco. But by the time they reached the temporary chicane, two-thirds round the circuit, the field was beginning to string out. But, according to form, Schumacher was stringing out more than most - by lap four he was six and a half seconds ahead of second place man Hill. The Benetton was the car of the moment and seemed to be handling better than the Williams, even under the new regulations introduced this race to reduce the downforce and speed of the cars.
Hakkinen and Hill pitted on laps 16 and 19 respectively, with Schumacher making his call on lap 22. On the German's first lap out, he suddenly slowed and Hakkinen took the lead while Hill passed for second. Schumacher had lost all gears except fifth, but after a lap or two, he had adapted his style of driving, to the amazement of all onlookers aware of his problem, he managed to hang on to third place and remain competitive with just one gear. Damon's strategy was for just two pit-stops whereas Hakkinen was planning three. So when the McLaren dipped into the pit-lane on lap 30, Damon was now in front. On tyres well past their best, he was unable to pull more than ten seconds from Schumacher, so when car zero called for fuel and rubber, the Benetton and McLaren moved up a place. They were, however, both planning to stop on lap 46 and as they did, it was Damon who once again took the lead, this time for good. Benetton No.5 finished just 25 seconds down on Damon and Hakkinen's Peugeot engine expired in a big way on lap 49, leaving Mark Blundell, driving a Tyrell-Yamaha to join the podium. The last victory for Renault-Williams had been Damon's win eight months before in Italy.
In the garage, Frank Williams looked thankful, happy, tearful and relieved, smiling again he said "Damon has probably had the worst time of all, and I think he has shown what a strong man he is." Damon also looked rather pleased when he accepted the winner's cup. He said afterwards that he'd never known such a difficult month as the last one. "To win was, to be honest, better than I expected to do." When asked about the car, he looked as though he was thinking about making a comment or two, but settled for "Yeah, it's good enough to win so it's good enough for me." Damon dedicated his win to Ayrton Senna, his team, and the people in Brazil he had met at Senna's funeral. He had done exactly what his father had done twenty-six years earlier - revived the spirits of not just a team, but everyone in the pit-lane. At the beginning of June, Hill crossed the Atlantic for the Canadian Grand Prix, the third race in succession where either the sporting or technical rules had been altered. Fuel would have to be standard service station grade and holes had to be cut in the back of the airboxes (the piece of bodywork above and behind the driver's head, designed to force air into the engine). All this was to supposedly slow the cars down and make them safer, although Damon felt they were working in the wrong direction. "The cars are a bit slower than before, but not much - the implication of an accident is pretty much the same as before. What we need is an increase in circuit safety."
The Grand Prix Drivers Association agreed and were already demanding changes to tracks for later in the season. The pre-San Marino regulation changes were originally introduced to promote closer racing and perhaps provide a wider variety of race winners. Up to now, they did not seem to be to very effective - Schumacher had blasted his way to four, almost five wins and Hill had won once, at Barcelona. The story at Montreal was predictable. Both the Renault-Williams could do no better in qualifying than fourth and fifth - almost a second slower than Schumacher's pole time. The race did not have a fairy tale start for Hill because his young team-mate, David Coulthard overtook him as they pulled away at the lights. Out front was, as usual the No.5 Benetton, followed at a little distance by the two Ferrari's. Watching Damon however, it was apparent that he was just dying to overtake Coulthard but did not dare in case he removed them both from the race. "I got a bit cheesed off being stuck behind David and lost valuable time, but you should never expect anyone to pull over because this is motor racing. I'll have a word with him later."
Eventually, the Williams pit put out a board telling Coulthard to let Damon through. The damage had already been done and although he managed to overtake Berger six laps later, Hill's chance of catching Schumacher was disappearing up the Hudson river. But, second place was still attainable and when Damon pitted a couple of laps after Alesi, he was through to silver position. All the leaders were running a one-stop race and unless the Benetton had either a mechanical failure or a catastrophic pit-stop, the end result was a foregone conclusion. Neither afflictions were to strike Schumacher and he pocketed yet another ten Championship points with Damon picking up six. The German was now 33 points ahead of Damon and was being hailed as unstoppable in his quest for the world title. Coulthard's virtual matching of Hill's times over the weekend had given Damon some cause for worry and it looked ever likely that Mansell would drive a Williams at the next race, the French Grand Prix at Magny Cours.
