[Race] The GROAT - Round 1 - 1989 Suzuka vs 2018 Baku

[crmalcolm]

1989 Suzuka
In order to improve his straight-line speed, Prost had his Gurney flap removed before the race, without Senna's knowledge, as revealed by F1 journalist, Maurice Hamilton. At the start Prost got away much faster than Senna as he was hoping, instantly wiping out the Brazilian's pole position advantage. In fact, Senna's start was so poor that Gerhard Berger managed to get alongside him from his third place on the grid. But Senna's McLaren had the inside line into the first corner, and he managed to keep the Ferrari behind him. With a race-setup now clearly superior to his teammate's, over the first half of the race Prost steadily built his lead up to almost six seconds, and then Senna lost an additional two seconds due to a slow pitstop (by removing the Gurney flap, Prost had gone for a car setup with less downforce than Senna giving him more straight line speed and protection against all but the most extreme overtaking attempts into the circuit's one clear overtaking spot, the chicane at the lap's end). However, with a new set of tyres on the balance of power shifted, and the reigning World Champion began to reel in the Frenchman's lead.

Behind the leading pair, after his initial charge, Gerhard Berger's Ferrari gearbox failed on lap 34, and the sister Ferrari of Nigel Mansell suffered engine failure nine laps later. With the Scuderia's cars gone, all real challenge to the McLaren charge had evaporated. The only opposition left for Senna and Prost was each other as they were drawing away from the new third placed man Alessandro Nannini. The Italian's Benetton used the less powerful, but more reliable, HBA1 engine in the race and not the development HBA4. His teammate Emanuele Pirro did use the development V8 in the race, and while he was not as quick as Nannini, he did use it to move up to 10th after starting 22nd. Pirro's race ended on lap 33 after a collision at the hairpin with Andrea de Cesaris where Pirro ran into the back of his fellow Italian's Dallara.

Senna finally caught Prost on lap 40 (Prost had deliberately eased his pace, allowing Senna to follow him closely in his slipstream for the corners, at the expense of forcing Senna to use up his fresher tyres), and for the next five laps the gap between the two remained at approximately one second as the two McLaren drivers tried to position themselves tactically. Prost had greater top speed on the straights, while Senna's high-downforce settings gave him the advantage through the corners. On lap 47 Senna used his greater cornering speed to make sure that he remained close behind Prost's car through the challenging, double-apex Spoon Corner. This put Senna's car directly in the aerodynamic tow from the leading McLaren, negating much of Prost's straight line advantage. Through the infamous 130R, ultra high-speed, left curve, Senna cut Prost's lead still further, putting his MP4/5 only two car lengths behind his rival.

The next corner after 130R is the chicane, the second-slowest corner on the circuit. As Prost began to brake for the corner Senna dived alongside, but Prost saw the move in his mirrors and moved his car across the track to block his path (Prost had told team boss Ron Dennis before the race that in the past he had left the door open if Senna challenged so as not to take both team cars out, but he would not be leaving the door open on this day). Neither driver was willing to back down and the two collided just before the apex of the turn. With their wheels locked and their engines stalled, the two cars slid to a halt in the mouth of the partially blocked chicane escape road. As the vehicles were directly in the line of any possible out of control cars, the marshals hurried to clear them. While Prost unbuckled his belts and left his car (thinking this race was over and the World Championship finally settled in his favour), Senna gestured to the marshals to push his down the escape road. As the McLaren was pushed forward, Senna used the forward motion to restart his engine, and after it fired he immediately accelerated down the escape road, weaving between the temporary chicane bollards arranged in the roadway.

Although his car was running, Senna's MP4/5 had suffered damage to its front wing during the collision, and while Prost slowly wandered back to the nearby pit lane, Senna had to complete almost an entire lap of the circuit before pitting for a repair. Once his nosecone had been replaced Senna continued the race. Some indication of McLaren's dominance is shown by the fact that – despite the collision, the subsequent period spent stalled, the slow in-lap, and the pit stop delay while his car was repaired – when Senna rejoined the race he was only five seconds behind the new race leader, Alessandro Nannini.

Senna did not take long to catch Nannini's Benetton. He passed the Italian only two laps after having his nosecone replaced, in exactly the same place as the collision with Prost had occurred (unlike Prost, Nannini didn't put up a significant fight, a locked wheel and not an aggressively positioned car the only indication of how hard he tried to keep Senna behind). Two laps later Senna took the chequered flag. Nannini finished in second place, followed by the two Williams-Renaults of Riccardo Patrese and Thierry Boutsen who had driven in tandem and off the pace throughout the race. The only other driver on the same lap as the winner was Nelson Piquet; almost a lap down, but still far better placed than the eleventh position he started in, mostly due to the race's high attrition rate. Only eleven of the twenty-six starters were still running at the finish. Behind Piquet were two British drivers who also benefited from the misfortune of others, and while Martin Brundle's sixth-place finish was remarkable enough, Derek Warwick had come from the back row of the grid in his Arrows to take a seventh place. In a ploy that worked a treat for him, before the race Warwick had taken the extraordinary step of removing virtually all downforce from his car in the hopes that the extra straight line speed would give him an advantage.

