The Brazilian Grand Prix has been held on two circuits - Interlagos and Rio de Janiero. The old Interlagos was very long, about five miles, and was full of sweeping corners. It was very challenging for the drivers, but after a short time it was deemed to be too dangerous and the event was moved to Rio. This was comparatively boring and had easy corners, so Interlagos came back in 1990, albeit halved in length and with some changed corners. Even so, it has produced great races and will do in times to come.
Ayrton Senna was undoubtedly one of the greatest F1 drivers ever. The Brazilian fans loved him and one of his best victories was in the 1993 Brazilian GP, which was followed by the European GP at Donnington where he had the best race of his life. He overcame a 10 second penalty and chose the best time for rain tyres to take victory in front of his home crowd. Since 1994, the winner of the Brazilian GP has become World Champion. Michael Schuimacher won in 1994, which also saw a huge crash involving Jos Verstappen when there was a coming together between about four cars. It was caused by Eddie Irvine, who was suspended for dangerous driving. Villeneuve was lucky to win in 1997, after going off at the first corner. Luckily for him, the race was restarted bacause of a stalled car and he went on to win. Hakkinen won in 1998 in an unusually boring race, although it did see a fabulous battle between Wurz and Frentzen where Wurz did a spectacular pass which was one of the moves of the season. 1999 saw Hakkinen winning again, but it was not easy. A gearbox glitch dropped him down the grid on lap 3, but after some great driving and slick pitwork, he fended off Michael Schumacher to the finish. 2000 saw a fiasco in Qualifying: advertising hoardings kept falling onto the track, one even hitting Jean Alesi. It was an exciting race with good passes, which Michael Schumacher eventually won.
The circuit has many elevation changes which make it all the more challenging. The first corner is a downhill "S" (the Senna "S"). That leads onto a straight before quite a slow corner followed by a couple of faster ones. Then we have three hairpins in a row before a couple more corners then a very fast, bumpy final corner. You don't want toget it wrong here, as Stephane Sarrazin showed in 1999. It is usually a good overtaking circuit and provides good racing. It is quite humid at the time of the year, which creates a high attrition rate.
OLD TRACK MAP - INTERLAGOS 1972
RACE REPORTS
1999 - MIKA'S GREAT ESCAPE
Hakkinen won in Brazil, like last year, but not without drama. It was nearly another 2-car retirement for McLaren with Coulthard retiring with gearbox problems and Hakkinen stuck in 5th gear on lap 3. But the team told Hakkinen to continue and he eventually won.
The start saw Coulthard stalling, and if the start was a few milliseconds later Hakkinen would have done, too. But he got away. Then the dramas happened on lap 3 and he dropped to third. Barrichello was in the lead with Schumacher behind him. Barrichello was on a 2-stop strategy and so when he pitted, Schumacher led. Hakkinen waited for Schumacher to stop and then he put some fast laps in before his stop and it worked. Barrichello was 3rd, but retired with an engine problem on lap 43. Damon Hill retired after a collision with Alex Wurz; Johnny Herbert, Jaques Villeneuve and Pedro de la Rosa had hydraulics problems and Jarno Trulli and Jean Alesi had gearbox gremlins. Ricardo Zonta had had a huge crash in practice and so was out for the next few races. Stephane Sarrazin, standing in for injured Luca Badoer, also had a huge crash on lap 31. Eddie Irvine was in 5th after an extra pit-stop and Olivier Panis got points for Prost in 6th. Frentzen and R Schumacher were 3rd and 4th.
1. Mika Hakkinen
2. Michael Schumacher
3. Heinz-Harald Frentzen
4. Ralf Schumacher
5. Eddie Irvine
6. Olivier Panis
FASTEST LAP: Mika Hakkinen (1:18.448)
STAR DRIVE: Mika Hakkinen
2000 - McLAREN'S RED ANGER
McLaren were astounded by the reliability problems in Australia, so they fixed them in the fortnight before the Brazilian GP (the problem was actually a filter in the engine melting). But after the race, they had one car with failed electronics and another which finished in 2nd with only half its gears, and that was disqualified. This let Michael Schumacher gain another victory, although his Brazilian team-mate, Rubens Barrichello, failed to finish at his home Grand Prix.
Mika Hakkinen seemed to have the edge in practice, but it was marginal. But Qualifying was an absolute farce. Three times advertising hoardings fell onto the track on the pit straight, one hitting Jean Alesi as he was breaking for the first corner. The real battles were held at the beginning, because the hoardings interrupted the middle part of the session and at the end there was a rain shower. So once again the front row was taken up by the McLarens and the second row by the Ferraris. In fifth was Giancarlo Fisichella and sixth was Eddie Irvine. Johnny Herbert was once again low, in 17th. Jenson Button did better, though, getting himself among the "big boys" in 9th.
Sauber withdrew from the Brazilian Grand prix after they had repeated rear wing failures all weekend, so only twenty cars lined up on the starting grid. On the warm-up lap, Wurz stalled and he took to the pitlane. When the race started, the Ferraris got away well, Schumacher getting past Coulthard but Hakkkinen blocked him at the first corner. Then at the beginning of the second lap, Schumacher overtook Hakkinen and this was followed by Barrichello overtaking Coulthard at the same time. Schumacher disappeared off into the distance as Barrichello started attacking Hakkinen. By lap 4, Schumacher had broken the Interlagos lap record. On lap 15, Barrichello passed Hakkinen. There were only fifteen cars at this stage: Wurz's engine blew, as well as Heidfeld's. The other Prost of Alesi had and electronics failure and on lap 11 Villeneuve's BAR had a gearbox failure. On lap 21, Eddie Irvine, who had been pushing for the whole race, made a mistake and put his Jaguar into a wall. Michael Schumacher pitted on this lap and had a long stop with a lot of fuel being put in. Barrichello pitted on the next lap. But on lap 26, Barrichello's Brazilian GP jinx came into play and his engine blew. Four laps leter, Mika Hakkinen suddenly pulled into the pits with an electrics failure. As the other drivers stopped, Schumacher was piling up his lead for a stop on lap 51. But soon after, Trulli passed Schumacher to unlap himself. Odd sounds were coming from the Ferrari and Coulthard closed the gap. But it soon righted itself and Schumacher cruised to a second victory in 2000, his third at Interlagos. David Coulthard finished second with only half his gears. Then followed Fisichella, Frentzen, Trulli, Ralf schumacher and Jenson Button, who pulled a stunning move on Verstappen on lap 58. After the race, Coulthard was disqualified for having his front wing 2mm too low. Mclaren appealed, but lost. This promoted Button to 6th, making him the youngest ever F1 driver to score a point.
Picture captions read down from top left.
1. Once again, Schumacher had a scrappy qualifying session.
2. The advertising hoarding farce turned into danger when Alesi hit one while braking.
3. Jacques Villeneuve suffered his first failure of 2000.
4. Irvine made it his second accident in two races when he crashed while pushing too hard.
5. Prost's 2000 nightmare continued.
6. Schumacher was delighted with his second victory in a row.
TOP SIX
1. Michael Schumacher
2. Giancarlo Fisichella
3. Heinz-Harald Frentzen
4. Jarno Trulli
5. Ralf Schumacher
6. Jenson Button
STAR DRIVE: David Coulthard for his position, despite losing half his gears. Michael Schumacher was also very impressive.
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