How did it all go so wrong in 1994 for F1?

1994 proved to be Formula One's darkest hour...

For those of us old enough, the 1994 Formula One World Championship will always be remembered as one of the darkest periods in the history of the sport. It was a season that began with two drivers sustaining serious neck injuries during pre season testing and ended with Michael Schumacher crashing into Damon Hill to seal the driver's title at the final round in Adelaide by just one point. In between there was death, serious injury and controversy at almost every round. The most infamous of these was the death of triple World Champion, Ayrton Senna at Imola, the day after Simtek driver Roland Ratzenberger had also been killed, but there were however, many more. At the end of sixteen grueling races there was a feeling of relief that it was all over and a certainty that Formula One would never be the same again.

But after so many years of trouble free motoring, just how and why did so many serious and in some cases fatal incidents happen in one season? There is no clear answer to that question, as we will soon discover in this article. Rather a combination of convergent events, freak circumstances and alleged underhandedness by several participants in that year's championship made the 1994 season one that no one would ever forget.

During the off season between the 1993 and 1994 World Driver's Championship one of the biggest sets of rule changes in the history of the sport was announced. Almost all of the electronic driver aids of the previous season were banned. Things such as active suspension, traction control, ABS, four wheel steering and launch control were all outlawed. As well as this, refueling was allowed in the sport again for the first time since 1983 and an Indy Car style 'Pace Car' as it was known as in those days for controlling the pack after big accidents and incidents was introduced to the sport for the first time.

The all conquering Williams FW15C of 1993, seen here with Damon Hill at the wheel took Alain Prost to that year's Driver's World Championship and Williams to the Constructor's Championship, but most of it's technology was banned for 1994.

The teams had argued that the FIA was forcing through these changes far too aggressively and without adequate planning. Several drivers, including the great Brazilian, Ayrton Senna predicted a season packed full of accidents. They had no idea how right they would turn out to be.

Things started ominously during pre season testing. Ferrari's Jean Alesi and Benetton's JJ Lehto both had serious shunts that forced them to miss the opening few rounds of the season. Both Ferrari and Benetton had run active suspension in 1993 as had Williams who were having even more problems with the handling of their car. The initial version of the Williams FW16 was an absolute beast to drive. Even Senna was perturbed by the car's erratic handling, that at times bordered on the uncontrollable. This was later traced to a design fault in part of the car's front suspension that wasn't addressed until the appearance of the FW16B at the mid season German Grand Prix, well after the Brazilian's death.

If the banning of electronic driver aids at the front of the field could be pointed to as the cause of some of the nervous handling of that season's cars, the same could not be said further down the grid. None of the team's lower down the field that would later become involved in on track accidents later in the season had run any significant electronic driver aids on their cars the year before, however there was still a feeling that all the entrants that year had produced cars that were difficult to drive. As a result many arrived at the opening round in Brazil with a feeling of trepidation.

The Brazilian GP picked up where pre season testing had left off.  On lap 35 a three way scrap for fifth place turned into a huge four car accident as Jos Verstappen, Eddie Irvine and Martin Brundle came up to lap Eric Bernard. Irvine in the Jordan pushed Verstappen in the Benetton (who was deputising for the injured Lehto) onto the grass. The Benetton then came back across the front of the Jordan just as they drew level with Bernard's Ligier and was pitched into a terrifying roll across the top of both cars and Brundle's Mclaren who was just in front of them. Brundle took a bang on the head that on another day could have been much worse. Irvine later received a one race ban, later extended to three after a failed appeal was lodged.

Senna had been leading Michael Schumacher in the Benetton until the first round of pit stops, where the German got ahead after a much quicker stop (a story we will come back to later). Thereafter Senna was unable to catch Schumacher and eventually spun off late in the race.

Few could believe how quick Schumacher and Benetton had been at the opening round, especially as Interlagos has always been considered a power circuit, a track which the under powered Benetton was not considered to be well suited to. Senna has his misgivings about this, which became a full blown suspicion of cheating at the following round in Japan, dubbed the Pacific Grand Prix.

This hamfisted attempt at getting two races on the calender in then land of the rising sun was not really a success in general, but even less so for Senna who was punted off at the first corner by Hakkinen and then rammed by Larini in the Ferrari, who was deputising for the injured Alesi. Schumacher strolled to victory number two.

After being tipped off my Hakkinen, Senna's race was ended at the first corner after being rammed by Nicola Larini in the second Ferrari.

Senna waited by the track side at the first corner for a few laps and listened intently as Schumacher's Benetton went past. The Brazilian returned to the pits totally convinced that the Benetton was still running traction control. The flattened engine note, he said was a dead give away of computer control of the engine's throttle response. The Brazilian went to his grave convinced Schumacher and Benetton were cheating.

The third round of the 1994 World Driver's Championship was at Imola, Italy for the San Marino Grand Prix and will go down in history as one the most tragic single weekends the sport has ever had. On Friday Rubens Barrichello had a huge shunt when his Jordan-Hart clipped the kerb at the final chicane and was launched into the barriers on the opposite side of the track. For a split second it looked as though the Jordan was going to vault the fencing and crash into the crowd filling the stand behind it. Fortunately this did not come to pass, but the Jordan still ended up inverted against the barriers. Once it had been rolled right way up again it was discovered an unconscious Barrichello had swallowed his tongue. His airway was cleared and he was lucky to escape with just a fractured nose, bandaged arm and a bloody lip.

The following day however, Austria's Roland Ratzenberger was not so fortunate. Driving in only his third Grand Prix for the new Simtek team, Roland had a minor off during qualifying. Rather than coming in to get his car checked over he continued on another hot lap. During the flat out, 200mph approach to the Tosa hairpin his front wing, weakened in the previous lap's excursion failed. Robbed of all front downforce at such high speed, the car became uncontrollable. Roland crashed into the wall head on at around 190mph and was killed instantly, dying from a broken neck.

Roland Ratzenberger, who died instantly after this head on smash with the wall just before the Tosa hairpin on the Imola circuit in Italy.

All the drivers were naturally devastated by the first fatality on a race weekend for 12 years, but Senna took it particularly hard. His friend and FIA Chief Medical Officer, Professor Syd Watkins begged Ayrton to give it all up and retire. Ayrton said he could not however. During the pre race driver's briefing Senna took a lead role in early discussions about reforming the Grand Prix Driver's Association, a long since defunct body that had campaigned for driver safety during the dark days of the 1970's. They had planned to meet at the following round in Monaco.

As the field lined up for the start with Ayrton on pole for the third straight race that season, it briefly seemed business as usual for Formula One again. However that illusion lasted all but seconds as on the restart the returning JJ Lehto stalled in the Benetton as the lights turned green. He was collected at huge speed by Pedro Lamy in the Lotus-Mugan-Honda, who's view of Lehto was blocked until the last second by the cars in front of him.

Pedro Lamy's Lotus came to rest on the opposite side of the track from Lehto's Benetton, just past the pit exit. A red flag looked likely, but instead the safety car was seen for the first time in Formula One.

The following carnage brought out the 'Pace Car', or Safety Car as we call it today for the first time. Debris from the accident was also thrown over the catch fencing and into the main grandstand, injuring several spectators and a policeman. With a wrecked car on both sides of the pit straight and debris everywhere, it looked as though the race was about to be stopped, but it was not. Whether this was because the officials, overly keen to try out their new toy made the wrong choice, we will never know, however the decision not to stop the race was to play a significant part in the tragic events that followed.

Today the Safety Car is a high power sports car that looks more like a GT racer than a road car, however at the start of the 1994 the vehicle out front controlling the field was more like a basic saloon than a race car. It was nowhere near quick enough. For six laps the field circulated behind it at a pace far too slow for anything an F1 car is designed to do for any length of time. Tyre pressures dropped and a furious Senna gesticulated wildly at the driver of the Pace Car to get a move on.

