France Thanks for the Memories!

So with Bernie Ecclestones future race plans seemingly excluding European tracks more and more this was the last race in France for a few years it seems. The Magny-Cours track was not really liked with the teams, it was "In the Middle of nowhere" and never took off in the way the organisers planned. But as we say fair well* I think it is only fair to remember some of the races that this race threw up.

1992- Schumacher upsets Senna.
1992 was a walkover for Mansell in his Williams FW14b He lapped everyone but his teammate in 2nd place. Only 11 out of the 26 starters finished. But Coming into the Adelaide hairpin a young Schumacher took Ayrton Senna out of the race. The race was restarted when it began raining, Schumacher crashed again in the same place on the first lap. The first crash did not please the Brazilian world champion who had words with Schumi after he race. Even though Mansell won his team-mate Riccardo Patrese twice passed Nigel Mansell at both starts but yielded just one lap after the second start, when quizzed afterwards on whether team orders existed in the Williams team he refused to comment. And lorry blockades meant that struggling Andrea Moda team didnt appear at this race, every other team was also effected but all managed to make their way to the circuit and compete in the race.

1998- Ferrari takes first 1-2 in 8 years
A good strategy and an embarrassing spin for Hakkinen in front of his team enabled Ferrari to take its first 1-2 since the days of Mansell-Prost back in 1990. But the best memory is the final corner of the final lap Both Irvine and Hakkinen nailing the throttle Irvine defending his second place with a large amount of tire smoke by just 1 tenth of a second!

1999- Frentzen Drives a Stormer, Literally.
It was a rain-affected race that Frentzen won brilliantly, so well that his teammate Damon Hill had decided enough was enough and decided to retire from F1 at the end of the season. Qualifying had been a strange affair too with rain throwing a mixed grid with Mika Hakkinen 14th and Eddie Irvine 14th, on pole was Rubens Barrichello then a Stewart diver with the Sauber of Alesi in second and The Prost of Oliver Panis in 3rd. This team would go bankrupt at the end of 2001. Hakkinen drove a good race to finish 2nd with Barrichello 3rd, Ralf Schumacher finished 4th who would score all of the teams 35 points and seemed to be coming of age to be a future world champion as his brother. 5th was the older Schumacher and 6th was his teammate Irvine. Drivers that spun off included Zanardi, Villeneuve, Wurz, Gene, Alesi, Coulthard and Fisichella. Michael Schumacher was unhappy, as his race had been ruined by a transmission problem. Still, it could of been worse I mean he could of broken his leg in the following race or something, oh wait...

2000- David Coulthards Finest race.
Many people say that Monaco 02 was Coulthards best race but I disagree. As Monaco is a no overtaking zone it was easier for DC. In France however Dc had to close down on and pass both Ferrari's and beat his teammate He passed Rubens Barrichello then went for Schumi, Schumacher proved less easy cutting Coulthard up at the Adelaide hairpin. This upset the Mclaren driver, showing Schumi the international sign for w***** followed by the middle finger. It didn’t matter though as Coulthard passed him the following lap rubbing wheels whilst getting past. Schumacher’s engine blew up and Dc lead home a Mclaren 1-2.

2002- Schumi equals Fangio
So Schumacher won the world title in record time, but the race was full of incident. Firstly Both Schumacher brothers and Coulthard crossed the white line that separates the track from the drivers rejoining from the pit lane. This gave them all drive-through penalties. Michael however was able to claw his way back up to 2nd and behind race leader Raikkonen. With 5 laps to go Raikkonen went wide at the Adelaide hairpin on oil left from the blown engine of Toyota's Alan Mcnish, As Raikkonen came back on track Schumacher was right along side the Finn and managed to get past. But had Schumacher passed under a yellow flag? The confusion was that Kimi had gone off track so what could Schumacher do? It was a harsh way for Kimi to loose the race, Schumacher said realising he could now win the race it was the worst five laps of his career. Kimi said that even though 2nd was the best result of his career it was his worst race for him ever losing the win. Geesh cheer up guys feel sorry for Rubens Barrichello, His car 3rd on the grid never even fired up to start the warm up lap. He was at the airport ready to go home when the Ferrari team rang him to say Schumacher had won, So he had to go back and pose for team photos and act all happy in the celebrations when he hadn’t even done a single lap of the track.

2004- Ferrari pulls a fast one.
This was a demonstration of how the Schumacher Ferrari dream team was at the height of its powers. For much of the race Renaults Fernando Alonso lead the race with Schumacher Stuck right behind him unable to pass. With the pit lane being so short at this circuit a pit stop only costing around 21 second, The Ferrari pit wall had worked out such was its raw pace advantage it could jump Alonso if they got some clean air. They did this by switching to a 4-stop strategy! It was a challenge that Schumacher relished taking the win from the Renault team. It also got worse for Renault when on the penultimate corner of the last lap Rubens Barrichello Passed Jarno Trulli for 3rd place. This put Trulli in the bad books with Renault boss Flavio Briatore so much so he left the team a few races later to join Toyota.


So Magny Cours has thrown up some good races, Notably 92 and 99 that were rain affected. And a lot of the Action has happened at Adelaide hairpin. I remember the Prost teammates smashing into each other in 00. But if this is the last time we are to visit France for a while then it is only right to mention Dijon 1979 Gilles Villeneuve vs. Rene Arnoux. The Renault of Jean-Pierre Jabouille won to take the first turbo victory. But the race is always remembered for the fierce wheel banging action for 2nd place between Villenuve and Arnoux. The locking up of the brakes and the sheer determination of Villeneuve is amazing to watch. I wasn't even born then but thanks to old grainy footage I was able to see it. So if you haven’t seen it I suggest you go on to youtube and type in "Dijon 79 Villenuve Arnoux" And enjoy one of the greatest scraps in F1 history and you have France to thank for it.

* Id like to point out there is no way I am going to put the cheesy cliché of Au Revouir France in this article. Its probably already been done to death.