1995 Formula One Season - Background

Background

The calendar was initially announced at the beginning of 1995, with the European Grand Prix now at the Nürburgring circuit. The Argentine Grand Prix was the only newly announced race, with it taking place at the Autódromo Oscar Alfredo Gálvez circuit. The circuit was due to kick off the calendar on March 12, but there were doubts over whether the circuit would be ready in time. There were also doubts over round two at Brazil, with the previous year's death of Ayrton Senna hitting Brazil motorsport very hard. The third race in Japan was also under threat, as it was due to take place at the TI Circuit. However, the circuit was badly affected after the Great Hanshin earthquake, which hit the local infrastructure hard. The San Marino round, Spanish round and the Italian round were also under threat, with safety works taking place and the Circuit de Catalunya in financial difficulty. On February 6, a revised calendar was announced, with the Argentine Grand Prix moved to April 9, despite the fact it had now received official clearance from FIA safety inspector Roland Bruynseraede. The Pacific round was moved due to the Kobe earthquake, with it now one week before the Japanese Grand Prix. The European Grand Prix was moved forward seven days, leaving just a seven day gap between the Portuguese and European rounds. However, some tracks still needed clearance to race.

Although 14 teams and 28 drivers respectively were on the official 1995 entry list, the Larrousse team with drivers Éric Bernard and Christophe Bouchut never turned up at the circuit for any of the on-track sessions. This was due to the team running short of money: in the period prior to the event, with French government aid not forthcoming and a 1995 chassis not yet built, team owner Gérard Larrousse elected to miss the first two rounds of the season in the hope of competing from the San Marino Grand Prix onwards. No funding ever arrived and it was too late for them to build a car for the season. There were some arrangements with the DAMS Formula 3000 team, but DAMS bosses wanted to buy Larrousse and run the team themselves. However, on February 13, the boss of DAMS, Jean-Paul Driot announced that they had abandoned plans to enter Formula One for 1995, as he could not find a good amount of sponsorship to run the team at a competitive level. Driot said he intended to return to Formula 3000 and prepare for an F1 bid in 1996. Larrousse's withdrawal, in addition to the collapse of the Lotus team after the end of the 1994 season, dropped the number of participating cars to 26, guaranteeing all the entrants of a race start, without the threat of failing to qualify, for the first time since the 1994 Canadian Grand Prix. The threat of a drivers' boycott over the terms of their 1995 Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) Super Licences, which allowed the FIA to demand promotional appearances and forbade the drivers from criticising the championship, was defused by the governing body prior to the race, ensuring full driver participation.

Of the teams that did appear, all had completely new chassis to cope with the revised Technical Regulations, which stipulated a variety of changes including the reduction of engine capacity and the size of aerodynamic wings, the introduction of more stringent crash testing, the raising of the cars' ride height, and more rigorous testing of fuel specifications all with the aim of reducing speeds and increasing driver safety, a process which had begun in the aftermath of the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna during the weekend of the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. The cars were still in various stages of development heading into the new season; the Footwork FA16 and Simtek S951 chassis arrived at the event with virtually no testing, having been completed shortly beforehand. There was one new team in the shape of the Italian Forti outfit, whilst the Benetton, McLaren, Footwork, Jordan, Pacific, Ligier and Sauber teams had all changed their engine suppliers in the course of the off-season. Of the initial 1995 drivers, Pedro Diniz was the only complete rookie, whilst Andrea Montermini started his first race after failing to qualify for the 1994 Spanish Grand Prix due to injury. Mika Salo and Domenico Schiattarella had competed in two races, with Taki Inoue competing in one race the previous season.

Minardi had been expected to run with Mugen-Honda engines, but at the last minute, Ligier boss Flavio Briatore persuaded the Japanese engine supplier to supply Ligier, leaving Minardi in a mess. Their car was designed for the Honda V10 and parts were already being made. The Minardi team had to work flat out to build a brand new car with a Ford ED engine. Team owner Giancarlo Minardi announced he was taking legal action against the Japanese supplier. The status of Ligier and who its owners were was coming under scrutiny. The news that Martin Brundle had signed with them for 1995 brought up rumours that Tom Walkinshaw was the new boss of the team. Walkinshaw's move to Ligier from Benetton (where he had been Benetton's Engineering Director) was part of the deal between Flavio Briatore and FIA's Max Mosley the previous year to get Benetton off the hook for the use of an illegal fuel filter in the 1994 German Grand Prix. Benetton admitted that the filter was illegal and was let off, on the understanding that major changes would be made within the team. Briatore appeared to have asked Walkinshaw to control Ligier. Controversy surrounded the Ligier JS41 car, with rival team owners comparing it to the Benetton B195 car because of their similar design, the only apparent difference being the engine in each car. Commenting on the design similarities, Walkinshaw said:

Mechanically it is totally different and structurally it is quite different as well. Aerodynamically, it's as close as we can make it to being the same. I don't know how you would end up with anything else if you take a core of engineers who have been working on the Benetton. Of course the damn thing looks the same. But if you go into the detail of the car, there is nothing interchangeable.

At the front of the field, Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill in the Benetton and Williams cars respectively were the favourites to battle for the Drivers' Championship, with Schumacher anticipating a "struggle" for the championship. Bernard Dudot, Renault Sport's Chief Engineer, said that he believed Benetton was less well-prepared than Williams, as the former team had changed its engine supplier to Renault, whereas Williams had been in partnership with the company since 1989.

McLaren were also concerned about the standard refuelling equipment provided for 1995 by suppliers Intertechnique, having suffered a major leak in a test of the new rig outside of its factory. Intertechnique had redesigned the fuel equipment, which was used by all of the teams, in the wake of a pit lane fire suffered by driver Jos Verstappen during the previous year's German Grand Prix. The new fuel rigs, in addition to being half the size of the 1994, also featured longer nozzles, and were designed to lock onto the car before any fuel could begin to flow. Intertechnique traced the problem to a fault valve within the equipment, which caused 10 kilograms (22 lb) of fuel to leak, and modified the parts accordingly. It was only the seventeenth race since refuelling had been reintroduced to the sport at the start of the 1994 season.

Another rule revision meant that the minimum weight limit of 595 kilograms (1,310 lb) applied to both car and driver together. Prior to the first session of the season, all of the drivers were weighed to establish a reference weight to be used on occasions when the two were weighed separately, or if the driver was unavailable to be weighed. As such, a small competitive advantage could be established if the driver attempted to register a weight as heavy as possible, so their actual weight when driving the car would be lower.