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| 1994 Japanese Grand Prix | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 15 of 16 in the1994 Formula One World Championship | |||
.svg) | |||
| Race details[1] | |||
| Date | 6 November 1994 | ||
| Official name | XX Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix | ||
| Location | Suzuka Circuit Suzuka,Mie,Japan | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||
| Course length | 5.860 km (3.641 miles) | ||
| Distance | 50 laps, 293.000 km (182.062 miles) | ||
| Scheduled distance | 53 laps, 310.580 km (192.985 miles) | ||
| Weather | Heavy rain, followed by light showers | ||
| Attendance | 357,000[2] | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Benetton-Ford | ||
| Time | 1:37.209 | ||
| Fastest lap | |||
| Driver |  Damon Hill | Williams-Renault | |
| Time | 1:56.597 on lap 24 | ||
| Podium | |||
| First | Williams-Renault | ||
| Second | Benetton-Ford | ||
| Third | Ferrari | ||
Lap leaders | |||
The1994 Japanese Grand Prix (officially theXX Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix) was aFormula One motor race held on 6 November 1994 at theSuzuka Circuit,Suzuka. It was the fifteenth and penultimate race of the1994 Formula One World Championship. In wet conditions, the 50-lap race was won byDamon Hill, driving aWilliams-Renault, after he started from second position. Hill's Drivers' Championship rivalMichael Schumacher finished second in hisBenetton-Ford, having started frompole position, withJean Alesi third in hisFerrari. The win left Hill just one point behind Schumacher in the Drivers' Championship with one race remaining. This also proved to be the last Grand Prix forÉrik Comas. This was also the last time in Formula 1 history when the race was split in two parts due to race stoppage and final classification has been set by aggregate time.
Going into the race,Benetton driverMichael Schumacher led the Drivers' Championship with 86 points, five ahead of rivalDamon Hill in theWilliams on 81.[3] Schumacher felt he was "very confident" about the race,[4] and Hill similarly declared that he was "positive".[4]
There were several changes of driver for this race:Johnny Herbert moved fromLigier toBenetton after just one race for the French team, replacingJos Verstappen. His place at Ligier was taken byFranck Lagorce.Eric Bernard lost his seat atLotus toMika Salo who had been racing in JapaneseFormula 3000, and likewiseSimtek hiredTaki Inoue on a one-race deal, replacingDomenico Schiattarella. Finally,JJ Lehto returned toSauber to replaceAndrea de Cesaris after the Italian's sudden retirement from Formula One.
The race started in torrential rain, and as a result, several cars spun out of the race by aquaplaning, including Schumacher's team-mate Herbert on lap 4, Lagorce, theMinardis ofPierluigi Martini andMichele Alboreto, and all three Japanese drivers by the end of lap 3 (with bothUkyo Katayama andHideki Noda being injured in separate crashes). Lehto also retired at the start with an engine failure. As didGerhard Berger in the second Ferrari with battery problems by lap 11.
On lap 13,Gianni Morbidelli crashed hisFootwork at one of the Esses at the first sector. Shortly afterwards,Martin Brundle spun hisMcLaren off the track and crashed at the same spot, and as he bounced off the tyre barriers, hit a track marshal who was moving Morbidelli's car off the gravel trap. The marshal suffered a broken leg, adding to the huge list of injuries of the 1994 season, and the race was immediately stopped, as both Brundle and Morbidelli were fortunately able to escape uninjured.Rubens Barrichello soon retired in the pits with transmission problems by lap 17, Blundell was also forced to retire from 10th position when his engine failed on lap 27, which ended an appalling weekend for Tyrrell.[5] This left 13 runners, and there were no further retirements for the remaining 23 laps.
