1997 Belgian Grand Prix

Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
24 August 1997

Michael Schumacher has some pretty special memories of Spa – he made his debut here a mere six years ago, won his first race here the following year, came second in 1993, then won in 1994, 95 and 96 – though the first of those didn’t count, as he was disqualified for an illegal skid block on his Benetton. Schumacher may have had the best results here recently, but pretty much everyone loves the circuit, even if it does usually find some way to rain even in the hottest of heatwaves. Another piece of the driver puzzle slotted into place too, with David Coulthard confirmed for 1998 at McLaren – so if either of the McLaren drivers would be looking for a new seat next year it would be Mika Häkkinen. Whoever was driving it, the McLaren team would also have a car designed by Adrian Newey, the star Williams designer having left the team, unhappy at their resistance to giving him the Technical Director job.

It chucked it down on Friday, rendering free practice even more moot than usual. Saturday morning was wet too, but then it dried out for the afternoon qualifying session, leaving teams less than an hour to get their dry settings dialled in and make their tyre selections. As a result, there were more spins and excursions than usual, and grid positions mostly came down to who’d got the setup right first: Villeneuve took Pole again, but it was Jean Alesi lined up next to him, then Michael Schumacher third after being hampered by a mystery Ferrari ailment. Fourth was a happy Giancarlo Fisichella, with Häkkinen fifth after a dreadful day which began with a wishbone failing and sending him flying off at Les Combes. The team frantically replaced all their composite wishbones with metal ones. Ralf Schumacher was 6th, Frentzen an unhappy 7th after having an off, with Diniz an excellent 8th and outqualifying his team-mate Hill in 9th. David Coulthard was back in 10th after clouting the wall at Bus Stop on his last flying lap. Berger was a disappointed 13th after also having a crash, while Irvine was going to have to pull off the start of all times to come back from 17th.

Häkkinen’s woes continued when the stewards announced his times were annulled for fuel irregularities – the sample of his fuel from Friday’s practice session, while legal in itself, didn’t chemically match the reference sample given by McLaren to the FIA at the start of the weekend. McLaren protested, and Mika was allowed to race under appeal, but without any new evidence it was difficult to see the ruling being overturned – and the team could face a huge fine for wasting the FIA’s time if it wasn’t.

Sunday dawned sunny, and everyone was enjoying the glorious weather through the warmup as everyone tweaked their settings some more, but about 20 minutes before the start, black clouds gathered and a tremendous storm of tropical monsoon intensity lashed the Ardennes. It always seems to do this on race weekends and no-one seems to know why. So foul was the weather that Ralf Schumacher spun off at Stavelot on his way up to the grid and had to jog back to start in the spare from the pitlane. As drivers and crews once again frantically discussed what to do – in particular as to whether intermediates or full wets were the way to go – the sun began to shine through again in places. With parts of the track starting to dry and others still almost flooded, the organisers made the sensible, albeit unprecedented, decision to start the race under a Safety Car to allow all the drivers to get used to the conditions and hopefully squeegee off a bit of a drier line.

So away they went – though as with any new procedure there was a bit of confusion. As the cars came back round, the marshals came out with number boards, assuming that this was the parade lap and they’d all line up as usual before the start. Instead, everyone kept going and the race began. In amongst all the confusion, Häkkinen got sideways and lost two places, having to overtake to make his way back to fifth – illegal under a safety car, another strike for Mika. On lap three, the Safety Car’s lights went out and it peeled in to start the race proper. Without the usual frantic charge down to La Source, the “start” was incident-free, and Villeneuve began to pull away from Alesi, who had Schumacher and Fisichella all over him. Michael forced his way past Jean at La Source at the start of lap 5, and immediately closed up on Villeneuve and took the lead by the end of the lap.

It was immediately obvious that Schumacher had made the right call on tyres – he was on intermediates and Villeneuve was on wets. Fisichella likewise got past Alesi and was harrying the Canadian in turn, when Jacques locked up on the way into the Bus Stop and ended up in the pit-lane. Making a split-second decision that while he was at it he might as well change to inters, he pulled into the pits and despite having mere seconds notice, the team re-shod him in only a little longer than usual and out he went, well down the field.

While Schumacher relentlessly pulled out a huge lead over Fisichella, Alesi and Häkkinen – over 28 seconds after just four racing laps – Frentzen in fifth was also not going well and holding up a whole queue of cars with Coulthard, Diniz, Hill, Herbert, Barrichello and Berger all jockeying for position. With the track rapidly drying, Alesi made the bod move of coming in for slicks on lap 8, while Frentzen on full wets was finally overtaken by Coulthard, with Diniz following him through and Hill soon following suit. Heinz-Harald made the sensible decision to come in for slicks, and cars started following suit, including Villeneuve making his second stop already. So manic was it over these laps that both Pedro Diniz and Jan Magnussen found themselves running in the top three. When Mika Salo set the fastest lap in the Tyrrell on slicks, it was definitely time for Michael Schumacher to come in, which he did on lap 14, with well over a minute in hand over second-placed Alesi. He rejoined still with a lead of 47 seconds, and once the pit stops finally shook out, Alesi was second, Fisichella third, Häkkinen fourth, Herbert fifth and Coulthard sixth.

Frentzen in seventh was on a charge, and got past Coulthard, and a four-car battle ensued as he harried and eventually got past Herbert . It started raining again, but only on parts of the circuit, meaning the slick-shod cars had to tiptoe through les Combes. Coulthard’s race was run on lap 20 after tripping over a kerb, and Ralf Schumacher did something similar a couple of laps later, going headfirst into the Armco and rattling his fillings. They joined Nakano (electrics), Barrichello (steering) and Marques (spin) as the race was taking a lower toll than usual so far of cars.

The second half of the race was rather less frenetic, with Schumacher cruising to a hugely dominant victory that was never in doubt, barring technical gremlins. Fisichella drove calmly and didn’t have a tyre explosion this time to take second place ahead of Mika Häkkinen, who had to stop trying to get past and defend instead when Frentzen caught up in the closing laps. Herbert was fifth and Villeneuve sixth after a deeply disappointing afternoon.

However, Mika Häkkinen was stripped of his third place in the days after the race due to the fuel irregularities, promoting everyone up a place and Berger into the points in sixth.

Drivers’ Championship

POSITION	DRIVER	POINTS
1	Michael Schumacher	66
2	Jacques Villeneuve	55
3	Heinz-Harald Frentzen	23
4	Jean Alesi	22
4	Gerhard Berger	21
6	Eddie Irvine	18
7	Olivier Panis	15
8=	David Coulthard	14
8=	Mika Häkkinen	14
8=	Johnny Herbert	14
8=	Giancarlo Fisichella	14
12	Ralf Schumacher	11
13	Damon Hill	7
14	Rubens Barrichello	6
15	Alexander Wurz	4
16	Jarno Trulli	3
17=	Mika Salo	2
17=	Shinji Nakano	2
19	Nicola Larini	1

Constructors’ Championship

POSITION	CONSTRUCTOR	POINTS
1	Ferrari	84
2	Williams-Renault	78
3	Benetton-Renault	47
4	McLaren-Mercedes	28
5	Jordan-Peugeot	25
6	Prost-Mugen Honda	20
7	Sauber-Petronas	15
8	Arrows-Yamaha	7
9	Stewart-Ford	6
10	Tyrrell-Ford	2