Bridge Over Troubled Waters

Senna and Mansell thread their way through the wreckage (Wikipedia image)

'F1: The Ultimate' was the rallying cry for the 1991 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide and in many ways, most of them perverse, the event would live up to its billing.

The somewhat world-weary F1 circus, having traipsed around the globe from Phoenix in March to Suzuka in October, arrived in Adelaide carrying with it excess baggage in the form of controversy involving two of its star performers. In fact, Alain Prost, the most successful driver of all with 44 Grand Prix victories, did not even appear. Meanwhile, Ayrton Senna, though he had just clinched his third World Championship, was perceived by his detractors to be wearing a crown of thorns. Both men got into trouble for speaking their minds.

Prost, who had the temerity to publicly criticise Ferrari, was unceremoniously dismissed by the famous Italian team on the Tuesday before the Australian race. "I've pointed out and underlined the defects of Ferrari throughout the season," Prost had claimed two weeks earlier in Japan, "but no one really listened to a word I said." Well, yes they had, according to Ferrari's Managing Director, and they didn't like what they heard. "We are always prepared to take constructive criticism as a team," Claudio Lombardi said in Adelaide, "but Prost made too many critical comments outside the team."

Prost was vacationing at a resort in Port Douglas when he received the shocking news that his services would no longer be required and that he would be replaced in Adelaide by Ferrari's test driver, Gianni Morbidelli. From then on all dialogue between the team and the fired Frenchman was conducted in press releases. Prost stated that 'Ferrari's treatment of me has been brutal.' Ferrari responded with a terse 'The behaviour of Prost was not according to our standards.' Prost's final words were that these would be his final words 'in light of possible litigation' over the shredding of his contract which was due to expire at the end of 1992. Ferrari said, OK, 'We may also take legal action...At this stage, we probably will.'

After he successfully defended his driving title in Japan Senna had delivered a passionate and profane post-race diatribe disparaging the former FIA President, Jean-Marie Balestre, whom Senna believed had manipulated the previous two World Championships in Alain Prost's favour. In Adelaide, after a meeting with Balestre's recently elected successor, Max Mosley, Senna made a partial apology, not so much for what he said but the words he used. In the interest of propriety the Brazilian declared that he wished to delete his expletives (mainly a favourite four letter, multi-purpose Anglo-Saxon curse) because "Some words that for me don't mean very much, for an English person can have a very strong meaning."

But Senna did not back down from anything else he said, including the revelation that he was so angry at Balestre's refusal to move pole position at Suzuka in 1990 that he vowed to take drastic action at the first corner: he would not give way if his championship rival Prost got a better start, even if it meant causing an accident - which, of course, it had, putting them both out of the race and giving Senna the title. The anti-Senna factions in the F1 media leapt at what they saw as this confirmation that he was a madman, conveniently ignoring the fact that Prost had said exactly the same thing at Suzuka in 1989, prior to his collision with Senna that gave Prost that year's title. Also overlooked by the Senna-haters were Prost's inflamatory statement issued earlier this season, after the German Grand Prix which had featured another instalment in his long-standing feud with Senna. "He did everything to stop me passing him," Prost fumed. "He weaved, braked early and then drove across in front of me. If he gets in my way again I'll just push him off."

"Gentlemen, shut your mouths!" was the message directed at the Grand Prix heroes and villains by those who felt they should let their driving do the talking. Meanwhile, 'The Ultimate Event' included a wide variety of entertainment to supplement the shenanigans of the F1 circus. There were contests for the loudest screaming (128 decibels were recorded by the winning male) and wolf-whistling (127 decibels), as well as gumboot throwing, bubblegum blowing and Human Fly Jumping, a bizarre activity wherein the contestants donned velcro suits and took flying leaps at a velcro-covered wall. Sustenance to fuel bodies engaged in such strenous activity included hotdogs, 150,000 of which would be consumed over the weekend, and the favourite thirst quencher proved to be the sponsors product. Ultimately, 223,500 liters of Foster's beer was quaffed, some of it poured by their handlers down the throats of exhausted ferrets, following their races in which the animals were required to run through sewage pipes.

All of this off-track action ceased whenever the ear-splitting shriek of F1 engines heralded the real reason for coming to Adelaide. The siren call to arms was first heard on Thursday when a separate qualifying session was held to whittle the 34 car entry down to more manageable size. Lost in the prequalifying shuffle were Gabriele Tarquini, whose reach exceeded his Fomet's grasp and it crashed into a wall, and Naoki Hattori, whose uncompetitive Coloni seemed a match for its rent-a-driver's absence of talent.

