1995 Monaco Grand Prix - Report - Practice and Qualifying

Practice and Qualifying

Two practice sessions were held before the race; the first was held from 09:30 to 11:15 local time on Thursday, 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.

Alesi set the pace in Thursday free practice, which took place in bright and sunny weather conditions, with a time of 1:25.457. Schumacher and Hill were second and third, separated from their team-mates by the two improved McLarens, with Häkkinen ahead of the returning Blundell. Berger was over two seconds slower than Alesi with the ninth-fastest lap time. Schumacher was unhappy with the handling of his car, and so the rear end of the B195 was stripped down for a precautionary check before qualifying. Further back, Frentzen set the eighteenth-fastest time after his Sauber shed its engine cover during the session. Boullion fared even worse, as he crashed at the Nouvelle Chicane in a manner reminiscent of Wendlinger's accident the year before, but he was unhurt. Simtek's shortage of gearboxes was also apparent: lead driver Jos Verstappen's unit only allowed him to complete five laps before developing problems, but team-mate Domenico Schiattarella set an encouraging 14th-fastest time.

"Here, unlike most of the tracks, the driver contributes 60 per cent of the result against 40 for the car. This is because the qualities of the chassis are not so important on these twists and turns. Guts are more important."

Jean Alesi, commenting on taking provisional pole position on Thursday.

Thursday qualifying was held in similar weather conditions to practice, but was interrupted by a brief shower of rain close to the end of the session. Alesi carried his form over from free practice, nudging the crash barriers lining the circuit on more than one occasion to set a provisional pole position time of 1:23.754. Berger was also impressive, power-sliding through Casino Square, to the delight of the crowd, on his way to the third-fastest time, although he complained that Alesi had held him up on what he thought would have been his quickest lap of the session. The form of the Ferraris came as something of a surprise, as the 41T2's unique V12 engine configuration theoretically produced less torque than its rivals, a disadvantage on a circuit as tight as Monaco. Alesi said that he believed the results of the session were due to the extreme effort that he and Berger were putting into their driving overcoming any deficiencies with the car. The Ferraris were split by Schumacher, who felt that the rain shower had prevented him from fulfilling his potential, as he did not complete his full quota of 12 laps as a result of the track conditions becoming slower. His team-mate, Herbert, took provisional sixth place. Of the Williams drivers, Hill was fourth, but Coulthard admitted that he was still learning the track on his way to 11th, 2.8 seconds slower than Alesi's best. Häkkinen continued McLaren's promising form with a provisional fifth place, but was fined $10,000 for ignoring yellow flags during the season. Blundell was back in eighth after crashing into the barriers in the closing minutes of the session.

Frentzen impressed by setting the seventh-fastest time in his first Monaco qualifying session, despite having to take to the escape road at the Nouvelle Chicane after encountering the rain shower whilst on a flying lap. After his morning accident, Boullion drove steadily to take a provisional 21st position, complaining of a dire lack of grip from the C14 chassis. Another Monaco rookie, Eddie Irvine, out-paced his more experienced Jordan team-mate, Rubens Barrichello, as the pair set the ninth and 13th-fastest times respectively. They were split by Coulthard and the Ligier drivers, with Martin Brundle ahead of Olivier Panis, despite the former crashing at La Rascasse and removing his rear wing as the rain fell. Gianni Morbidelli, who took 14th place, was another driver to crash during the sudden change to wet conditions, as did Footwork team-mate Taki Inoue on his way to 24th position. Minardi drivers Luca Badoer and Pierluigi Martini occupied the provisional eighth row of the grid, just ahead of Tyrrell team-mates Mika Salo and Ukyo Katayama, both of whom complained of poor handling over the bumps and understeer, despite the expected benefits of the Hydrolink suspension.

Towards the back of the Thursday time sheet, Schiattarella and Verstappen shared the former's chassis to set the 20th and 19th-fastest times respectively, as Verstappen's gearbox was still refusing to run smoothly. Schiattarella spun at La Rascasse and attempted to execute a spin-turn at the blind entry to the corner, almost collecting Roberto Moreno's Forti in the process; he was given a $20,000 fine, suspended for three races, for "creating a very dangerous situation". Verstappen then took over the car and crashed it, restricting the Simtek team to a total of nine laps between its two drivers. Behind Boullion, Andrea Montermini (Pacific) set the 22nd-quickest time, ahead of Moreno, who had to share his car with Diniz after the latter's gearbox failed, restricting him to 25th place, over four seconds slower than his team-mate. Occupying the last spot on the provisional grid, Bertrand Gachot failed to set a time due to a sheared brake disc on his Pacific, which caused his left-rear wheel to fall off on his first out-lap, forcing him to abandon his car out on the circuit.

After taking Friday off—a feature of the event timetable unique to Monaco—the drivers returned to action on Saturday in bright and warm conditions. Hill set the pace with a time of 1:23.468, which was the fastest lap of the weekend thus far. He was almost 0.8 seconds ahead of Alesi, who in turn led Coulthard, Häkkinen, Berger and Panis. Schumacher was back in seventh place after damaging his car's suspension in a collision with Frentzen exiting Casino Square, restricting him to 11 laps only. Frentzen later crashed heavily after losing control under braking for Massenet, punching a hole in the Sauber's monocoque in the process. Blundell also crashed his McLaren at La Rascasse, but the damage was easier to repair.

