1995 British Grand Prix - Report - Practice and Qualifying

Practice and Qualifying

"That final run was more like how I knew it could be done. Just a question of digging a bit deeper a taking a few more risks. It got a bit sideways here and there, and I used too much kerb at the exit of the last corner, but there's no way you can lift even for a fraction of a second. You just have to keep your foot in it and hope that you don't get the car completely on the grass.
After my fastest lap, I could see that I was P1 on the huge television screen alongside the circuit, and thought that was good news. As I drove round, there were fans waving flags all round the circuit and I appreciated that."

Damon Hill, commenting on taking provisional pole position on Friday.

Two practice sessions were held before the race; the first was held from 09:30 to 11:15 local time on Friday, and an identically timed session was also held on Saturday. Each driver was limited to 23 laps of free practice per day. The qualifying period was split into two one-hour sessions; the first was held on Friday afternoon from 13:00 to 14:00 local time, with the second held on Saturday afternoon at the same time. The fastest time set by each driver from either session counted towards his final grid position. Each driver was limited to twelve laps per qualifying session.

Schumacher set the pace in Friday free practice, which took place in dry and cloudy weather conditions, with a time of 1:29.238. Hill was less than four hundredths of a second behind, ahead of Alesi, Coulthard, Herbert and Berger; the drivers from the top three teams in the Constructors' Championship thus filled the top six positions. Despite his fastest time, Schumacher was unhappy with the handling of his Benetton, reporting more understeer than had been present in pre-event testing at the circuit.

Weather conditions for Friday qualifying were dry and sunny, albeit blustery, which meant that drivers had to cope with strong crosswinds in the circuit's many high-speed corners. The session was marked by an intense fight for pole position between championship protagonists Schumacher and Hill, which was watched by a crowd of 37,000 spectators. Schumacher initially set the pace with a time of 1:29.151, which he later improved to 1:28.387. Hill initially struggled to match his rival's time in the final, twistier sector of the lap, but made a set-up change and took provisional pole with a time of 1:28.124 in the final ten minutes. Schumacher—who had increased the level of downforce on his car to compensate for the understeer, only to find that the reduction in straightline speed was too great—was demoted to second position, but was confident that he and the team could improve the car's handling for Saturday's session. Coulthard was more than 0.8 seconds slower than Hill in third place, and blamed the strong crosswinds for making his car feel very unstable at the rear end. Berger and Alesi set the fourth and sixth fastest times respectively for Ferrari, both drivers disadvantaged by a lack of straightline speed compared to the Renault-powered Williams and Benetton cars, and the fact that the Italian team was not allowed to take part in pre-event testing at the circuit as per the FIA's regulations. Team principal Jean Todt, however, described lack of testing as "a feeble excuse" for the team's loss of form compared with earlier races in the season. Herbert separated the Ferrari drivers in the second Benetton, also complaining of rear-end stability problems with his car. Eddie Irvine set the seventh quickest time in his Jordan despite suffering a recurring brake balance problem, ahead of Häkkinen in the faster of the two McLarens. This formation was continued on the fifth row of the grid, which was occupied by Rubens Barrichello in the other Jordan and Mark Blundell in the other McLaren. Brundle qualified in 11th position, more than a second in front of Ligier team-mate Panis in 13th; both drivers complained that their cars rode the bumps on the track badly. The two were split by Frentzen in the quicker of the two Saubers, who set a best time 1.5 seconds faster than his own team-mate, Jean-Christophe Boullion, in 16th. Ukyo Katayama was 14th quickest for the Tyrrell team, ahead of Pierluigi Martini's Minardi, the latter's best qualifying performance of the season. Behind Boullion, Papis set the 17th fastest time in his first Formula One qualifying session, split from team-mate Taki Inoue by Luca Badoer in the second Minardi, who was unable to complete his allocated laps after spinning and breaking the car's gearbox. The times were completed by Diniz and Moreno in the Fortis, who sandwiched Bertrand Gachot's Pacific car. Two drivers failed to set times: Mika Salo failed to stop his Tyrrell at the pit-lane weighbridge despite the presence of a red light—indicating that his car had been selected to be weighed—and the stewards excluded his times as a result. Andrea Montermini did not take part in the session at all due to a failure of his car's brake master cylinder; the underfunded Pacific team lacked the resources to bring a spare car to the event.