Immediately after the race, Senna was disqualified by race stewards for missing the chicane following his collision with Prost. Senna personally alleged that the decision had been made by FISA President Jean-Marie Balestre to give the championship to his fellow countryman Prost (the race stewards and Balestre both denied this was the case, stating that the FISA boss wasn't even present at the stewards meeting when the decision to disqualify Senna was made). Nannini was awarded the victory as a result, and he took the podium ceremony with Patrese and Boutsen. This would prove to be Alessandro Nannini's only victory in a Formula One career that was cut short by a helicopter crash almost exactly a year later, which severed his right forearm. Senna's disqualification also meant that it was mathematically impossible for him to overhaul Prost's points total, and so the 1989 Drivers' Championship went to the Frenchman.

As he had gained no competitive advantage by missing the chicane, Senna and McLaren attempted to appeal the disqualification ruling. McLaren boss Ron Dennis explained that it had nothing to do with stopping Prost (who was leaving McLaren for Ferrari) winning the championship, it was that the team strongly felt they had a win taken away from them by an incorrect ruling, and that resulted in a loss of prize money and bonus sponsorship money. At the FISA hearing in Paris later the same week, Senna's disqualification was not only upheld, but an additional US$100,000 fine and suspended six-month ban were imposed on the driver (FISA also labeled Senna as a "Dangerous driver"). Ever since the incident, there has been much debate as to whether Prost intentionally ran into Senna, whether Senna was overambitious in his overtaking move, or whether the collision was simply a racing incident between two embittered teammates.


2018 Baku
All drivers got off the line from the standing start without incident. A minor racing incident which led to contact between Kimi Räikkönen and Esteban Ocon occurred as both navigated turn 2. On the straight after turn 2, Sirotkin's car made contact with Fernando Alonso's McLaren and Nico Hulkenberg's Renault, and caused a double tyre puncture (to Alonso's front right and rear right tyres), and puncture to Sirotkin's front left tyre as well as suspension damage. In the chaos, Force India's Sergio Pérez struck the back of Räikkönen's car, causing him to make a pit stop. The first major contact in the race was again between Kimi Räikkönen and Esteban Ocon at turn 3, Ocon suffered damage sufficient to force his immediate retirement from the race. Sergey Sirotkin's tyre puncture caused him to stop near the turn 3 Räikkönen–Ocon incident. Ocon and Sirotkin's positions on the track caused a first lap safety car. During the safety car, numerous drivers pitted due to damage, including Räikkönen (front wing change) Pérez (front wing change), Alonso (two tyre punctures, front wing change), and Kevin Magnussen (two tyre punctures). Several safety car laps were needed to clear retired cars and carbon fibre debris from the track. Pérez received a five-second penalty for the contact with Räikkönen, which he served at his first pit stop.

The top five drivers restarted in qualifying order, at the lap 6 restart. Carlos Sainz's Renault, which qualified 10th, showed notable early race strength and was in 5th by lap 7. 4th place Red Bull driver Max Verstappen reported issues with his KERS battery after the restart, allowing the top three runners to pull away while a long queue of cars built behind him. The two factory Renaults of Sainz and Nico Hülkenberg soon passed Verstappen to take 4th and 5th. On lap 10, Hülkenberg's rear end came out and struck the wall at turn 4, forcing him to retire.

After Hulkenberg's retirement, the race approached a more typical Formula One race rhythm. Sainz pitted from 4th with worn ultrasoft tyres, and the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen raced 4th and 5th for several laps, occasionally exchanging positions. Carlos dropped to 9th after his pitstop, he proceeded to fit the soft tyre but this turned out to be a blunder of a strategy because the tyres would not heat meaning that he had been overcut by both Red Bulls and was fighting for low points. The top three drivers (Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari; Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes; and Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes) raced within 10 seconds of each other, 4th place Red Bull Verstappen, meanwhile, was 30 seconds behind race leader Vettel by lap 18. Hamilton switched out worn supersoft tyres for softs on lap 23. Bottas, meanwhile stayed out for a long stint on supersoft tyres. Race leader Vettel pitted for soft tyres on lap 31, intending to finish the race on them, leaving Bottas in the race lead (but still needing to pit). At this point, the main question for the race leaders was whether Bottas could build enough of a gap to pit for ultrasoft tyres and then threaten Vettel for the race win. Red Bull teammates Verstappen and Ricciardo continued close racing, with more position changes and overtaking one another in laps 27 and 28, then again as Ricciardo passed Verstappen to retake 4th place on lap 35. Both Red Bull drivers pitted shortly after the lap 35 pass for fresh ultrasoft tyres.

