At times, it seems difficult to believe it really has been twenty years. It seems fitting that for a contest so surreal, defined for the past two decades by its outlandishness, it is hard to grasp that a full score of years have passed since 19 May 1996 – the day of the Monaco Grand Prix. For it feels like the race belongs to a different past.
It was when unusual Formula One records were set – the lowest number of cars to finish a race with three – and the ever-destructive stew of wet weather, technical failure and errors produced a heap of battered cars and one unlikely winner.
Glamour and glory
Monaco is one of those wonderfully appropriate sporting arenas. It’s a place for the casinos, the rich and famous and all their expensive yachts. Precisely the kind of wealthy and extravagant indulgence that also characterises F1. Motor racing’s fury of loud noises, colour and sponsorship money is perfectly in step with glamour of tiny little Monte Carlo.
Over 75 laps and 3.328 kilometres, 22 men were facing a test of their driving ability. Monaco is one of those fiddly little circuits where there is llittle room for error. Grid positions become important, for falling behind can be very damaging and recovery is highly challenging to effect in those narrow, winding roads with acute turns.
That, however, is also why there is so much competitive glamour associated with Monaco. Because of the idiosyncratic nature of the track, the differences between the performances of cars are normalised. It all comes to the driver’s ability to manoeuvre the tight corners and awkward bends at low speeds.
This is Monaco’s mystique and also why it is an excellent filter mechanism. Because skill and mental strength is what counts, not the performance of the engine, it is here that the pretenders are separated from the contenders. Precision is essential, economy of movement is critical – the scalpel is a driver’s tool of choice rather than the bludgeon.
Schumacher edges qualifying
It was the afternoon of Saturday, 18 May and conditions were cool, grey and blustery. Many drivers, sensing the weather might turn foul in what was already the most difficult of races, racked up individual laps of their own as insurance policies.
Then there came a moment when the track momentarily seemed to clear. This is precisely what Englishman Damon Hill had been banking on. While all eyes were trained on Michael Schumacher, Hill thundered on, taking pole position with a time of 1:20.866.
But this is where the importance of the driver’s skill was hammered home. Roaring his middle-of-the-road (pun mildly intended) Ferrari F310 on to breaking point, Schumacher insouciantly took pole position from Hill by half a second – a staggering lap of 1:20.356. It was the first Ferrari pole at Monaco since the South African Jody Scheckter recorded one in 1979.
Olivier Panis, meanwhile, was way down in 14th, his supposedly potent Ligier running into an engine problem during qualifying.
Monaco is drenched
Panis was fastest in the dry warm-up, his Ligier fully realising the potential of its speed. But that’s when the rain came pouring down. It was furious, relentless and Monaco was soaked. As per F1 regulations, an extra 15-minute session was held in the wet so that drivers could get used to conditions.
Andrea Montermini’s crashing of his Forti outside the tunnel and his team’s lack of a spare car meant that only 21 cars actually started the race.
As the rain stopped and the track began to dry, everybody took to the starting grid with wet tires, apart from Jos Verstappen of Arrows, who reckoned he had nothing to lose from his 12th-place on the grid anyway.
The race
Monaco 1996 was chaos right from the off. Verstappen’s gamble looked to be working, until he clipped Hakkinen while unwisely trying to overtake the Finn and slammed into the wall. Elsewhere, the two Minardis farcically collided into each other. All three were out of the race.
But the most significant elimination was yet to happen. Going past Loews Hairpin, Hill had got away from Schumacher. Then, at the eerily unnamed turn after Loews, the German clipped the inside kerb, hit a wall and came to a stop just before Portier. Pole position was out of the race.
Elsewhere, Rubens Barrichello had slammed his Jordan backwards into the wall at Rascasse. It was unbelievable stuff, watching the cars drop like flies. There were only 16 cars left in the race after the first lap. Then 13 after 5 laps. Then 12 after 10. It was thrills-and-spills like motor racing hadn’t seen for a long time.
It was wonderful symmetry. As the number of retirees kept increasing, Hill’s also kept increasing. It was 4.3 seconds after the first lap, nine-plus after the third and almost 25 after the twentieth. Alesi had no chance of catching him.
But then, disaster struck on lap 40, when Hill’s engine blew up and he had to retire from a race he was dominating. Alesi himself lasted a further 20 laps before being sidelined by a broken rear suspension.
Irvine locks it down
Eddie Irvine had risen to fourth from his starting position of seventh after Schumacher and Barrichello had exited stage left. From then on, for the largest chunk of the race, Irvine drove his Ferrari at plodding pace in the middle of the road, blocking the passage of the cars behind him.
Behind Irvine were Heinz-Harald Frentzen in the Sauber and David Coulthard, wearing a helmet borrowed from Schumacher, in the McLaren. Frentzen tried to overtake Irvine but damaged his front wing doing so. Frentzen might have actually won the race had he been a bit more patient, for after stopping in the pits to replace the car’s nose, he was stuck behind other cars again.
Frentzen actually finished the race, one of the few to do so, but was in the pits during the chequered flag. Coulthard, on the other hand, was undone by his own management. The McLaren team had mystifyingly chosen to give pitting preference to Hakkinen, who was way behind.
The final few laps had only four cars running as Coulthard attempted to chase down Panis amidst tempestuous weather and much thrill. But he just knew the Frenchman was too far out of reach and merely settled for finishing the race.
Olivier the hero
Where, in the midst of this destruction derby, was the actual race winner? Panis had been driving wonderfully. He rose to 12th in the early laps, before going past Martin Brundle, Hakkinen and Johnny Herbert at the Loews Hairpin.
His pit-stop was perfectly timed – he went from seventh to fourth. Faced with Irvine and his attritional driving next, Panis checked inside the Ferrari at the Loews, knocking it into a standstill as he went past. Bit by bit, Panis was clawing back ground as he waged a war for first place with compatriot Alesi.
Finally, as Alesi made for the pits, the moment had arrived. Panis stormed into the gap at the head of the queue left by the Benetton. It was a moment to be cherished as Panis became the first French driver in a French car to win at Monaco – the first since Rene Dreyfus in 1930.
Epilogue
Herbert was the third driver of three to cross the finish line in his Sauber. He hadn’t driven a particularly spectacular race, but in a contest which had lost 18 of its 21 participants along the way, he should be praised for making it over the line in one piece.
But this was Panis’ moment. As he knifed through a maze of cars and turns on his way to victory, Panis had driven with commendable style and steel. In this collector’s item of a race, it was a splendid combination of strategy, finesse and concentration that decided the winner.
Olivier Panis never won another race in F1. But when you win one of the most surreal races in the history of the sport, you get the right to brag a little.