Some newspapers had even been suggesting that Nigel's return would be to Damon's detriment, although I fail to see what possible benefit leaving him out could have had to the team's Championship chase. Hill, though was now asserting himself more volubly with his team and had criticised them publicly for not giving him their unconditional backing. Damon demanded a change in his backup crew of mechanics and engineers to that of David Brown, who had served Mansell, Prost and Senna - and been refused. He then had to reconcile himself with his trusty engineer John Russell. This incident demonstrates that at this point in the season, not all the Williams management were confident that their future success lay with Damon. Renault management had been striving for a 'focus' since Ayrton's death and had finally realised an arrangement between themselves, Mansell and Ford of America, Mansell's U.S. main Indycar backer. The deal was eased into being with a lot of help from Frank Williams and Bernie Ecclestone. It meant that 'Our Nige' would be driving alongside, or thereabouts Damon at Magny Cours but incidentally earning more for one race than Damon for the entire season. Hill appeared totally unfazed by his new colleague, who would be the third World champion to partner him in eight months. "After you've had Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna as team mates, you don't give a f*** who the next bloke is. If he blasts me out of sight, it will show I have not been doing a good enough job and I will have to go away and improve myself."
Renault, clearly desperate for a win on their home terraces, had been willing to put up the money for Mansell's return, including compensation for their industrial rivals, Nigel's Indycar sponsor's. Williams also laid great faith in Mansell to identify the miracle 'fix' for their rather excitable car. Frank Williams: "Nigel is a demanding, pushy and generally awkward individual. He comes straight out with the problems he finds and expects us to do something about them. He has a great depth of engineering knowledge. It is going to be very hard to beat Benetton and Schumacher, but if anyone can, Nigel can." Nigel spent most of the Friday qualifying session getting used to driving the much lighter, more agile Formula One car while Damon drove 8/10ths second quicker than him. Saturday was harder - Renault had developed special qualifying engines - one each for Hill and Mansell. Damon went out first, only to return immediately with gearbox problems.
Nigel in turn went and claimed pole while Damon watched from the pit wall. Standing there, he was narrowly missed by Verstappen's Benetton practically exploding on the wall below. "My nerves didn't need that. I was already fired up because of the gearbox problem." There then followed a tag match between the two Williams drivers - Damon eventually wrenching pole from Mansell by 6/100ths. It was pole for Hill for the second year running at Magny-Cours and it boosted his standing somewhat to have beaten Mansell to it. "Nigel and I will have the same equipment and we will get equal treatment but he is superior to me in terms of experience and it would be difficult to say I am the No.1 in the team in this situation. But I have to show I can beat him." But Schumacher was still his main target - and when he saw the Benetton simply flying past him on the grid, his heart must have sunk. "I made the second best start of the year but he came past me at a hell of a rate. That was disappointing." Once more, and not by any means for the last time this season, the relative re-fuelling strategies employed by Benetton and Williams would play an intrinsic part in the eventual race result. Schumacher and Hill had vanished from the sight of third man, Mansell, who was holding back Alesi and Berger.
Both front-runners called into the pits on lap 21, but when they exited, Schumacher immediately began to pull away. One reason was Damon was carrying a heavier load of fuel as the German was going to make two more stops - on laps 38 and 55. Damon also felt that the car had lost the balance it had had with the first set of tyres. No matter how hard he pushed, there was no way he could match the Benetton around the circuit. When Schumacher came in on lap 38, Damon inherited the lead and hopes were raised that he could maintain the advantage, but ailing tyres and a thirsty fuel tank meant Damon would pit on lap 46 and let No.5 through. That was the way the race finished, with Damon fighting understeer, this time in the fast corners, and Schumacher striding confidently away in front. Mansell? Well his race was over on lap 45 when his transmission broke - but he had already cooked his tyres following a sluggish start and was never in contention. Damon had at least proven that he was driving the car at the limit and Mansell had only confirmed what Hill had been saying about the car.
Copyright 1994 & 2000 Mike Baldock