What he knew, but that nobody else did was that he had set his car ride height up extra low to gain an edge on Schumacher's Benetton. The lower the car was to the track in those days, the more downforce it generated and thus the quicker it was. However, on a bumpy track it could also make the car extremely unstable. Imola was just such a track.

As the tyre pressures fell crawling along behind the Pace Car, the ride height started to become critical. Senna knew at the restart his car would be highly unstable until he could get heat back into the tyres again. The total commitment and cast iron will to win that had served him so well during his life in Formula One was about to play a key role in the circumstances leading up to his death.

On the sixth lap, as the all clear was given, the field roared away with Senna in the lead. As everyone gunned through the 190mph left handed, Tamburello corner sparks were seen to shoot up from the rear of the leading Williams. Schumacher, following just behind in second place observed how unstable Senna's car was as it hit the huge bump on the inside of the corner. Everyone knew this bump was there and several drivers avoided it, knowing that they were on cold tyres.

Senna leads Schumacher on his final full lap in Formula One.

However the bump also formed part of the quickest line through the corner. Senna, desperate not to be beaten by Schumacher for the third race in a row went straight over it. The Williams opened the slightest of gaps to the chasing German during the rest of the lap but was unable to pull away from the Benetton. Perhaps feeling a sense of desperation at his inability to shake off Schumacher and possibly angry at his suspicions of Benetton running illegal driver aids, Senna was driving way over the limit.

If someone like Prost had still be in the Williams for 1994 he would likely have taken a much more long term view of the situation, conceding ground to Schumacher early on, but with the confidence that Williams would eventually overcome their initial struggles to get to grips with the new regulations in Formula One.

Conceding ground was not in Senna's vocabulary however and as he began the seventh lap of the race he could not have known he had only seconds to live. As the field once again came upon Tamburello, Senna's car suddenly veered to the right, having left the track at over 190mph.

Senna's Williams-Renault just after the moment of impact at over 130 mph.

He had just enough time to hit the brakes and start changing down through the gears to scrub off some speed, but he still hit the wall at over 130mph. In previous seasons Alboreto, Piquet and Berger had all survived huge accidents at the same corner at even higher speeds and survived. Berger had even been sat unconscious in a burning Ferrari after a big accident there in 1989 and suffered little more than minor burns.

Ayrton was not so lucky. His Williams hit the wall precisely the wrong angle, causing the front right tyre to sheer off and come back and strike the Brazilian on the head with extreme force. As he was extricated from the car covered in blood, live on television round the world it soon became clear that Senna was not going to survive.

As Chief Medical Officer at the track, it was the sad duty of Senna's friend Syd Watkins to lead the hopeless attempts at saving his life. In his autobiography entitled 'Life at the Limit' Professor Watkins described his dismay at the extent of Ayrton's injuries when he examined him. His pupils were totally dilated, indicating that his brain stem had been completely destroyed. There was a hole in his his temple, where a piece of the front suspension had pieced his helmet and blood and brain matter were spilling from his nose. As well as this he had sustained a burst temporal artery and an unsurvivable rear skull fracture.

Attempts were made to save Senna's life at the side of the track, but the situation was hopeless.

Rather than the standard procedure of stabilising the patient at the track medical centre and then taking them to hospital, Senna's injuries were so severe that he was airlifted straight from the circuit to the hospital via helicopter. He was pronounced dead later that evening, having only survived that long because he was placed on life support.

There was initially total confusion as to the seriousness of Senna's condition among the other drivers  team personnel. Inexplicably, Erik Comas was released from the pits whilst the track was blocked by the air ambulance and other track vehicles. The roar of the Lamborghini V12 in the back of his Larrouse shattered the eerie silence that had enveloped the circuit. Comas screeched to a halt just after Tamburello and was confronted by the sight of attempts to resuscitate Senna. Two years earlier, Senna had been the only driver to stop after Comas, then driving for Ligier, had a massive corkscrew accident at Spa. The Frenchman was distraught.

Gradually the message started to seep through the paddock. At the very least most of the crews had heard that Senna would never race again, some had realised it was even more serious than that. Johnny Herbert, upon seeing Senna's blood spattered Williams being brought back to the pits on a trailer, shook his head and walked away.

The wreckage of Senna's FW16 on being loaded aboard a trailer to be taken back to the pits.

Many theories about what caused Senna's accident have been raised, several by the Italian judicial system as it prosecuted key Williams personnel for "Culpable Homicide", but the telemetry and footage of the accident never really supported a broken steering column or rear suspension failure as the case against Williams suggested.

The most likely answer is that a desperate Senna, unable to shake off Schumacher behind him, driving on cold tyres and with a dangerously low ride height set up was simply pushing too hard in a car that had proven itself to be hard to handle. The version of events that most serious commentators on the sport now accept his that his car bottomed out on the bumpy Imola circuit, lost traction and broke away from Senna before he could do anything about it. His rare mistake in Brazil shows just how hard he was pushing in those early rounds to keep ahead of Schumacher.

The race continued as it always does in Formula One. Berger led for a while in the Ferrari, but knowing something serious had happened to Ayrton retired from the race. He and several Mclaren personnel left the circuit for the hospital in Bologne where Senna had been airlifted to. They were among the last people to see him alive. Before Schumacher took his third straight victory there was still time for yet more tragedy on the blackest of all weekends in Formula One.

In those days, there was no pit lane speed limit in F1. Cars used to drive down the pit lane at full throttle. In retrospect it was complete madness and fortunate that a serious incident had not happened sooner. But this time, it did. Michele Alboreto's Minardi lost a rear wheel after a pit stop ( a not uncommon event in those days), which then proceeded to bounce down the pit lane injuring several pit crew, one seriously.

Alboreto's Minardi being pushed clear of the pit lane exit after losing a wheel that injured several people in the pit lane.

In the aftermath of Imola, sweeping rule changes were promised and hastily drafted whilst the funerals of Senna and Ratzenberger took place. In retrospect these rule changes came to be regarded as being brought in with the same haste as the original set of new regulations implemented at the start of the season, which many were now holding up as the cause of series of accidents witnessed during the season so far.

Both the FIA and the now reformed GPDA had barely even begun to react by the time the mourning F1 circuit reached the next round in Monaco, when yet another serious, life threatening incident happened. During the first free practice session of the weekend, Karl Wendlinger's Sauber emerged from the tunnel at the quickest part of the circuit, weaving strangely as the Austrian wrestled for control of the vehicle. Unable to slow the car down, he slammed head on into the barriers at the end of the run off past the chicane.

The actions of the marshalls and the FIA medical team saved his life, but he suffered a serious brain injury and was in a medically induced coma for a lengthy period of time whilst the swelling inside his skull subsided. Wendlinger, who had once been considered the equal of Schumacher when team mates in the Mercedes Junior Sports Car Team in 1990 eventually returned to Formula One, but was never the same driver again.

Karl Wendlinger being extracted from his Sauber at Monaco after a life threatening smash left him in a coma.

The rule changes designed to slow the cars down still further were scheduled to come in stages through the rest of the season and at the beginning of 1995. Downforce would be reduced and from the beginning of the following season engine capacity would be reduced from 3.5 to 3 litres in a bid to reduce horsepower.

Those rule changes did nothing to prevent Andrea Montermini, who was Roland Ratzenberger's replacement at Simtek from having a big off at the final corner of the next round in Spain during Saturday morning free practice. The Italian was lucky to escape with just a broken ankle and a chipped heal, especially as his feet could clearly be seen through the front of the car where the bulkhead had failed.

By now the grief that had at first enveloped the paddock had started to turn to panic. Who would be next? When would it end? Added to Montermini's crash in Spain, during testing in the run up to the race, Pedro Lamy had been seriously injured after the rear wing on his Lotus failed at high speed on the Silverstone circuit. His car became airborne, cleared the spectator fencing and ended up landing in a pedestrian tunnel under the circuit. Lamy suffered two broken legs and two broken wrists. He did not race again for over a year. If the accident had happened on a race weekend the damage would have been incalculable.