The tempo of the race was completely changed on lap 40, when Red Bull teammates Verstappen and Ricciardo (then in 4th and 5th place, respectively), made major contact. Verstappen, who had just passed Ricciardo due to an overcut during a tyre change pitstop, made a late defensive move to cover an attempted overtake by Ricciardo which caused a collision between the pair. The collision was sufficient to retire both drivers, leave them both disabled on track, and force the race's second safety car. Several drivers in the top 10 took advantage of the situation; before the safety car bunched the drivers together, race leader Bottas made his long-awaited single pit stop for new ultrasoft tyres on which to finish the race, and second place Vettel, third place Hamilton, and fourth place Raikkonen also all pitted for new ultrasofts. Fifth place Force India driver Sergio Pérez chose fresh supersoft tyres. On lap 43, while still under the safety car, 6th place Haas driver Romain Grosjean lost traction and hit the wall, forcing his retirement and extending the length of the safety car stint.

The safety car could not pull in until lap 48, and Bottas kept the race lead as the lap began. 2nd placed Vettel attempted an aggressive move to pass Bottas, locked his wheels up and overshot the turn, ultimately leaving him in 4th place with flat-spotted tyres behind Bottas, Hamilton, and Raikkonen. Just as lap 49 began, Bottas, leading the race by more than one second over Hamilton, suffered a tyre puncture and was forced to retire. At the same time, Force India's Pérez passed Vettel to gain a 3rd place podium position as Bottas dropped out.

Bottas's sudden retirement was the last incident that affected the podium order. Hamilton won, Raikkonen was second, and Pérez third. Other notable points finishers included Renault's Sainz in fifth, Sauber's Charles Leclerc, and Toro Rosso's Brendon Hartley (who both earned the first Formula One championship points of their careers). McLaren drivers Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne also both managed to earn points: Alonso finished seventh despite the double puncture he suffered early in the race; while Vandoorne used the safety car situation to his advantage. After having raced almost the entire afternoon in one of the last few places following an unscheduled extra pit stop due to damaged tyres, while all drivers were suffering with dropping tyre temperatures, Vandoorne opted to make a fourth pit stop from 13th place the lap before the safety car returned to the pits. With his heated tyres he was able to move from 14th to ninth after the restart.

Race winner Lewis Hamilton expressed surprise at his race win, and gave high praise to his teammate's performance. "Valtteri (Bottas) deserved to win, he did an exceptional job and had a faultless drive. ... I would not have got by him in the remaining laps if he hadn't had his tyre blow."

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner was reported to have been very angry after the lap 40 crash that forced the retirement of both his drivers, and called the contact "unacceptable". Horner required both Verstappen and Ricciardo to apologize to all members of the Red Bull staff for the incident. Both drivers received an official reprimand from the FIA for the crash in Baku. Verstappen and Ricciardo's crash drew comparisons to the 2010 Turkish Grand Prix, where then-teammates Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel made contact with each other. In that race, Vettel was forced to retire immediately with a tyre puncture, and Webber managed only 3rd place in a race Red Bull had dominated up to that point.

[Aysedasi]

Suzuka without a doubt. A race indelibly burned into my memory with one particular piece of action replayed many many times......

[Adam43]

I’m not keen on either of these. Both sullied by on track poor racing and off track rubbish (officials in the first, what various people from Red Bull thought or didn’t think about it in the second).

Seems if you combine these two races you have what is considered exciting in current F1.

I’m naturally drawn to vote for anything with those cars and those drivers, but I might abstain this time on religious grounds.

[BTCC frog]

I have always considered Suzuka 1989 to be a racing incident, but this footage which I saw recently has made it clear that Aysedasi has been right all along and Prost deliberately turns in on Senna, or if it wasn't deliberate he is at least is predominantly to blame for the crash:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVh4oKqxtJo

[Aysedasi]

We all have our own opinions. I have held mine for 32 years...... The footage, taken together with what Alain told Ron Dennis before the race, makes it pretty clear what happened. As I've said before recently, I don't even blame Alain for doing what he did now, the shame of it all was what happened afterwards.

[Gerard C]

I vote for Suzuka but my opinion about the chicane "incident" itself (deliberate and premeditated assault would be more appropriated) is that's a pure shame, before, during and afterwards. IMO.

[S griffin]

Both had contentious incidents with team mates in them. One decided the title, the other decided a driver's future.

It's hard to choose. Baku only really got exciting in the end. Suzuka was tense all the way

I'll go with Suzuka