Sunny and warm South Australian spring weather continued on Friday, though the atmosphere in Adelaide was laden with a sense of urgency as the serious business of practice and qualifying to establish the 26 car starting grid got underway. In the morning session half a dozen cars spun as they sought to come to grips with the circuit's tricky twists and turns. The gyrators included Nigel Mansell whose Williams got away from him, unlike the 159kg shark he caught during a fishing expedition earlier in the week. After 90 hectic minutes of hard driving the timesheets were topped by the McLaren Honda team mates Gerhard Berger and Senna, followed by the Williams Renault of Riccardo Patrese. But all this was only a dress rehearsal for the action-packed hour of qualifying.

It began quietly as team managers waited for the anticipated improvement of track conditions, but in the last half hour everyone drove as if there was no tomorrow. There would have to be for Aguri Suzuki, who suffered heavy bruising when his Larrousse Lola crashed spectacularly into the barriers at the first chicane, showering the track with enough debris to bring out the red flag. When the session resumed the hectic interval between the green and chequered flags was dominated by Senna, Berger, Mansell and Patrese. This foursome had won all the previous races except the Canadian Grand Prix (where Nelson Piquet's Benetton inherited victory after the McLaren and Williams machinery faltered) and they had no intention of resting on their laurels in the season's grand finale. "If you win this one," Mansell noted, "you carry that good feeling with you until next year."

Good feelings prevailed that night in downtown Adelaide where the festive mood and racing influence was reflected in the evocative names of the many rock groups creating a tremendous din in the crowded bars. Notable among the noisemakers were Spank You Very Much (gigging at an establishment called the Asylum), Wholly Smoke, Adrenaline, Kickstart, Dirty Laundry, Cliff and The Hangovers, The Plague, Maelstrom and The Rhythm Method. F1's own group, The Pit Stop Boogie Boys (featuring mechanics from several teams and team owner Eddie Jordan on drums) would also perform, but only after the race, as would the American pop crooner Paul Simon, at a post-race concert inside the circuit.

The weather had taken a turn for the worse on Saturday morning, with dense cloud cover and occasional drops of rain splashing the tarmac where the cars were mostly engaged in experimenting with race set-ups. Senna and several others spun, leaving Berger, Patrese and Mansell with the fastest times at the end of the practice session, shortly after which a sudden drop in temperature was accompanied by enough rain to dampen the track and the hopes of those intent on improving their grid positions in the afternoon.

But the rain stopped before the final qualifying session began and the track became increasingly drier as the minutes ticked by. As more and more cars ventured out a dry line began to appear and the times, with the help of the lower ambient temperature, dropped accordingly. The intensity of the final quarter hour was electrifying, with cars being hurled around on the ragged edge of adhesion, in some cases beyond it, amidst very heavy traffic. Heightening the drama for the drivers, and provoking in them potent combinations of anxiety and adrenaline, was their knowledge that they could extract only two quick laps from each of their two sets of qualifying tyres. Frontrunners threaded their way daringly through backmarkers, who were propelled by a no less keenly felt sense of urgency since the slowest four of them would be eliminated from further competition. It was all quite desperate and the ferocious cut and thrust made it seem as if the Australian Grand Prix was already in progress. 

Meanwhile, Senna, the acknowledged polemaster, was typically biding his time, sitting patiently in his cockit in the McLaren pit, intently watching a monitor for signs of any slight gap in traffic. Slotting himself into one promising-looking interval he promptly reeled of a quite stunning lap (travelling the 2.349 miles in 1m 14.041s) to secure his 60th pole position (and his fifth consecutive in Adelaide) in 126 attempts. With Berger, Mansell, Patrese, Piquet, Michael Schumacher, Jean Alesi and Morbidelli having claimed the other top positions the front of the starting grid would feature a colourfully symmetrical lineup of teams: McLaren, Williams, Benetton and Ferrari. Not making the cut were Suzuki (Lola), Martin Brundle (Brabham), Eric Van de Poele (Lamborghini) and Bertrand Gachot (Lola) but their disappointment at being reduced to spectating roles would be alleviated somewhat by the frightening spectacle they would witness on the morrow.

On Sunday morning the warmup session, conducted under ominously cloudy skies, was led by Berger, Mansell and Senna, after which the polesitter ventured an opinion about the meteorological predictions of rain in the afternoon. Remembering the deluge-induced carnage in the 1989 race, Senna said "This place is terrible in the wet because the drainage is very bad and you get a lot of standing water. Really, it is not suitable for racing in the rain."

