1996 German F1 Grand Prix Race Report & Results
Event: German Grand Prix
Track: Hockenheimring
Weather: sunny, hot, dry
Damon Hill won his 20th F1 World Championship race at the 1996 German F1 GP today. The Williams driver started from pole position and won on the Hockenheim circuit for the second time. It was also his seventh win of the season and the 92nd win for the Williams F1 team.
Transfer market and a fading Hill
The Times of London had broken the story in the second week of July: Heinz-Harald Frentzen, currently consigned to Sauber's midfield, would replace Damon Hill at Williams for 1997. The rumour had been simmering since 1994, Frentzen had been on Frank Williams's short-list to replace Ayrton Senna, before circumstances brought David Coulthard in instead, and now the lull had ended. Hill, the championship leader and likely 1996 World Champion, was being publicly displaced by his employer for the season that followed. He carried the rumours into Hockenheim in the way only a professional could.
His Saturday answer was emphatic: an eighteenth career pole, a tenth and a half ahead of Berger, with Schumacher third. The pole-position lap was secured on Hill's fourth qualifying attempt with seconds left on the clock. Berger was rejuvenated, finally settling into the Benetton chassis that had taken him a long winter to learn; Schumacher's Ferrari finally arrived in race trim with a chance, not just a hope, of a result.
Berger's run, Hill's two-stop strategy
The race began on a track that had been briefly wet just before the start: a short storm had passed over the Hockenheimring around lunchtime, and the second warm-up had taken place on a damp surface. By the time the lights went out the racing line had dried completely. The strategic landscape favoured a single pit stop; Williams alone, with characteristic Adrian Newey audacity, ran a two-stop on Hill while Berger and most others took the one-stop route.
Berger made the start of his year. Off the second row he scythed past Schumacher's bogged Ferrari at the start and was on Hill into the first chicane. By lap five Berger led from Alesi, with Hill third and Villeneuve fourth. The Hockenheim straights, however, allowed Hill to stay on Berger's gearbox into the Stadium; through the first pit-stop sequence on lap 21-23 Berger's one-stop strategy was the gift Williams had not expected.
By lap 30 Berger led Hill by twelve seconds with the Williams now in pursuit on a fresh tank. The two-stop strategy required a perfect final stint from Hill and a serene afternoon from Berger. The Williams's pace cut the gap to ten seconds by lap 35, to seven by lap 40. With three laps left Berger held a six-second cushion and looked set for his first 1996 win.
The Jim Clark Kurve, again
On lap 43, with two laps left, Berger's Renault V10 detonated in the Jim Clark Kurve. White smoke billowed from the back of the Benetton; the Austrian pulled into the grass with his head in his hands. The image, Berger climbing from a smoking car, his afternoon's perfect race ended ten kilometres from the chequered flag, was the abiding one of the German Grand Prix afternoon. Hill swept past for an inherited win that no one in the paddock had thought was his even five minutes before.
The remaining order completed itself with one more flourish. Alesi, on his way to a second consecutive podium, recorded his third second-place finish of 1996; Villeneuve, in a mediocre weekend for the new Williams star, brought it home third. Schumacher held off Coulthard for fourth; Barrichello and Panis took fifth and sixth. The Benetton garage was inconsolable; Berger had driven the race of his Briatore-era career and lost it in the closing laps.
Hill 73, Villeneuve 52, Schumacher 26
The championship table after eleven rounds read Hill 73, Villeneuve 52, Schumacher 26. Hill's twenty-one-point margin remained healthy; Villeneuve's third place earned him only four points in a race he could have claimed more. The Hill-Frentzen transfer story would continue to rumble; Hill, now seven wins from eleven, was on course for the title that would also be his exit ticket from Williams. The Hungarian grand prix in two weeks, a circuit where the Benetton might come good and where Schumacher had won the previous year, would offer the next test of whether Williams could be challenged in the second half of the season.
Classification 1996 German F1 GP
Fastest lap: 1:46.504 min by Damon Hill (Williams FW18) in lap 26
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