The main drama of the day occurred after the practice session had ended. Inoue had spun and stalled his Footwork, which was being towed back to the pit lane by a recovery vehicle when it was struck from behind by the Renault Clio safety car—which was being taken on quick demonstration laps of the circuit in the hands of rally driver Jean Ragnotti, with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile's press delegate as passenger—in the middle of the Piscine complex. The impact was sufficient to overturn the Footwork and render it a write-off: the FA16 sustained severe rear-end damage to the engine and gearbox, whilst the tow rope, attached to the car's crash structure behind the driver's head, pulled the roll hoop from the chassis. Inoue, who still sitting in the cockpit with his helmet on but his seatbelts unfastened, sustained two impacts to the head, the severity of which was shown by the fact that a chunk had been taken out of his helmet. He was taken to The Princess Grace Hospital Centre for a brain scan and, although he was found to have sustained only a slight concussion, was not permitted to take part in the afternoon qualifying session as a precaution. The Footwork team principal, Jackie Oliver, was infuriated by the incident, and wrote an official letter of complaint to the Automobile Club de Monaco, the body responsible for organising the event. He said that Inoue would have been killed had he not been wearing his helmet, and questioned the organisation of the ACM and Ragnotti's attitude: "Why was Ragnotti out there? It's just lack of discipline. I understand he had accomplished a couple of laps before at a million miles an hour with handbrake turns at the Loews hairpin. What was the purpose of him doing it? Was it to give officials a thrill?" The stewards tacitly acknowledged that the incident was not Inoue's fault by authorising him to use the team's spare car for qualifying, but this was rendered academic by his non-participation in the session.

"When Michael did his quick lap early in the session, I thought Benetton was seriously back in the groove again and we would be in trouble, but it all unfolded for me. My last run was the nearest to a perfect lap I think I have ever produced. Now I've got my sixth pole and I want to follow that with the sixth win for the Hill family at Monaco."

Damon Hill, commenting on taking pole position, and the prospect of adding to his father's total of Monaco wins, on Saturday.

The afternoon's final qualifying session took place in similar good weather conditions to the morning's running. The Ligier drivers were the first to set quick times, and then the leading drivers began to complete their first runs: Schumacher took provisional pole position with a time of 1:23.139, set twenty minutes into the session, and Berger went 0.5 seconds to move up to third. Five minutes later, Hill lowered the benchmark to 1:23.294; Schumacher responded with a time of 1:22.742 eight minutes afterwards; and then Hill put pole position beyond the reach of anyone else after completing a lap in 1:22.115. Schumacher was unable to improve his time on his final run, and then Hill trimmed the pole time to 1:21.952 with his own last effort of the session. It was a dominant performance from the Williams team leader, who went fastest in each of the circuit's three timing sectors, and set three distinct lap times which were all faster than Schumacher's best. Whilst Hill was delighted with his performance, Schumacher found that his Benetton was more difficult to control, and he blamed the disruptive effect of his collision with Frentzen in the morning session for the 0.8 second gap between him and Hill.

Behind the two leading runners, Ferrari's challenge for pole position faded during the final session. Alesi's car ground to a halt on his first out-lap of the session after losing hydraulic pressure, and he had to share Berger's chassis for the remainder of qualifying. This forced Berger to hurry through his planned programme, making three runs instead of four, before handing his car over to his team-mate. The extensive adjustments required to tailor the car's pedal system from Berger to Alesi's preferred set-up meant that he left the pits with only two minutes and 38 seconds of the session remaining. Alesi thus had time for just one flying lap, which was spoiled when Irvine crashed his Jordan at Tabac during the final minutes. As a result, Alesi failed to improve on his Thursday time and dropped to fifth place on the grid, half a second and one position behind Berger. The team's problems allowed Coulthard to improve to third place with a time of 1:23.109, continuing his progress as he became more familiar with the circuit. Häkkinen was another driver to be caught out by Irvine's crash at the end of the session, restricting him to sixth place on the grid ahead of Herbert, who was satisfied to qualify only a second behind Schumacher. Blundell rounded out the top ten in the second McLaren, despite going up the escape road after missing his braking point at Sainte Dévote. Brundle took eighth and Irvine ninth despite his crash, which meant that all six of the British drivers qualified in the top ten.

Barrichello, outqualified by Irvine at every event thus far in 1995, set the 11th-fastest time, ahead of Panis—who complained of heavy traffic—and Morbidelli. Frentzen, like Alesi, was scheduled to take over his team-mate's car after his own proved too heavily damaged to repair, but the Sauber team's programme was interrupted when Boullion crashed, also at Massanet. Frentzen thus failed to set a time and dropped to 14th on the grid, whilst Boullion had improved his time by three seconds before crashing, and took 19th place. They were split by the Tyrrell and Minardi drivers, in the order of Katayama, Badoer, Salo and Martini. Nearing the back of the grid, Schiattarella outqualified Verstappen for the first time by taking 20th position on the grid; Verstappen failed to improve on his Thursday time after another crash and further gearbox problems, and was restricted to 23rd. Gachot set the 21st-fastest time for Pacific, but on this occasion it was Montermini's turn to not set a time as a result of his car suffering a gearbox failure; he dropped to 25th place. As on Thursday, the Forti drivers again had to share a single car, as Moreno's car developed a misfire: he qualified in 24th position, two places behind Diniz. The grid, which was covered by just over 9.5 seconds, was completed by the absent Inoue.