Ratzenberger's replacement at Simtek was lucky to only sustain a broken ankle and chipped bone in his foot after the whole front of his Simtek was destroyed during free practice for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Lamy's rear wing failure was put down to the FIA rushing through rule changes to reduce the speed of the cars without the necessary planning and fore thought to be confident that these new regulations would not cause more accidents themselves. During most of the 1980's and early 1990's the rear wing had been mounted to the substantial rear diffuser that had been permitted up until mid way through 1994. With these anchoring points removed, so the theory went, Lamy's Lotus no longer had sufficient structural integrity in a key area to support the loads presented to it through the rear wing. It's a matter of subjectiveness if you consider the blame to lie with Lotus or the FIA over Lamy's accident, but the point remains that rushing through mid season rule changes had the potential to make the situation worse, a lesson that has not been lost on the FIA in recent times.

However, the often quoted fact that the changes brought in at the start of the 1994 World Championship contributed to all the accidents that year does not stand up to scrutiny when examined carefully. By the end of 1993 the only teams on the grid running technology like active suspension and traction control were Williams, Mclaren, Benetton and Ferrari. Lotus had an active suspension system that was a legacy from their days as a pioneer of the technology in the 1980's, but it was so unreliable and the team so badly underfunded by 1993 that they did not use it at all circuits. Ferrari's active suspension system was little better. In fact it was so unreliable that it had pitched Gerhard Berger into the wall at the Portuguese Grand Prix in an enormous shunt that saw him come racing out of the pits at full speed, lose the car and career across the pit straight right in front of Derek Warwick's Footwork-Mugan-Honda and into the wall.

Gerhard Berger's drama exiting the pits in 1993 showed that the cars could be just as dangerous with active suspension as without it.

Also Mclaren, Ferrari and Benetton were only recent converts to the dark arts of electronic driver aids, mainly during the 1993 season. To say that they had become completely dependent on the technology would not be a fair statement. Indeed Williams, the kings of advanced electronics in Formula One had not begun to make serious strides with the technologies involved until mid way through 1991, so were fairly new to it all themselves.

Plus there is also the fact that teams such as Sauber and Simtek who had cars involved in serious incidents in 1994 had never run any kind of driver aids program. Whilst the sudden withdrawal of the technology from the bigger teams may have been a factor with some of the bigger teams, it was certainly not the only one and definitely not further down the grid.

A factor worth considering is that the chassis regulations had not changed massively since ground effect was banned at the end of the 1982 season. Despite the banning of the monstrously powerful turbo engines in 1988 lap times had continued to fall as speeds increased. A case could be argued that the cars had simply become too fast for the flat bottom design that had been a mainstay of the sport for more than a decade.

Perhaps the real explanation though of how the 1994 World Championship became so turbulent can be attributed to the fact that Formula One's luck just simply ran out. The lack of a death on a race weekend since Riccardo Paletti in 1982 had blinded both people within the sport and those outside it to how dangerous F1 still was.

There had been numerous big accidents either in races, qualifying, free practice or testing that had either killed or maimed several drivers since Paletti's death. Didier Pironi's career had been ended in a massive aerial crash that completely shattered his legs later in the 1982 season. Brundle broke both ankles in 1984, the same season Johnny Cecotto's career was ended with two broken legs during a shunt in qualifying. Laffite badly broke both legs at the start of the 1985 British Grand Prix and Andrea De Cesaris was lucky to walk away from a high speed, cartwheel crash also in a Ligier at the Austrian Grand Prix the same year. Then came Elio De Angelis' death during testing in 1986, followed by Phillipe Streiff breaking his neck during a pre season test in Brazil at the start of the 1989 season and being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Derek Warwick walked away from a roll over crash in the Lotus at Monza in 1990, the same season as his teammate, Martin Donnelly had been left with life threatening injuries after his car disintegrated upon smashing into the barriers at Jerez. Add to that Eric Bernard's compound leg fracture in 1991, Patrese's Williams almost being vaulted over the pit wall after a tangle of wheels with Berger's Mclaren in Portugal that year, Erik Comas's corkscrew accident at Spa in 1992 and Alex Zanardi's gargantuan crash at Eau Rouge in 1993, it is clear to see that F1 was not safe at all. It had just been lucky.

Berger again, this time at Imola in 1989. The Ferrari broke on the way into Tamburello and burst into flames after a near head on smash into the wall. Here the Austrian sits unconscious in a burning car. He was incredibly lucky to survive with only minor injuries.

Whilst there is no denying that big strides in safety continued to be made through the 1980's and early 1990's the sport was not as safe as the people who ran it believed it was. Much of the safety features that the sport now boasts have their roots in the 1994 F1 World Championship. For the first time in it's history, safety at the circuits F1 visits is now the sport's number one priority. It took blood on the track that fateful year to make it happen though.

The Spanish Grand Prix saw Williams take their first win of the season and a highly emotional one at that as Damon Hill crossed the line ahead of Schumacher. The German had been leading the race comfortably and on for his fifth straight victory when his Benetton became stuck in 5th gear. Schumacher then put in one of the most remarkable performances ever witnessed in an F1 car, completing the majority of the race distance stuck in one gear and still managing to finish second.

Senna's seat in the second Williams was taken up for remainder of the season on a time share basis between David Coulthard, the team's test driver and Nigel Mansell, who raced whenever his Indy Car commitments allowed him. Mansell peformed well on his comeback and made a solid start at the French Grand Prix, but his return was overshadowed as the cheating rumours resurfaced around Benetton and Schumacher.

Mansell's big money return to F1 lifted everyone's spirits during this darkest of seasons.

The two Williams cars had out qualified Schumacher, yet the German still led at the first corner after a start that can only be described as stunning. Straight away rumours started spreading of launch control being a factor. Everyone at Benetton denied it, but later the FIA began an investigation of all the teams during that summer and found Benetton, Ferrari and Mclaren to be in breach of the rules by still having some banned technologies present in their cars (although all claimed they were never used).

Benetton however were discovered to have the most serious breach of the rules. The launch control system from the 1993 car was found to still be on accessible on the grid, via a hidden menu on the car's start up software. Nothing was ever fully proven, but big fines were handed out to several of those involved.

The pressure of filling Senna's boots seemed to be weighing on Schumacher more heavily than the Brazilian's team mate at Williams as the season wore on. As Damon rose in stature, Schumacher appeared to be cracking up. At Hill's home race, Schumacher, in clear breach of the rules overtook Hill on the parade lap, who had qualified ahead of him as if he was trying to intimidate him.

On lap 14 Schumacher was given a five second stop and go penalty for his transgression. Benetton ignored it as they claimed they were appealing the decision. Schumacher stayed out for longer than the three laps permitted to complete the penalty and was subsequently shown the black flag. The Benetton team's management engaging in a very public dispute with the race director Roland Bruynseraede won them few fans, especially not at the FIA. Amazingly though, Benetton somehow managed to get the black flag commuted back down to a five second stop and go penalty which Schumacher served on lap 26. He went on to finish second behind Hill, but was later disqualified and banned for a further two races, which Benetton then appealed.

Damon Hill, triumphant after winning the 1994 British Grand Prix.

This allowed him to race in his home race in Germany where his team were in yet more hot water. Benetton's lightening quick pit stops had been a topic of conversation all season and as Verstappen came in for his in the second Benetton, the fuel rig malfunctioned spraying petrol all over a red hot car. What followed was an enormous fireball that engulfed Verstappen, his car, his mechanics and most of his pit box, sending flames high into the sky.

