We had an interview with Jos just ...
Published on 14 July 1996 by Verstappen Info Page
We had an interview with Jos just after the race. See Interview with Jos.
RACE REPORT:
Jos started the race with the old version of the engine. After a disappointing qualifying session Jos stated before RTL5 television that the set up of the car was completely changed with which he was pleased.
When the lights turned to green it was Jacques Villeneuve who was the fastest, immediatley followed by Jean Alesi and Mika Hakkinen. Hill started badly and even had to let Schumacher get past. Jos had a safe start, managed to grab two places from Salo and Katayama and was 13th after the first lap.
The race ended in tears again for Ferrari. First it was Michael Schumacher who got back to the pit in lap 3 with a broken gearbox and in lap 5 Irvine blew up his engine. In the meantime Villeneuve took the lead firmly in hand. Diniz, who was just behind Jos Verstappen, had a spin in lap 10 and was overtaken by both Tyrrell's. In lap 12 Panis overtook Jos. In the same lap Katayama had to get to the pit and retired because of a water leak, apparently indirectly caused by the spin of Diniz. In lap 13 Ricardo Rosset had to retire with an alternator failure which caused the engine to cut out.
After a spin and retirement in lap 21 of Pedro Lamy the race-order (lap 22) was: Villeneuve, Alesi, Hakkinen, Hill, Berger, Coulthard, Barrichello, Herbert, Brundle, Frentzen, Verstappen, Salo, Diniz, Panis and Fisichella. From this lap onwards until lap 44 all drivers had one or more pitstops. Two stop drivers like Barrichello, Villeneuve, Herbert, Coulthard and Hakkinen all had their first stop between laps 23 and 27. In lap 26 Hill had a spin and retired. It wasn't his fault: A wheel nut came undone and resulted in braking on one wheel which caused a spin. Due to this retirement and some pitstops Jos was now on a 9th position.
Brundle had an unplanned pit stop in lap 29 because he had a flat tyre, and Jos had his pitstop in lap 30. The pitstop itself went well but due to miscommunication (see interview above) he came in a lap late and he had to drive extra careful for about three laps to warm up his tyres. All the other one stop strategy drivers, Frentzen, Alesi, Salo, Berger and Fischella came in around this time for pitstops.
From lap 38 to 40 it was closing time for Ligier. First Diniz went out in lap 38 with a blown up engine and in lap 40 Panis, who seemed to have problems during the whole race, retired. In lap 44 Alesi, who was third until then, had to give up after his right back brake had heated up too much. From then on until the end of the race Jos closed in on Herbert up until about 4.2 seconds but alas couldn't overtake him.
The race ended in a victory for Villeneuve, followed by Berger, Hakkinen, Barrichello, Coulthard, Brundle, Salo, Frentzen, Herbert, Verstappen and Fisichella. See British Grand Prix results for the complete race results. Don't forget to compete in our race contest. Win a multimedia set by predicting the scores for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim. Send in your answers before july the 26th.