Saturday free practice took place in mixed weather conditions: the session was initially dry, but was then hit by a rain shower which dampened it somewhat; the times were thus slower and more spread out down the field than the previous day. Schumacher set the fastest time of 1:31.390, and said that he believed that his car's handling was much improved compared with its performance on Friday. He was followed by Alesi, Coulthard, Herbert, Panis and Frentzen. Hill was left in 22nd position as a result of spinning off in the difficult conditions and then breaking his car's transmission as he attempted to restart. Alesi had a controversial session: he set a fast time under yellow flag conditions for Hill's spin. He later tangled with Gachot's Pacific and recovered to the pit entry at high speed, where he had to spin to avoid marshals who were pushing the other Pacific of Montermini back to its garage. The race stewards witnessed the incident, but mistakenly called up Alesi's team-mate, Berger, instead. Alesi, once the correct identity of the driver involved had been established, was not penalised.

"A lot of TV networks have realised that qualifying can be a highlight of the weekend. We had 30 countries taking live feed from Silverstone and the viewers were sitting there watching nothing. We have to do something about that and it will be discussed by the F1 commission.
There are two potential solutions. One is to have an aggregate of the Friday and Saturday times, meaning that teams have to perform regardless, and the second is to have qualifying on Saturday only. It is just my opinion, but I'd prefer the second option. You could have timed sessions on Friday which did not count for the grid because, to me, Friday is a huge waste of time."

FIA President Max Mosley, commenting on problems with the existing qualifying format that were highlighted by the wet conditions on Saturday.

It continued to rain throughout Saturday's qualifying session; the slower conditions meant that none of the top 24 drivers could improve upon their times from the previous day, setting the order of the starting grid and guaranteeing Hill pole position. Only Salo and Montermini's times counted for their starting positions: the Tyrrell driver set the fourth-fastest time of the session, albeit 12 seconds slower than Moreno's dry-weather Friday time, to take 25th position on the grid; Montermini set a time almost four seconds slower again to complete the field. Many teams chose to complete only limited running in the wet conditions, to the frustration of the crowd: Häkkinen, Inoue and Gachot did not set a time, whilst Blundell, Diniz and Martini completed only exploratory laps. There was also frustration amongst the drivers and teams who felt that they had underperformed on Friday, and for Häkkinen and Irvine who had both been scheduled to run with more powerful engines which should have given an advantage in dry conditions. The Benetton mechanics also had a busy session: first Schumacher slid off the road at Stowe corner and had to rejoin the track by using part of the old circuit; then Herbert lost control of his car on standing water at the fast Copse corner, spearing off the road into a heavy impact against the tyre barriers. Herbert was uninjured and the Benetton mechanics were able to repair the B195's monocoque. Coulthard set the quickest time of the session with a lap of 1:29.752, ahead of Schumacher, Alesi and Salo, with Hill, Barrichello, Brundle, Badoer, Irvine and Frentzen completing the top ten. Hill admitted that the wet session was "a bit of a let-down", and was cautious on his race prospects, as he had failed to win from his two pole positions earlier in the season, but was delighted with the outcome nonetheless. Schumacher was also disappointed with the weather conditions, but was optimistic that his car was fully competitive in either the dry or wet.

The lack of on-track action caused by the wet conditions and the two-day qualifying system was a cause for concern amongst the Formula One paddock, members of which believed that members of the public who had paid to attend the session (spectator numbers were estimated at 40,000), or watch it on television, were being short-changed as a result. McLaren team principal Ron Dennis argued that the restriction on the use of the teams' spare cars should be lifted in the event of wet weather conditions, whilst Pacific designer Frank Coppuck advocated a points system for qualifying, in addition to aggregating the times over both days. FIA President Max Mosley confirmed that the current qualifying procedure was to be the subject of a review, with possible changes due to be introduced for the 1996 season. One-day qualifying was subsequently introduced from the 1996 Australian Grand Prix onwards.