The most anyone suffered was light burns, but it had been a massive shock to all who saw it. In the investigation that followed it transpired that Benetton had removed a filter from the rig to make refueling quicker. Eventually it transpired that they had been given the appropriate clearance by the FIA to do so, but the timing could not  have been worse for them. Until the matter was clarified threats of expulsion from the championship were being talked about as a serious possibility.

The Benetton pit crew working on Verstappen's car, here shown engulfed in the shocking fireball that occurred during the Dutchman's first pit stop.

The Benetton fireball had occurred not long after a enormous, multi car crash at the start, for which Hakkinen was blamed and banned for one race. Schumacher retired on lap 20 of yet another eventful race weekend with a blown engine.

Whilst still racing under appeal Schumacher hit back by winning in Hungary and Belgium, but he was disqualified for the second time that season at Spa after the plank under his car was found to have worn down by more than permitted amount. This primitive, but effective device to change the profile of the underside of the cars to something safer than that seen during the flat bottom era had cost the German ten more points.

Benetton and Schumacher's appeal to the FIA failed and the he completed his suspension by sitting out the Italian and Portuguese rounds, which Hill duly won both of in the much improved FW16B. Schumacher won on his return at the European Grand Prix in Jerez, but Hill hit back with a masterful victory in the wet at the Japanese Grand Prix.

The two part race, stopped at one point due to the appalling conditions saw Brundle leave the circuit on a flooded track and crash into a race marshal, breaking his leg. Yet another low in a season of lows.

In the end the championship came down to the final round in Austrialia. Schumacher led Hill away in the early stages of the race, but cracked again under the pressure and hit the wall. His car was terminally damaged, but Hill who had not yet rounded the corner could not have known this. Schumacher's car veered across the track into the path of Hill and was vaulted over the Englishman's wheel into the barriers. Whether it was intentional or not we will never know, but Hill was unable to continue due to front left suspension damage, which made Schumacher the champion by just a single point.

Schumacher's car seen here in mid air almost after receiving a launch from Damon Hill's near obscured Williams. 

It felt like an unsatisfactory conclusion to what had been the most distressing of seasons. Few people other than fans of Schumacher and Benetton wanted to see anyone other than Williams take the title as a reward for their fighting back from Imola so bravely, but it was not to be.

As traumatic a season as it was, it was also a season of gripping high drama on so many levels simultaneously, the likes of which we may never see again. In the end Mansell crossed the line first that day in Adelaide to take his last career win. His sporadic return to the sport on a rumoured one million Dollars per race gave his presence the air of the surreal. Like a Hollywood A-lister having a run on Coronation Street almost.

F1 has most definitely never been the same since 1994 and the driver's owe their continued safety and longevity to the events of that tragic season...

Pre Season Suprise Packages

Lotus 78 - Since Emerson Fittipaldi's championship season in 1972, the Norfolk outfit had been in the doldrums. A replacement for the Lotus 72, the model 76 was introduced for the start of the 1974 season, however this was not a success. A stopgap chassis, the Lotus 77 was introduced for 1976 whilst Colin Chapman's men worked up the revolutionary 78 model for the following year. Featuring never seen before "ground effect" technology, the car's performance compared to the '77 was like night and day with the team taking five wins during the 1977 season.

Ligier JS9 - After finishing a disappointing sixth in the 1978 World Championship and failing to build on their debut win of the previous year, the French outfit roared out of the blocks by winning the first two rounds of the 1979 season in Argentina and Brazil. The JS9 was the team's first ground effect car and put them right at the front of the action as Lotus suprisingly failed to capitalise on their all conquering title charge of the previous season and reliability blighted Ferrari and Renault early on in the championship.  Depailler took a further win for the team in Spain, but thereafter reliability increasingly became an issue for the JS9 and their raw pace advantage was eroded by others, noteably Williams, Ferrari and Renault.

Mclaren MP4/4 - Whilst the Woking outfit's predecessor chassis from 1987, the MP4/3 had taken three victories, the team's 1988 challenger was on a whole different level of performance altogether. Designed primarily in collaboration between Mclaren personnel Steve Nichol and Gordon Murray, the MP4/4 contained significant elements of the design of an earlier Murray chassis, the Brabham BT55. Featuring the overall "lowline" profile of the Brabham, a more effective aerodynamic profile, Honda engines and Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna at the wheel, Mclaren won 15 out of 16 races that season. Indeed they were only denied a clean sweep after Senna tangled with a back marker at Monza in the closing laps of the race.

Williams FW14B - Building on the performance of the FW14 during the second half of 1991, the B spec version of the car for the 1992 season featured active suspension, traction control as well as a more reliable semi automatic gearbox than the one that had caused Williams so many problems the year before. The active suspension in particularly made the car pretty much unbeatable for raw pace and took ten victories from a possible 16 for the team. In fact so good was the FW14B that it's planned successor, the FW15 was not introduced until the beginning of 1993 instead of 1992 as originally intended as it was not felt needed.

Bennetton B194 - During the winter of 1993-94 the talk was of just how many races Senna, Williams and Renault were going to take now that the three strongest forces in the sport had finally become one for the 1994 season. So the early season speed of the Bennetton team came as a suprise to many, even to Senna himself. Perhaps in retrospect though it should not have done. Bennetton had only been running active suspension for half a season and were a lot less dependent on it than Williams had been. The team from Enstone also had their car ready far earlier than Williams and a great deal more testing mileage under their belts as a result. Schumacher won six of the opening eight races and went on to claim the title at the final round in Adelaide.

Mclaren MP4/13 - After losing Honda at the end of 1992 and Senna at the end of 1993, Mclaren had fallen into a comparative slump over the following few years. During this time the Williams team had reasserted their position as the pre eminent team in the sport. A large proportion of their resurgence had been down to the design genius of Adrian Newey. The chief designer had wanted to progress to the role of Technical Director, but found his path blocked at Williams by part owner Patrick Head. Thus Newey moved to Mclaren at the end of the 1997 season and took full advantage of the forthcoming rule changes for the following year when building the MP4/13. The two Mclaren's achieved a front row lock out at the season opener in Melbourne and finished the race having lapped everyone at least once, including the once all conquering Williams team.

Brawn BGP 001 -  The  Brawn team had been formed out of the ashes of the withdrawal of Honda from the sport at the end of 2008 and the new entity's entry for the 2009 campaign was not confirmed until very late in the day. Despite all this upheaval and the design of the car being compromised by being forced to run with a Mercedes engine instead of the Honda unit it had been designed for, the BGP 001 was blisteringly quick from the outset. The secret was Brawn GP's interpretation of the rules around the design of the car's rear area and resulted in what became known as the "double diffuser". The chassis won six of the opening eight races with Jenson Button at the wheel and a further two later in the year for Rubens Barichello on route to a constructor's and driver's world championship double.

Which drivers of the past are today's F1 stars most like ?

Sebastian Vettel - Nelson Piquet Snr:  Both drivers are triple world champions, both drivers have a career based largely on superior equipment. Nelson Piquet made his Formula One debut in 1978 for the fledgling Ensign team at the German GP. He started a lowly 21st on the grid, but was cutting his way through the field in fine style when his engine failed on lap 31. Three further races followed that season in a privateer Mclaren before he was signed by Bernie Ecclestone for Brabham. He made his debut for them at that season's final round in Canada and remained with the Milton Keynes outfit until the end of the 1985 season.

The Brazilian was fortunate to join Brabham at a point where they were enjoying an upswing in fortune. Their South African designer Gordon Murray had cracked the ground effect concept with the BT49 chassis which made it's debut in 1979. Strong campaigns by Ferrari and Williams during the BT49's first two seasons denied Brabham the title, but by 1981 the BT49C variant allowed Piquet to steal the title from under the nose of Alan Jones at the final round of the season.

The 1982 season saw Piquet and Brabham held back by the unreliability of the new turbocharged BMW engine, but by 1983 these problems had been resolved and the Brazilian again clinched the title at the final round. Thereafter Brabham entered a steady decline and at the end of the 1985 season Nelson left to join the Williams Honda team. Suprisingly during his time with the team he was not able to get the upper hand on Nigel Mansell who at that stage in his career was regarded as little more than a solid support driver.

