Extreme formula one racer12/16/2023 A truly crazy race, definitely worth a watch – if not for the result itself then for some of the bizarre incidents which eliminated driver after driver. David Coulthard and Johnny Herbert followed him onto the podium, and Heinz-Harald Frentzen was classified fourth even though he pulled into the pits to retire on the last lap of the race. Olivier Panis, who after starting fourteenth had shown great skill in avoiding all the chaos around him, took his first and only victory in F1. And before anyone knew, only four drivers were left in the race. But not only the front-runners had issues drivers like Katayama, Rosset, Diniz, Berger, and Brundle, who were expected to take some sort of advantage in such circumstances, all retired due to either personal errors or mechanical troubles. Meanwhile, drivers like Eddie Irvine, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Häkinnen, Mika Salo, and Ralf Schumacher – the ones who would be expected to take the win in such a situation – were all having collisions with one another, eventually forcing them all to retire. Jean Alesi, who had inherited the lead after Hill’s retirement, suffered from a suspension failure. Hill, who had been leading for most of the race, retired due to an engine failure on lap 40. The german – after losing his pole position advantage to Damon Hill off the line – only reached Lower Mirabeau before binning his car into the outside barrier. It took just 5 laps before the 21 drivers who had started the race were reduced to 13 thanks to a number of mechanical failures and driver errors, one of those being made by Michael Schumacher. Sainz chasing with a faster car with Gasly desperately trying to hold on and both wanting to win their first Formula One victory. He quickly made progress though, and with 20 laps to go, he was back up to second place, 4 seconds behind Gasly. Meanwhile, Carlos Sainz – who was in second place before the safety car, and had seemed to be the fastest non-Mercedes driver throughout the weekend – had been compromised by the safety car and put back to sixth position. This put Gasly into de facto second place, which he himself turned into first place at the standing restart of the race, where he overtook Lance Stroll who just like Gasly had inherited a brilliant position. Under the stoppage, it quickly emerged that Lewis Hamilton would receive a 10 second stop/go penalty for making his pitstop whilst the pitlane was still closed. After the safety car period had ended, the race only ran under green flags for one lap before Charles Leclerc’s high-speed crash at Parabolica, which brought out the red flag.
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