1997 Argentine Grand Prix

F1 Argentina Argentine 3 17 1997 Autódromo_Oscar_y_Juan_Gálvez_Circuito_N°_6_por_Senna.svg XX Gran Premio Marlboro de la Republica Argentina 13 April Autódromo Oscar Alfredo GálvezBuenos Aires, Argentina Permanent racing facility 2.646 4.259 72 190.542 306.648 Partially cloudy and dry, with temperatures reaching up to 21 C FWeather info for the 1997 Argentine Grand Prix at Weather Underground Canada Jacques Villeneuve Williams-Renault 1:24.473 Austria Gerhard Berger Benetton-Renault 1:27.981 63 Canada Jacques Villeneuve Williams-Renault United Kingdom Eddie Irvine Ferrari Germany Ralf Schumacher Jordan-Peugeot ARG 1997 Brazilian Grand Prix 1997 San Marino Grand Prix The 1997 Argentine Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Autódromo Oscar Alfredo Gálvez in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 13 April 1997. It was the third race of the 1997 Formula One World Championship, and the 600th World Championship Grand Prix. The 72-lap race was won from pole position by Jacques Villeneuve, driving a Williams-Renault. Eddie Irvine finished second in a Ferrari, while Ralf Schumacher, in only his third F1 race, finished third in a Jordan-Peugeot. Summary Pre-race Most of the talk before the grand prix was about Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Eddie Irvine and their poor starts to the season. Despite going out of business, Lola Team Principal Eric Broadley was confident that the team could be up and running again by the San Marino Grand Prix, albeit with a new main sponsor. The Tyrrell team also caused a stir after arriving at the grand prix with four new wings on the car, two on the nose cone, the other two alongside the drivers head. They resembled x-wings and this was soon used as their nickname. The practice session bought no surprises with the two Williams cars first and second. Qualifying As with the practice session, both Williams were once again on the front row, with Jacques Villeneuve on pole. The first real surprise of the weekend was the performance of Olivier Panis in the Prost, who managed to qualify third on the grid. Another strong performance was the fifth place of Rubens Barrichello in the Stewart. As expected, both McLarens qualified low down the field, complaining of poor handling on the bumpy surface. The slowest qualifier Pedro Diniz's lap time would have still been comfortably fast enough to have put him on pole for the previous year's race. Race As the red lights went out, Jacques Villeneuve cleanly navigated the first corner and began to pull away from the other front runners. Michael Schumacher (who was unsighted by oil from Frentzen's car) almost collided with Panis, but the Frenchman moved off line to drop a few places rather than to collide with the Ferrari. Going into the first corner, Michael Schumacher was alongside his teammate Irvine and Rubens Barrichello. However, Michael then understeered and crashed into the back of Barrichello's car causing the Brazilian to spin and getting himself to retire. Barrichello would eventually change his front nose and get going again. But in the melee, Coulthard crashed into the back of Ralf Schumacher's Jordan, ripping of his front wheel and putting him out of the race. The track was unpassable with the back of the field taking to the grass to get round the incident, so the Safety Car was called out. The biggest improvement was made by Pedro Diniz, who climbed eleven places from last to 11th spot on the first lap. At the restart after 4 laps, Villeneuve once again pulled away from Frentzen and Panis, but Frentzen's race ended on lap 6 with throttle problems. The chance of victory for Prost ended on lap 18, also with throttle problems. Both Arrows drivers showed a strong run on the first third of the race, with Damon Hill chasing Jean Alesi for the sixth place and Pedro Diniz in 8th holding Jos Verstappen, Gerhard Berger and Mika Häkkinen. When Damon Hill and Jean Alesi tangled braking into Turn 1, Diniz was able to slip by both. On lap 24 the two Jordans collided with Giancarlo Fisichella retiring from the race. Hill, who was up to 4th at one point, retired with engine failure on lap 33, meanwhile his teammate suffered with a long pit stop, which costed him more than fifty seconds, dropped back and retired with engine failure too. Although in the final few laps Irvine closed the gap to Villeneuve, the Canadian held tight and went on to win his sixth career grand prix. Irvine finished second, the highest finish of his career at that point, with Ralf Schumacher scoring his first podium in third. Post-race August 2023 On the podium the organisers flew the Irish tricolour for Irvine,McCarthy Martin 13 May 1997 Irvine refuses to make issue of flag choice https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/irvine-refuses-to-make-issue-of-flag-choice-1.71784 The Irish Times 18 July 2017 instead of the Union Jack that was usuallyAugust 2023 