Both took points off each other allowing Alain Prost to snatch the title from under their noses at the last round of the season at Adelaide. Piquet was able to clinch a third title in 1987 after Mansell was sidelined for the final two rounds as a result of a back injury sustained during practice for the Japanese GP at Suzuka. The Williams' teams refusal to reign Mansell in and afford the triple world champion undisputed number one status irked both the Brazilian and engine supplier Honda immensely and for 1988 Piquet transferred his allegiance to the Lotus team, whilst Honda transferred their second engine supply deal from Williams to Mclaren.

The move was a disaster all round and saw both Piquet and Lotus enter a steep decline from which they would never recover. Unable to overcome the limitations of the equipment at his disposal he failed to score a single victory during 1988. The following season was even worse as Lotus were forced to use Judd V8 engines after Honda withdrew their support and Piquet again scored no wins.

A switch to the Italian Bennetton team for 1990 saw a gradual improvement in form during the course of the season culminating in him winning the last two rounds of the season. A final win came his way at the expense of Nigel Mansell at the Canadian GP of 1991, but the late season arrival of Michael Schumacher to the team pushed Nelson into the shade and made him look like a driver who's best days were behind him.

For 1992 Piquet tried his luck on the Indy Car circuit. There was talk of him being drafted in as replacement for Ivan Capelli at Ferrari, but after Nelson badly broke his legs attempting to qualify for the Indy 500 this proved impossible and his days racing single seaters looked all but over.

Fernando Alonso - Alain Prost: Unusually for a Latin driver, Fernando Alonso possesses a cool, calculated approach to his racing, often playing the percentages game and only driving at ten tenths when he needs to do so to get the job done.

This approach was the hallmark of "Le Professeur" as Prost was known. Having started his Formula One career during the 1980 season for Mclaren and scoring points first time out, he saw at first hand many of the accidents, both career ending and fatal to his colleagues and was determined that this was not going to happen him.

Rather than driving well over the limit to extract a quick lap time from a car in qualifying, he concentrated more on race set up, often at the expense of grid placings. Doing so meant that come race day he could drive well within himself and still be quick. Combining this with his smooth driving style meant he was able to conserve brakes and tyres for when he really needed them during a race and could plan his attacks out rather than having to improvise.

After his stunning debut for the Woking outfit he was snapped up to drive for the highly nationalistic Renault F1 program for 1981. Race victories were plentiful during his three seasons with the French manufacturer, but a concerted campaign to clinch the driver's title was held back by a combination of unreliability and political infighting. The closest Prost and Renault got was in his final campaign with them. Leading the title race for most of the season, they were eventually caught and passed after a late season charge from Piquet and the BMW powered Brabham. The French outfit lost the title by just a single point.

Unbelievably, Renault made Alain the fall guy for these failures and he was dismissed at the end of that season. He was rapidly resigned by Mclaren for 1984 and spent much of the year showing his double world champion team mate Niki Lauda the way home, only to lose out on the title (this time by just half a point) to his Austrian team mate's more consistent points scoring.

For 1985 Lauda could not hold his younger team mate back any longer and the Frenchman stormed to his first driver's world title. By 1986, the Mclaren-Porsche combination had been overhauled by Williams-Honda as the team to beat, however their refusal to back a single driver for a title charge saw Prost steal in at the last round and take the crown after tyre problems for both Williams drivers. Mclaren fell back even more for 1987, but by 1988 the team had Gordon Murray onboard as chief designer and Honda engines. The Japanese manufacturer had initially wanted reigning world champion Nelson Piquet to partner Prost, but Alain had vetoed him and suggested the triple world champion's countryman Ayrton Senna instead.

In circumstances somewhat similar to those during the season Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton spent at Mclaren together in 2007, Prost was completely unprepared for the raw speed of his young team mate. Where Alain's approach had always been more about winning at the slowest possible speed, Senna drove every lap of every session at 110% and was always trying to go that little bit faster.

Perhaps wisely realising that trying to copy his young charger of a team mate was not the way to go, Prost stuck to his guns but was edged out of the title for the 1988 season as a result of the "best 11 scores to count " ruling that was in place at the time. Despite finishing the season with 11 more points than Senna, Prost had one less victory and as result the title wen't to the Brazilian.

During the course of that season the relationship between the two drivers had gradually begun to cool and by 1989 had degenerated into all out warfare. This time however, Prost edged out Senna and claimed the title after a controversial collision at the final chicane during the Japanese GP.

Tiring of the constant warfare at Mclaren, Prost departed to Ferrari the following season, quickly had the beating of team mate Nigel Mansell and proved to be the closest title rival of old foe Senna. The championship was again decided at Suzuka (this time in Ayrton's favour) after a suspicious looking first corner collision eliminated both drivers.

During the 1991 season the Ferrari proved itself to be way off the pace and Alain alienated himself from the team's management by publicly complaining about the performance of the Maranello outfit. This lead to his dismissal before the final round of the season. He sat 1992 out, but all the while was working away at gaining a race seat with the all conquering Williams-Renault team for for following year.

Deciding he did not want the Frenchman as a team mate again, Nigel Mansell, who had won the title for Williams in 1992 decided on a move to Indy Car racing in America and Williams paired the now triple world champion with former test driver Damon Hill. Prost initially looked a little rusty during the first few rounds of the season, allowing Senna to suprisingly streak away into an early title lead. As the "power circuits" of the middle of the season came around however, Senna's challenge largely fell away and Alain was able to coast to his fourth and final title.

On hearing that Senna would again be his team mate for 1994, Alain decided he could not go through that experience for a second time and retired from the sport. He subsequently tested for Mclaren and was even rumoured to be being lined up for a return to Williams after the death of the great Brazilian but declined the chance and left Formula One behind for good.

Lewis Hamilton - Gilles Villeneuve: Two of the most exciting drivers ever to get behind the wheel of a Formula One car are also two of the very fastest. They both however share one common trait that could have led to even greater success if they didn't have it. That is, that during their careers they both don't know when they were beaten. Often this characteristic can be a positive one, but in the case of these two drivers it can often mean over driving in the pursuit of lost causes and becoming tangled up in accidents and collisions where the sensible thing to do would have been to yield the place to the faster car behind.

Gilles made his Formula One debut for Mclaren at the British Grand Prix of 1977 with the team running a third car for him. He showed sufficient promise during this race, finishing 11th , despite mechanical troubles and only being given an old M23 chassis to race instead of the current M26 version to attract the attention of several teams. Mclaren decided that whilst Gilles had promise, his wages were going to be too expensive and he lost out on the chance of a full time drive with them to Frenchman Patrick Tambay.

With no drive for the remainder of 1977 or beyond, Villeneuve's luck changed when Niki Lauda walked out of Ferrari after securing his second title in three years for the Italian team. Gilles was offered a test for them where he performed solidly rather that spectacularly. This combined with his physical resemblance to pre war ace Tazio Nuvolari was enough to convince the eccentric Enzo Ferrari that the Canadian had promise.

The 1978 season was a mixed affair for Villeneuve. A great deal of unreliability and over driving eventually saw his form start to come good towards the end of the season and he took a debut victory at his home race in Canada. The following year saw Gilles paired with South African Jody Scheckter. The Canadian took three race victories and was usually quicker than his new team mate, but Jody was more consistent over the course of the year and took the driver's title.

1980 and 1981 saw Ferrari produce cars that were nowhere near the quickest in the field and that were also difficult to drive. This period saw Villeneuve deliver some of the best races of his career despite being given inferior equipment, the highlights of which were his wins at the tight and twisty Monaco and Spanish GPs of 1981.