Yet race they did, or tried to, in what proved to be not so much a Grand Prix as a half hour of madness and mayhem in a monsoon.    As the torrential downpour from above mingled with walls of water churned skyward by spinning rain tyres few among the thousands of drenched spectators, let alone the soaked, vision-impaired occupants of the cockpits, were able to discern the details of what followed. But everyone, including the estimated 700 million TV viewers around the world, caught enough glimpses of spinning and crashing cars to soon realise that the event had deteriorated into a demented, hugely dangerous dodge-em derby in a deluge.

Satoru Nakajima (in his last F1 appearance) rammed his Tyrrell into the rear of Thierry Boutsen's Ligier (which suffered irreparable suspension damage), then spun out of the race on the fourth lap. Both Benettons spun but continued, only to trigger a more serious chain reaction of incidents on the Brabham straight. Piquet, unaware (indeed, unable to see anything in his Benetton's mirrors) that his team mate was intent on overtaking him, moved over on Schumacher whose abrupt avoidance manouevre sent him slewing sideways and directly into the path of the Ferrari of Alesi, whose intention had been to pass Schumacher. Both cars slammed into the wall, showering the track with wreckage and creating an obscured obstacle course which Nicola Larini failed to negotiate. Moments after Larini's Lamborghini crunched into the wall opposite the abandoned Ferrari and Benetton Pierliugi Martini's Minardi sailed out of control, rebounded off the wall and came to rest in the middle of the lake that now served as the track surface. In the gathering gloom track marshalls could be glimpsed wading around frantically trying to clear a semblance of a racing line, while the presence on the track of assorted safety vehicles and tow trucks seemed more hazardous than helpful.

Mercifully, and amazingly, no one had yet been hurt, but then came word that two marshalls were slightly injured by bits of flying bodywork shed by Mauricio Gugelmin's Leyton House as it aquaplaned into the wall in the pit lane. Next to come unstuck was Mansell, who suffered a painfully bruised ankle when his Williams crashed heavily, then Berger, who spun but continued. Until this point, on lap 16, these two had been running second and third to Senna, who had led all the way. Though he had seemed sensationally sure-footed in the apalling conditions, the World Champion had long ago had enough (he shook his fist at the starter each time he came by) and finally the officials agreed with him. The sodden red flag was unfurled and - after what had seemed like an eternity but had really only lasted 24 minutes and 34.899 seconds - the proceedings were called to a halt.

For an hour there were deliberations concerning a possible restart but, ultimately, the race was declared to have officially  ended after 14 laps and just 32.822 miles of racing. Since this was less than half distance it meant the top six finishers - Senna, Mansell (who had already left for the airport, nursing his sore ankle) Berger (who had another spin just before the red flag), Patrese (who crossed the line dragging a piece of another car under his Williams) and Morbidelli - received only half points, though these were enough for McLaren to beat Williams for the constructors' championship.

The merits of having the dubious distinction of competing in this, the shortest Grand Prix in history, were debated by the drivers. Some thought it had gone on far too long, while others were of the opinion it shouldn't have started at all. The latter point of view was expressed by the winner.

"It was impossible out there," Senna said. "It felt as if the car was floating, with no real control. All I could see behind me was cars flying off and hitting the wall. One of the reasons I survived was that I was in the lead. I could see! I managed to stay on the circuit, but it wasn't a race at all. We should never have started. We should have had the courage as a group - drivers, teams and organizers - not to race. But it would be a tough decision to make because of all the obligations to the spectators, sponsors and television commitments."

One television commentator had no doubt about what decision should have been taken. James Hunt, in Adelaide as usual to call the race with Murray Walker, was typically forthright. "It was a mistake to start the Australian Grand Prix in such appalling conditions," the 1976 World Champion declared. "The event was reduced to a game of chance where driving skills had less influence on survival than pure luck. For the drivers to even compete required more lunacy than courage. It was only due to good fortune that there were no serious injuries. As a race, this was a farce that had very little to do with motor sport."

'Bridge Over Troubled Waters,' the mournful harmonies of one of Paul Simon's best known songs, echoed appropriately around the muddy Adelaide infield as the F1 circus packed away its equipment. Simon, performing in front of 70,000 F1 fans with images of sliding cars being handled heroically by very brave men still uppermost in their minds, had a difficult act to follow. 

*