flown for Northern Irish drivers. Although Irvine identifies himself as Irish despite holding a British passport, his parents' house in County Down was targeted by loyalists as they felt they had been betrayed by the Ferrari driver.August 2023 Irvine subsequently asked for a white flag with a shamrock to be used if he secured another podium finish;August 2023 however, the FIA insisted that the Union Jack be used in future.August 2023 Classification Qualifying Pos No Driver Constructor Time Gap 1 3 Canada Jacques Villeneuve Williams-Renault 1:24.473 2 4 Germany Heinz-Harald Frentzen Williams-Renault 1:25.271 +0.798 3 14 France Olivier Panis Prost-Mugen-Honda 1:25.491 +1.018 4 5 Germany Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:25.773 +1.300 5 22 Brazil Rubens Barrichello Stewart-Ford 1:25.942 +1.469 6 11 Germany Ralf Schumacher Jordan-Peugeot 1:26.218 +1.745 7 6 United Kingdom Eddie Irvine Ferrari 1:26.327 +1.854 8 16 United Kingdom Johnny Herbert Sauber-Petronas 1:26.564 +2.091 9 12 Italy Giancarlo Fisichella Jordan-Peugeot 1:26.619 +2.149 10 10 United Kingdom David Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes 1:26.799 +2.326 11 7 France Jean Alesi Benetton-Renault 1:27.076 +2.603 12 8 Austria Gerhard Berger Benetton-Renault 1:27.259 +2.786 13 1 United Kingdom Damon Hill Arrows-Yamaha 1:27.281 +2.808 14 17 Italy Nicola Larini Sauber-Petronas 1:27.690 +3.217 15 23 Denmark Jan Magnussen Stewart-Ford 1:28.035 +3.562 16 18 Netherlands Jos Verstappen Tyrrell-Ford 1:28.094 +3.621 17 9 Finland Mika Häkkinen McLaren-Mercedes 1:28.135 +3.662 18 21 Italy Jarno Trulli Minardi-Hart 1:28.160 +3.687 19 19 Finland Mika Salo Tyrrell-Ford 1:28.224 +3.751 20 15 Japan 1947 Shinji Nakano Prost-Mugen-Honda 1:28.366 +3.893 21 20 Japan 1947 Ukyo Katayama Minardi-Hart 1:28.413 +3.940 22 2 Brazil Pedro Diniz Arrows-Yamaha 1:28.969 +4.496107% time : 1:30.386Source:1997 Argentine GP Qualifying Chicane F1 http://www.chicanef1.com/race.pl?year=1997&gp=Argentine%20GP&type=qual 2007-08-06 2018-06-17 https://web.archive.org/web/20180617142233/http://www.chicanef1.com/race.pl?year=1997&gp=Argentine%20GP&type=qual dead Race Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 3 Canada Jacques Villeneuve Williams-Renault 72 1:52:01.715 1 10 2 6 UK Eddie Irvine Ferrari 72 +0.979 7 6 3 11 Germany Ralf Schumacher Jordan-Peugeot 72 +12.089 6 4 4 16 UK Johnny Herbert Sauber-Petronas 72 +29.919 8 3 5 9 Finland Mika Häkkinen McLaren-Mercedes 72 +30.351 17 2 6 8 Austria Gerhard Berger Benetton-Renault 72 +31.393 12 1 7 7 France Jean Alesi Benetton-Renault 72 +46.359 11   8 19 Finland Mika Salo Tyrrell-Ford 71 +1 lap 19   9 21 Italy Jarno Trulli Minardi-Hart 71 +1 lap 18   10 23 Denmark Jan Magnussen Stewart-Ford 66 Engine 15   Ret Retired 17 Italy Nicola Larini Sauber-Petronas 63 Spun off 14   Ret Retired 2 Brazil Pedro Diniz Arrows-Yamaha 50 Engine 22   Ret Retired 15 Japan 1947 Shinji Nakano Prost-Mugen-Honda 49 Engine 20   Ret Retired 18 Netherlands Jos Verstappen Tyrrell-Ford 43 Engine 16   Ret Retired 20 Japan 1947 Ukyo Katayama Minardi-Hart 37 Spun off 21   Ret Retired 1 UK Damon Hill Arrows-Yamaha 33 Engine 13   Ret Retired 12 Italy Giancarlo Fisichella Jordan-Peugeot 24 Collision 9   Ret Retired 22 Brazil Rubens Barrichello Stewart-Ford 24 Hydraulics 5   Ret Retired 14 France Olivier Panis Prost-Mugen-Honda 18 Electrical 3   Ret Retired 4 Germany Heinz-Harald Frentzen Williams-Renault 5 Clutch 2   Ret Retired 5 Germany Michael Schumacher Ferrari 0 Collision 4   Ret Retired 10 UK David Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes 0 Collision 10  Source:http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1997/149/ 1997 Argentine Grand Prix formula1.com https://web.archive.org/web/20141029040313/http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1997/149/ 29 October 2014 24 December 2015 Championship standings after the race Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Canada Jacques Villeneuve 20 2 UK David Coulthard 10 3 Austria Gerhard Berger 10 4 Finland Mika Häkkinen 9 5 Germany Michael Schumacher 8Source:https://www.statsf1.com/en/1997/argentine/championnat.aspx Argentina 1997 - Championship • STATS F1 www.statsf1.com 6 March 2019 Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 UK Williams-Renault 20 2 UK McLaren-Mercedes 19 3 Italy Ferrari 14 4 Italy Benetton-Renault 11 5 France Prost-Mugen-Honda 6Source: First podium: Ralf Schumacher Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. References Race Details: 1997 Argentine GP Chicane F1 http://www.chicanef1.com/racetit.pl?year=1997&gp=Argentine%20GP 2007-08-06 2018-06-17 https://web.archive.org/web/20180617165104/http://www.chicanef1.com/racetit.pl?year=1997&gp=Argentine%20GP dead Argentine Grand Prix 1997 1997 Brazilian Grand Prix 1997 San Marino Grand Prix 1996 Argentine Grand Prix 1998 Argentine Grand Prix Argentine Grand Prix Category:Argentine Grand Prix Grand Prix Argentine Grand Prix