With designer Dr Harvey Postlethwaite onboard for 1982 things were looking up for Ferrari and Villeneuve, but a dispute between Gilles and team mate Pironi about team orders at the San Marino GP led to the death of the great Canadian driver at the following race. With just minutes remaining of final qualifying for the Belgian GP at Zolder, Pironi was on pole position and Villeneuve did not look like he was going to beat the Frenchman's time. Making one final, desperate attempt to do so, he ploughed into the back of Jochen Mass' touring March. His car was thrown into a series of cartwheels and Villeneuve was thrown from the vehicle and across the track still strapped to his seat.

After being extricated from the catch fencing next to the track it was clear Gilles had suffered a fatal fracture of the neck and he died later that day in hospital, aged just 32.

Kimi Raikkonen - Mika Hakkinen: It could also be said that Kimi's driving style and approach to his career carries more than just a passing resemblance to that of the Swedish driver Ronnie Peterson, who was widely regarded as the fastest driver of his era. However the Swede proved himself to be a fair and dutiful team mate to Mario Andretti when at Lotus, often sitting in the American's wheel tracks despite being visibly faster as this was what his contract stipulated he must do.

It is unlikely that either Raikkonen nor Hakkinen would even have sign a contract with such a claus in it, never mind adhere to one. What all three have in common though is blistering natural pace that is so outstanding that it affords them the luxury of perhaps not paying attention to some of the more technical aspects of the sport. This ability can also manifest itself in not having the determination to continue challenging for the title year after year without wavering, sometimes without the benefit of a well handling car.

Whilst it may well be fair to say that both Finnish drivers had the most outright pace of any of the drivers during their day, neither possesses the adaptability of rivals Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton. These two are the sort of drivers who can drag every last drop of performance out of any car, no matter what it's handling characteristics, both good and bad.

Give Hakkinen and particularly Raikkonen a car that doesn't suit their driving style (one that has good front end turn in) and their form will be less spectacular. Give them both a car that does and they will almost certainly be quicker than anyone else in the same car. Give them a car that also is good enough to challenge for the title and their natural speed really begins to shine.

Hakkinen shocked everyone by outqualifying the great Ayrton Senna on his debut for Mclaren. He continued to show well, despite the car at his disposal not being as quick as the Williams or Bennetton during 1994 and 1995. However he suffered a fractured skull in a huge impact at the final round of the 1995 season in Adelaide and his life hung in the balance for a while. It took Mika a couple of years to regain his best form after this disaster, but by the end of 1997 was once again besting team mate David Coulthard and claimed his maiden win at the season ending European GP at Jerez.

With the arrival of designer Adrian Newey for the start of the 1998 season, Hakkinen blitzed his team mate and stormed to the title with eight victories. He again won the title in 1999 despite unreliability problems and an unforced error at Monza. For the year 2000 he looked on course for a third straight world title, but a hat trick of engine failures left him 19 points behind eventual victor Schumacher come the season's end. The following year was to be his last in the sport and Mika appeared to lose interest, finishing well behind Coulthard in the driver's standings.

Will Honda really make an F1 comeback?

Rumours have been rife over the past twelve months about whether one of the most legendary names in Formula One really are on the verge of making a spectacular comeback to the sport for the 2014 season.

Honda left Formula One at the end of  2008 due to a combination of factors. The first and perhaps most pressing concern was the crushing effect that one of the biggest economic slumps in history had on the motor industry in general. With the banking sector completely paralysed by a combination of enormous bad debts and uncertainty in the credit market there was little chance of anyone being loaned the money to buy a car from a financial institution. Anyone with the cash to buy one outright were largely put off by the bleak, long term economic outlook being suggested on the news and in the papers.

As a result of these extremely difficult market conditions, car manufacturers were losing money hand over fist. General Motors was in such a bad state that they needed rescuing by the US government under Barack Obama and Toyota posted their first yearly loss since 1950, losing 350 billion Yen during 2008. These events brought to a close the "manufacturer era" in Formula One as it had been known. In short order BMW, Honda, Toyota and Renault all either left the sport or dramatically cut back their involvement. Team budgets had been escalating at an alarming and unsustainable rate and having a Formula One program no longer made sense for the manufacturer teams.

The only car company to buck this trend and increase their involvement in the sport were Mercedes, however their financial commitment was much lower than that which their one time rivals leaving the sport had been shelling out in the years leading up to the financial crash. In fact it was less than the likes of Mclaren, Red Bull and Ferrari were spending each year until as recently as the end  of the 2012 season.

Even if these disastrous events in the global financial sector had not occurred there is a good chance that Honda would have pulled out sooner rather than late anyway. Apart from the extremely poor return on the Japanese company's investment results wise, there was definitely a feeling at board level in Honda that Formula One no longer represented what the company's publicly stated aims were.

Going back as far as when Honda initially returned to Formula One in 1983 after an absence going back to 1968, their ambitions dovetailed perfectly with the image of Formula One. It was the 1980's and the era of the "hot hatch" and conspicuous spending. "Flash" was the look to have and performance models of popular family cars were available at reasonable prices to help people obtain this image on a limited budget.

A great many of these hot hatches were turbocharged and along with Group B rallying, Formula One during this decade provided the perfect test bed and marketing tool for developing and promoting a car manufacturer's range of sports models. Honda were at the forefront of the beginning of their first comeback, a deliberately low key affair with the small and fleeting Spirit F1 team right through to their exit at the end of the 1992 season. By the middle of the decade and towards the end of the turbo era their's was the best engine in the sport and much success followed powering first Williams and then Mclaren to driver's and constructor's world titles. With Mclaren this success carried on into the normally aspirated engine era after the 1988 season. A combination of an economic downturn at the beginning of the 1990's and the companies technical prowess being overhauled saw Honda withdraw from the sport at the end of a season which saw them mauled by the Williams-Renault combination driven by Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese.

The 1983 Spirit-Honda.

They kept a foot in the door of the Formula One with their by proxy provision of support for an engine program that was badged as "Mugen-Honda" and was an evolution version of the the final Honda works units. These were developed by the Mugen company owned by Hirotoshi Honda, the son of Honda founder Soichiro Honda and this arrangement ran from 1991 until Honda's works return as an engine supplier in 2000.

The Mugen-Honda V10 unit that powered cars for Tyrrell, Lotus, Ligier, Prost and Jordan during the 1990s.

During their post millennium stint in the sport, environmental concerns increasingly moved on to the agenda of the major car manufacturers, Honda even more so than others. Their marketing campaigns were based around the the company's history of innovation and their current strides to push technological innovation in a greener direction. For a long time, Formula One did nothing of the sort. Money was poured on a huge scale into a gas guzzling engine development arms race that was not curtailed until the 2006 season and the sport's one concession to environmental concerns, the KERS system was delayed on numerous occasions.

So what has changed over the past four seasons to tempt Honda back? Well the first thing has been the budget caps agreed by all the teams from the 2009 season. This limits the chance of a works team getting dragged back into another budget and development arms race with their rivals that no one can afford. The second thing is the significant rule changes that are scheduled to come into effect regarding engine specifications.

From 2014 the cars will be using a turbocharged 1.6 litre V6 engine with a more powerful energy recovery system available than at present. This replacement for KERS, known by the new name of ERS (or Energy Recovery System) will raise the maximum amount of energy harvested by the system from 400 kilojoules to 2 megajoules per lap. This increased energy can be used either via the current method of a battery boosting power output at the rear axle directly, or it can be used to spool the single turbocharger up to operating RPM straightaway and avoid the dreaded "turbo lag" of engines of this type. The electrical energy available will rise from 70bhp at present to 161bhp under the new formula. Additional power will be recoverable from the engine's exhaust gases via the turbocharger. With engines also capped to 15,000 rpm the same amount of power will be available from less fuel.

The new Mercedes 2014 spec turbocharged 1.6 litre V6 engine.