As the rain eased, it was decided to run the remainder of the race, with around one hour to the time limit, on aggregate corrected time. Schumacher had been leading by 6.8 seconds when the red flag was shown, but Hill had a bigger lead (10.1 seconds) at the chequered flag, and thus took the win by 3.3 seconds on aggregate. This remains the last instance of aggregate race time being used in Formula One to determine the winner.[6][7]
Hill subsequently stated that his driving was "on a different level from how I’d ever driven before", noting that he never would achieve that level of performance again in his career.[8][9]
| Pos | No | Driver | Constructor | Q1 Time | Q2 Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 |  Michael Schumacher | Benetton-Ford | 1:37.209 | 1:57.128 | |
| 2 | 0 | Damon Hill | Williams-Renault | 1:37.696 | 1:57.278 | +0.487 |
| 3 | 30 | Heinz-Harald Frentzen | Sauber-Mercedes | 1:37.742 | 1:56.935 | +0.533 |
| 4 | 2 | Nigel Mansell | Williams-Renault | 1:37.768 | 2:00.963 | +0.559 |
| 5 | 6 | Johnny Herbert | Benetton-Ford | 1:37.828 | 1:59.729 | +0.619 |
| 6 | 15 | Eddie Irvine | Jordan-Hart | 1:37.880 | 1:57.760 | +0.671 |
| 7 | 27 |  Jean Alesi | Ferrari | 1:37.907 | 1:58.610 | +0.698 |
| 8 | 7 |  Mika Häkkinen | McLaren-Peugeot | 1:37.998 | 1:58.204 | +0.789 |
| 9 | 8 | Martin Brundle | McLaren-Peugeot | 1:38.076 | 1:56.876 | +0.877 |
| 10 | 14 |  Rubens Barrichello | Jordan-Hart | 1:38.533 | 2:01.905 | +1.324 |
| 11 | 28 |  Gerhard Berger | Ferrari | 1:38.570 | 1:58.926 | +1.361 |
| 12 | 10 |  Gianni Morbidelli | Footwork-Ford | 1:39.030 | 2:07.293 | +1.821 |
| 13 | 4 | Mark Blundell | Tyrrell-Yamaha | 1:39.266 | 2:02.266 | +2.057 |
| 14 | 3 |  Ukyo Katayama | Tyrrell-Yamaha | 1:39.462 | 2:04.187 | +2.253 |
| 15 | 29 | JJ Lehto | Sauber-Mercedes | 1:39.483 | 1:59.943 | +2.274 |
| 16 | 23 | Pierluigi Martini | Minardi-Ford | 1:39.548 | 2:01.929 | +2.339 |
| 17 | 12 | Alessandro Zanardi | Lotus-Mugen-Honda | 1:39.721 | 2:02.077 | +2.512 |
| 18 | 9 | Christian Fittipaldi | Footwork-Ford | 1:39.868 | 2:00.084 | +2.659 |
| 19 | 26 | Olivier Panis | Ligier-Renault | 1:40.042 | 2:00.575 | +2.833 |
| 20 | 25 | Franck Lagorce | Ligier-Renault | 1:40.577 | 2:02.780 | +3.368 |
| 21 | 24 | Michele Alboreto | Minardi-Ford | 1:40.652 | 2:02.219 | +3.443 |
| 22 | 20 | Érik Comas | Larrousse-Ford | 1:40.978 | 2:01.035 | +3.769 |
| 23 | 19 | Hideki Noda | Larrousse-Ford | 1:40.990 | 2:05.354 | +3.781 |
| 24 | 31 |  David Brabham | Simtek-Ford | 1:41.659 | 2:09.453 | +4.450 |
| 25 | 11 | Mika Salo | Lotus-Mugen-Honda | 1:41.805 | 2:01.637 | +4.596 |
| 26 | 32 | Taki Inoue | Simtek-Ford | 1:45.004 | no time | +7.795 |
| DNQ | 34 | Bertrand Gachot | Pacific-Ilmor | 1:46.374 | no time | +9.165 |
| DNQ | 33 | Paul Belmondo | Pacific-Ilmor | 1:46.629 | no time | +9.420 |
| Sources:[10][11][12] | ||||||
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Rundown of Drivers Championship table
| Previous race: 1994 European Grand Prix | FIA Formula One World Championship 1994 season | Next race: 1994 Australian Grand Prix |
| Previous race: 1993 Japanese Grand Prix | Japanese Grand Prix | Next race: 1995 Japanese Grand Prix |
