A1-Ring 25th July
For once the car behaved reasonably well even if where still was quite a bit of understeer in the fast corners and Ricaro was flying. He was faster than Villeneuve, ending up 4th less than 0.4s slower than pace setter Damon Hill (Jordan).
"The work we did at our last test at Monza has helped us a lot. My car felt very goodtoday. It was consistent in the corners, which meant I was able to push. Jacques and I are now running with the same differential - at Silverstone I still had the older spec one - and I think this gave Jacques a second's advantage over me in qualifying. Now we're the same and I think the lap times show this."
Friday 1st practice:
9th, 1:15.173 +1.290
Friday combined practice:
4th, 1:13.685 +0.382, 43 laps
Lack of traction was a problem right at the beginning of Saturday, but as the track got more grip during the morning sessions, both drivers found that handling problems increased. Ricardo experienced difficulties setting up on new tyres, which seemed to increase the understeer. At qualifying he did a 1:14.125, 1:13.484 and a 1:13.172 and on the slowing down lap from the third attempt he went wide in the first corner going over grass and gravel, not unexpectedly as the car behaved notably badly. On the fourth attempt he once again missed the first corner, this time ending up in the gravel trap and the car had to be lifted away.
"I am very disappointed because on Friday we seemed to have the balance right and thingswere going well. Today's track conditions were different and we didn't seem to be able to get the right configuration I had bad understeer and it was difficult to really push. It also meant that we spent too much time working on the set-ups and I wasn't able to put in two quick laps together."
Saturday practice:
16th, 1:13.316 +1.515, 31 laps
Qualifying:
15th, 1:13.172 +2.218, 12 laps*
Ricardo entered the race with a one stop strategy and heavy fuel load. Again the car was slow off the line but Ricardo managed to keep his position. At the start of the second lap Ricardo pulled out of Trulli's (Prost) slipstream and passed him going into the Castrol Curve. Exiting Grosser Kurve Wurz (Benetton) went a bit wide and Ricardo passed on the inside for 10th position and started to chase Fisichella (Benetton). Then the car started oversteering more and more and on lap 15 Alesi (Sauber) sneaked by at Grosser Kurve soon followed by Häkkinen (McLaren), who had gone through the field after having been pushed out by Coulthard on lap 1. On lap 20 Ricardo went wide and also Wurz and Trulli went by and a lap later Hill (Jordan) passed at the entrance to Castrol Curve putting Ricardo down to 13th.
However, he slowly worked himself upwards again as cars pitted and he reached 10th before finally making his own pitstop on lap 38 falling to 14th a lap behind the leader. He followed Panis and later Hill once again moving up to 10th before he had to pull off on lap 63 with a clutch failure.
"My first lap was very good - I was very close to Giancarlo Fisichella in the Benetton, and everything seemed to be fine. I started to get some oversteer on my first set of tyres, and this gradually got worse, especially from about lap 20 to around half distance when I went too wide on a turn and collected some dirt - that's when I lost two or three positions. I came in then and my pit stop was good, and afterwards on new tyres the car felt good again. Then the clutch started to grab and the team told me to put it in override. I did this and carried on, passing Mika Salo and managing to hold him off. Then when I came to the hairpin on lap 63 I tried to downshift, and the clutch just didn't work - I had to pull off the track and my race was finished."
Warmup:
20th, 1:15.390 +2.126, 14 laps
Race:
15th/DNF 63 laps Clutch
FL: 1:14.063 on lap 36 (15th, +1.956)
Winner: Eddie Irvine (Ferrari)