All of these green innovations fit much more with Honda and the other car manufacturer's stated aims for the current decade. Whether the legendary Japanese marque can afford to be left on the sidelines during this new era of  F1 remains to be seen however...

The Reynard F1 Project and how it's impact can still be seen in F1 today (Part 2):

British American Racing/Honda/Brawn GP/Mercedes GP (2002 - Present):

When British American Tobacco wanted to increase their involvement in Formula One, they decided the best way to do this was by buying the Ken Tyrrell's small team of former world champions based in Ockham, Surrey. By this point in time Ken Tyrrell was an old man who was looking to retire and his team long past their best. He sold the outfit bearing his name during the 1998 season to the American tobacco giant and the new team made their debut for the start of the 1999 season under the stewardship of manager Craig Pollock. After years of under funding, the newly rechristened British American Racing team were going to need investment on a large scale to make them a force to be reckoned with once more.

Tyrrell's obsolete HQ at Ockham, Surrey.

Between their debut year of 1999 and 2001 Reynard produced the team's cars at it's Brackley facility in Northamptonshire. After Reynard's demise over the winter of 2001, BAR bought their factory from the receivers and it has since been the base for all the various different incarnations of the team to the present day.

An overhead shot of the former Reynard HQ at Brackley, Northamptonshire.

Powered by Honda from the year 2000 onwards BAR's peak year in Formula One was the 2004 season, suprisingly finishing second in the constructors championship despite not winning a race. A large part of this success was based on the Honda RA004E engine, which by the end of that season was almost at the magical 1000 bhp barrier and believed to be the most powerful engine in the field. With this successful engine program and a disastrous 2005 season for BAR that failed to live up to the promise of the year before, Honda bought the whole team from British American Tobacco for the start of the 2006 season.

A maiden victory for both Honda and Button at the 2006 Hungarian GP was scant return for the investment made on the Japanese manufacturer's part and the team's campaigns between 2006 and 2008 can only be described as abject. This combined with the economic downturn of 2008 and 2009 saw Honda withdraw from the sport completely and suddenly during the winter of 2008.

The woeful Honda RA108 from the 2008 season.

The team and some of it's personnel were saved by a management buyout organised by Nick Fry and Ross Brawn. Unbelievably given the circumstances and the team's form in it's previous guise as Honda, the newly christened "Brawn GP" won the 2009 driver's world championship for Jenson Button. This success was largely built on a clever interpretation of the rules by an employee of the former Honda spin off team Super Aguri to produce what was known at the time as a "double diffuser".

This gave the team much more downforce than the other teams who had not interpreted the rules in this way and during the first half of the 2009 season Brawn GP were the class of the field. However, due to the large number of redundancies the team had been forced to make as result of Honda's withdrawal they were not able to maintain the level of performance of rival teams and the second half of the season saw them fall back behind the likes of Red Bull and Mclaren. They only just clinched the title at the final round in Brazil after a great drive from 14th on the grid by Jenson Button.

A drawing of the controversial Brawn GP "double diffuser".

At the end of the 2009 season Brawn GP was purchased outright by it's engine supplier Mercedes (who had stepped in at the last minute to help save the team at the beginning of the year) and became their full works team. A combination of staff culls while still Brawn GP and Mercedes initially not being prepared to match the budgets of the likes of Red Bull, Ferrari and Mclaren have meant that Mercedes have struggled to become championship contenders, despite the return to the sport of seven time world champion Michael Schumacher to drive for them.

After the team's first win (and also the first for driver Nico Rosberg) during the 2012 season, their early season form fell away and by the end of the year Mercedes were struggling even to score points. For 2013, after a period where Mercedes considered leaving the sport altogether and throwing the futures of those who work at it's Brackley base into doubt once more, the Stuttgart based manufacturer has committed to the sport for a further period, increasing the race team's overall budget and signing 2008 world champion Lewis Hamilton from Mclaren.

The Mercedes F1 program has been held back by budget restraints and staff cuts during the Brawn GP era.

The 2013 season period may be one of consolidation and incremental progress for the team with 2014 representing their best chance to challenge for the title, with sweeping changes coming into the sport that will favour teams who manufacture their own engines. Only time will tell if the the organisation that has it's roots in the old Reynard F1 project can finally deliver long term success after all the money that has been invested in it.

The Reynard F1 Project and how it's impact can still be seen in F1 today (Part 1):

Until it's untimely demise in February 2002 Reynard Motorsport had been one of the biggest names in the world of racing. Since the company's inception in 1973 they had produced winning cars in Formula Ford 1600, Formula Ford 2000, Formula Vauxhall Lotus, Formula 3, Formula 3000 and stateside in the Indy Car/Champ Car series among many others. Their involvement in the America single seat racing scene was the highest level of competition the team were involved with that featured a car with a Reynard badge on it.

The Reynard Motorsport company logo.

Their Champ car success peaked with Canadian Jacques Villeneuve taking an Indy 500 victory and Champ Car title double during the 1995 season at the wheel of one of their designs for the Forsythe-Green team. The company unexpectedly and suddenly imploded during late 2001 and early 2002 when a combination of the break up of the Champ Car series and the September 11th terrorist attacks of that year saw their usual customer base dry up. With a workshop full of completed Champ Car chassis, no one to buy them and no funds to continue trading the company filed for bankruptcy, leading to the loss of around 300 highly skilled jobs.

The Reynard built, Forsythe-Green entered Champ Car that won both the 1995 Indy 500 and drivers title.

Almost lost in the midst of this stellar history and it's sudden end is Reynard's Formula One program that began in 1989 and came to an unsatisfactory conclusion in early 1992 before a championship entry could be fulfilled due to a lack of funds. Despite this failure to make the grid , the project had been no half baked venture by any means. Rory Byrne, who was later to go on to incredible success as part of the Schumacher/Brawn/Byrne triumvirate was hired as chief designer and a stand alone factory for the F1 team was constructed at Enstone in Oxfordshire, separate from Reynard's core operation at it's Brackley site in Northamptonshire.

In addition to the full funding required through sponsorship not being obtained, the team were not able to obtain a works engine deal and were not able to afford to buy customer engines to compete with. The closest they got to obtaining a works engine was with Yamaha. The Japanese manufacturer's unit was a heavy, unreliable V10 that was also down on power when compared to the similar engine from rivals Renault. The Yamaha engine eventually found it's way into Formula One, first via the Jordan team and later the Tyrrell team, causing them both no end of problems along the way.

The Yamaha OX10A V10 engine.

Under the weight of of all these issues the Reynard F1 program was wound up over the winter of 1991-92, Rory Byrne wen't back to Benetton where he had initially been hired from and the Formula One program's assets were sold off. Ten years later when the parent company also wen't under, it's assets were in turn also sold off only to continue their life within the sport. Here is the true story of how a dream that failed still reverberates around Formula One today and who it's beneficiaries have been:

Ligier (1992-1994): With the demise of the Reynard program, the aerodynamic data that had been accumulated during development was sold off to the Magny-Cours based outfit and used in the development of it's 1992 car, the Renault powered JS37. It also had a significant impact on the design of it's successor, the JS39 which appeared the following year.

The data bought following the demise of the Reynard project quickly bore fruit as the JS37 was a huge improvement over the French team's 1991 car, the Lamborghini powered JS35. This car was not a success due to the generally poor handing of the chassis, which was particularly bad on bumpy circuits. This handling was made worse by the inefficient aerodynamics of the car, which in turn were made worse by having to accommodate the bulky Lamborghini V12 engine and it's large oil reservoir.

A switch to the much easier to package Renault RS3 V10 unit for 1992, combined with the aerodynamic data from Reynard made the JS37 a more effective car all round than the Lamborghini powered car of the previous season. This upward swing in performance continued through 1993 and 1994 with the team achieving several podium finishes, however it was soon acquired by Benetton manager Flavio Briatore for the purposes of transferring it's Renault engine contract to the Italian owned team.

