Fascinating F1 Fact: 38

A World Championship Grand Prix is usually held over a distance of 190 miles, or the least number of laps required to exceed 305 kilometres. A race lasts anywhere between an hour and 15 minutes and two hours, at which point it will be stopped the first time the leader crossed the line after the two hour limit is passed. The only exception is Monaco which runs to only 161 miles, because of the twisty (and therefore slow) nature of the circuit.

However, there have been races that have not gone to the full distance, because of bad weather. If conditions are deemed to be too dangerous the race is stopped and if it is later deemed that conditions are too bad for a restart, the race is called off and half points are awarded if less than 75 percent of the planned race distance has been completed. This means that the possibilty exists for very short races if the weather gods intervene at the wrong moment.

The shortest ever F1 race was held at Adelaide in Australia in 1991 when the race was (rightly) stopped after 16 laps of dangerous mayhem. The result was based on the positions at the end of the 14th lap. This meant that the actual race lasted only 32.88 miles…

The race, billed that year as “F1: the ultimate” was the last race of the World Championship and took place on the first weekend of November, two weeks after the Japanese Grand Prix, where Ayrton Senna had wrapped up the title and then launched a tirade of very public abuse against FIA President Jean Marie Balestre, who had just been defeated as FISA President by Max Mosley. FISA was at that time the sporting subsidiary of the FIA, although Balestre remained FIA President. Senna felt that he was sufficiently protected and spoke out about the history of conflict between them, believing that Balestre has favoured his fellow countryman Alain Prost in previous controversies. It was not a very classy way to celebrate the title, bit Senna did not care. He said what he wanted to say.

Prost, at Ferrari, did pretty much the same about his car, the Ferrari 643, which he compared to a truck. This did not impress team boss Claudio Lombardi, who took the opportunity to fire the uppity Frenchman. Alain received the news when he was holidaying in Port Douglas between the races, and Ferrari promoted its test driver Gianni Morbidelli to race alongside Jean Alesi.

Australia at that time of year is usually gorgeous. Spring is turning to summer in the Southern Hemisphere and Adelaide was always the driest of the Australian state capitals. However there is always the possibility of bad weather as had been seen two years earlier seen when the race was stopped at the two-hour mark, with the leaders having managed only 70 of the planned 81 laps thanks to a period when the race was red-flagged because there was too much standing water on the circuit. In Adelaide that was always a problem because the drainage was poor…

It began to rain on Sunday morning and conditions were so bad that the race start was delayed. This was bad news for the TV stations, which had their satellite time booked for the usual slots. Delays meant that the race would not be covered everywhere. F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone was keen to go ahead and when the rain eased a little the officials decided that the race could start. The Constructors’ Championship needed to be settled between Williams and McLaren, separated by 11 points, with McLaren ahead. The two McLarens of Ayrton Senna and Gerhard Berger had qualified on the front row and they immediately went off into the lead, chased by the Williams of Nigel Mansell with Michael Schumacher fourth in his Benetton. On the third lap Mansell somehow managed to pass Berger for second, but then things started to get out of control. Schumacher had a spin and then Satoru Nakajima crashed his Tyrrell into the rear of Thierry Boutsen’s Ligier. Soon afterwards, Nelson Piquet, unaware that his team mate Schumacher was trying to repass him, moved over on the German, who swerved into the path of Alesi. Both cars hit the wall, leaving wreckage all over the road and showering the track with wreckage and the Lamborghini of Nicola Larini then hit the wall opposite the abandoned cars, while Pierliugi Martini added to the wreckage on the road when he hit the wall in his Minardi. Race Control did nothing. The race went on, despite safety vehicles and tow trucks being on the road.

The next drama came when Mauricio Gugelmin’s Leyton House aquaplaned into a wall in the pit lane, with flying wreckage injuring two marshals. Then Mansell crashed heavily, banging his ankle on the inside of his monocoque. Berger spun but continued, while Senna passed the start-finish line waving his fist angrily. Finally, after 24 minutes, the red flag was finally shown. Piquet finished second place on the road with Morbidelli third, while Williams’s Riccardo Patrese crossed the line with parts of another car under his front wing.

There was a hope that the rain would abate and the race restart, but eventually the Grand Prix was abandoned. The result was called after 14 laps, which meant that Mansell was given second and Berger third. Mansell was not on the podium as he had already headed off to the airport, to catch the evening flight back to Europe. Piquet, Patrese and Morbidelli were classified fourth, fifth and sixth – and McLaren won the Constructors’s title, despite only half points being awarded.

The rain eventually eased and the soggy Australian fans were treated to a concert by Paul Simon, who sang his famous Bridge Over Troubled Waters, which summed up the day in an appropriate fashion…