The 1992 Ligier JS37 with  Belgian Thierry Boutsen at the wheel.

Pacific GP (1994): With the Factory and key personnel of the Reynard F1 program sold to Benetton and it's aerodynamic data sold to Ligier, all that remained to be purchased was some of the left over hardware from the venture. These fell into the hands of Keith Wiggins' F3000 team in the form of a test chassis and some parts for it.

The team had been due to debut in 1993 using this equipment, but due to a lack of funds this was delayed until 1994. The team secured a contract for customer Ilmor V10 engines and drivers Bertrand Gachot and pay driver Paul Belmondo.

The woeful Pacific PR01 chassis from the 1994 Formula One World Championship Season.

The season was a disaster from start to finish however. Using many F3000 parts as well as running a chassis designed by an organisation that had ceased to exist meant the team had no chance. Combined with the fact the aerodynamic data had also been sold meant the team's engineers had very little to work on. After merging with the defunct Team Lotus, the 1995 season saw increased investment and as a result that year's PR02 chassis was a significant improvement on the 1994 PR01 car. It was not enough however and Pacific GP folded before the 1996 season began.

Benetton/Renault/Lotus (1992 - Present): Once more benefiting from the services of the returning Rory Byrne was not the only boon the team received from the demise of the Reynard F1 program. They were also able to upgrade from their then base at nearby Witney to the aborted project's new facility just up the road at Enstone. These improved surroundings enabled the team to begin the process of planning for their own wind tunnel to be constructed at the location in 1996, which in turn later made Benetton an attractive proposition when Renault were looking at buying them out and setting up their own works team during the year 2000.

The immediate impact of these changes was the dramatic improvement of the B192 chassis over it's predecessor when it made it's debut at the 1992 Spanish GP. That year's driver line up Michael Schumacher and Martin Brundle noticed the increased driveability of the car over the B191 (which Brundle described as "handling like a bathtub with a loose wheel") from the outset. During 1992 the Williams-Renault team were virtually unstoppable, however Benetton suprisingly emerged as their nearest challengers during the course of the season and were regularly embarrassing Mclaren who had won the driver's title the previous year with Ayrton Senna. By the year's end the Enstone outfit had scored points in every single championship round as well a maiden victory for both team and driver when Schumacher used an excellent pitstop strategy to leap frog Nigel Mansell into the lead of the wet/dry Belgian GP.

Michael Schumacher leads team mate Martin Brundle in the Benetton B192.

The improved facilities at Enstone also accelerated the development of the Benetton's electronic driver aids program for the 1993 season and that year's B193 chassis. This car was ready for the opening round of the season in South Africa and featured a new traction control system. Active suspension, which had become an essential technology to challenge for the title during the 1992 and 1993 seasons was not available until the sixth round in Monaco however. This delay, combined with a resurgent Mclaren meant that Benetton fell back a little on the previous season and had to settle for a single victory, again taken by Schumacher (but this time at the 1993 Portuguese GP) and third place in the constructor's championship. Late in the year the team also became the only team to experiment with a four wheel steering system to try and dial out some of the B192 and B193 chassis' natural tendency to oversteer.

The 1994 and 1995 seasons were to prove to be Benetton's high water mark in Formula One. For 1994 all electronic driver aids were banned. This put several teams (particularly Williams) on the back foot for the opening rounds of the season. Benetton meanwhile had thrown a great deal of effort into their B194 challenger for this year. They were the first to launch their car and had a great deal of testing mileage under their belt when the championship kicked off in Brazil. Despite being an improvement over last year's Ford HBA engine, the new Cosworth built, Zetec unit was still well down on power compared to the Renault engine that Williams had at their disposal. This did not prove to be the handicap it had been in previous years however as the rules for the 1994 season played to Benetton's strengths perfectly.

The driver's world championship winning B194 of 1994.

The new car was nimble and well balanced, where other teams had produced nervous, difficult to drive cars that were clearly lacking the safety net of the electronic driver aids they had enjoyed in previous seasons. Even before Ayrton Senna's tragic death at the San Marino GP it was clear  Benetton and Schumacher were the team to beat early in the campaign. This began to change mid season as both team and driver became embroiled in a series of damaging controversies, a process that was accelerated when Williams introduced a much improved B-spec version of the FW16 at the German GP. Benetton were able to just hold on and take the driver's title at the final round in Australia after a suspicious coming together between Schumacher and Williams team leader Damon Hill.

For 1995, through some political maneuvering lead by team manager Flavio Briatore, Benneton were able to acquire the use of Renault engines by the Italian team manager buying the Ligier team and transferring their engine deal to Benetton. Naturally Williams were decidedly unhappy with all of this, but were powerless to stop what was at that point considered the dream ticket in Formula One of Schumacher, Benetton and Renault. The eleven victories for the team that season (nine for Schumacher and two for second driver Johnny Herbert) suggest that the Enstone outfit were the class of the field, however this is somewhat misleading.

The Williams FW17 built for the 1995 season showed itself to be a better handling car overall, however Damon Hill had a shocking season, making numerous unforced errors and allowing Schumacher to run away with the driver's title and help Benetton to their first (and only constructors championship). Indeed the B195 proved itself to be an extremely difficult car to drive on the limit and it was only the near faultless driving of Michael Schumacher that year that made the title look like a procession.

Michael Schumacher at the wheel of the 1995 Driver's and Constructor's World Title winning Benetton-Renault B195 chassis.

After Schumacher departed for Ferrari in 1996, taking most of Benetton's key technical people with him the team went in a rapid decline. This decline accelerated after Briatore's departure from the team in 1997, along with the withdrawal of engine supplier Renault at the close of that season and ended with the team being bought by the returning Renault in the year 2000.

Despite being owned by the French automotive giant, the team continued to race under the Benetton name for the 2001 season as the foundations were laid for a full comeback into the sport as a works team for the 2002 championship year. Renault invested heavily after years of decline under Benetton, increasing staff head count and improving facilities.

A first win for the new team came from the young Spanish driver Fernando Alonso at the 2003 Hungarian GP and by mid 2004 he was clearly Renault's lead driver. The 2005 season saw new rules drafted that were specifically targeted at stopping the Ferrari juggernaut of previous years and the Anglo-French team were best placed to pick up the pieces. Renault and Alonso were able to hold off the speed of Raikkonen and the might of Mclaren to take a driver's and constructor's championship double. The following year they held off strong competition from Ferrari and Michael Schumacher to take another championship double.

Fernando Alonso at the wheel of the Renault R25 chassis.

Thereafter Renault's commitment to F1 appeared to waver. Lead driver Alonso departed for Mclaren and through 2007 and 2008 their title campaigns seemed unfocused and lacking the drive of previous seasons. The fall out from the Nelson Piquet Jr "Crashgate" scandal combined with one of the worst global economic crisis in history saw the French manufacturer begin to scale back their involvement in the sport, with a view of either selling the team or withdrawing the operation altogether.

From the 2010 season onwards Genii Capital, a Luxembourg based investment company became the team's principal owner. Renault scaled back it's ownership to just 25% overall, but continued in it's role as engine supplier for the team. During the 2011 season there was a great deal of confusion about whether Group Lotus had bought out Renault's 25% stake in the Formula One operation or not, however what was clear was the they had taken over as the team's title sponsor. From this season moving forward the team also adopted the classic black and gold colour scheme of the Team Lotus F1 team from years gone by and began racing under the name of "Lotus Renault GP". This was despite there already being another team in the sport called "Team Lotus", who were racing using the name under a licence that was soon terminated and later competed under the Caterham moniker. This finally cleared the way for the team to simply be known as "Lotus F1 Team" from 2012 onwards.

Kimi Raikkonen and the 2012 Lotus F1 chassis. 

As of the end of 2012 Group Lotus still have an option to purchase Renault's 25% stake in the team, but this has not yet been taken up.