29 July 1998 The FIA World Council ruled that the stewards in the British GP have failed to note the time and lap at which Schumacher's incident took place and consequently applied the wrong rule outside permitted time. They also failed to communicate their decision to the Race Director so that information was not displayed on the TV screen as required by the regulation. The three stewards, Howard Lapsley (Great Britain), Nazir Hoosein (India) and Roger Peart (Canada) volontarily handed in their FIA super licenses and will no longer be allowed to officiate at FIA events.
29 July 1998 FIA has clarified the "team orders" rule. The rules do not forbid teams from instructing their drivers to cooperate with each other. Teams compete for both the Constructor and the Drivers Championship and can choose to have one driver as the one competing for the Drivers Championship and have the other driver helping him. What is not allowed is behaviour which interferes with a race without having a justification in the interests of a team in the Championship, or an individual race.
29 July 1998 Norbert Haug said yesterday that McLaren should be able to announce officially in three weeks time that both Hakkinen and Coulthard will be driving for the team next year.
28 July 1998 FIA has rejected McLaren's complaint against the decision of the stewards of the British GP and confirmed the result.
27 July 1998 Irvine has renewed his contract with Ferrari for one year for 7-8 billion lire. The official announcement is expected today or tomorrow.
27 July 1998 Ecclestone said that he does not believe Irvine let M. Schumcher thorugh to give him thir position. According to Bernie, M. Schumacher is a lot faster than Irvine and it was logical that he would overtake.
26 July 1998 The drivers started off the Austrian GP from an
unusual grid. McLaren and Ferrari were missing from the front row as
Fisichella enjoyed the first pole position of his career, and the first
one for an Italian driver since Patrese six years ago. The other driver
starting from the front row was Alesi. The two competitors for the
title, Hakkinen and M. Schumacher started from third and fourth
position from the second row, while Coulthard was as far back as the
fourteenth position. The culprit of such an unusual line-up for this
season was the torrential rain experienced during the qualifying
session.
As the lights went off, Hakkinen made a great start slicing through
Fisichella and Alesi to take the lead. Panis' car was stuck on the grid
and the cars behind did a good job to avoid him, but Rosset went too
wide and involved the two Minardi in an accident. At the same time the
two Arrows collided with each other and Salo, trying to rejoin the race
after a spin, took out Coulthard's nosecone, sparking fears that he
might have damaged the McLaren's front suspensions. The safety car
appeared immediately as the race was started following the number of
collisions and the cars abandoned in and off the track. Coulthard took
advantage of the presence of the safety car to go into the pits and have
a new nosecone fitted and new tyres put on. On lap three the safety car
went off and the race restarted. M. Schumacher immediately attacked
Hakkinen from second position, but lost out and Barrichello and
Fisichella overtook him. The German soon overtook the two cars and went
to chase Hakkinen again, clocking the fastest lap. On lap 10
Barrichello retired, while Fisichella was driving well and managing to
keep up with the leaders of the race. Irvine was in third position,
followed by Alesi and Frentzen. Coulthard, who was in last position
when the safety car went off for having stopped to get a new nosecone,
had been working his way through the field. M. Schumacher, after
having attempted several attacks on Hakkinen for first position, made a
clear driving mistake and went on the dirt. His car hit something
solid, jumped up and crashed nose down on the gravel, destroying the
nosecone and the side deflectors. M. Schumacher managed to keep the
car going and to get back on the track, but had to go almost a full lap
to get into the pits, where he had a new nosecone put on (19.3 seconds
stop), then rejoined the race at the back of the pack. In the meantime
Frentzen suffered a spectacular engine blow and retired. The first six
at this stage of the race were: Hakkinen, Fisichella, Irvine, Coulthard
(who had reached fourth position from last), Alesi and R. Schumacher.
On lap 24 Fisichella, on a two stops strategy, went into the pits and
rejoined behind Alesi. Fisichella tried to pass Alesi on the inside on
a bend and caused a collision which took both cars out. Alesi's car
became stuck in the middle of the track and the yellow flag was shown.
The marshals had problems removing the car because of the steep slope of
the track in that position, luckily all other drivers managed to avoid
the Sauber and the safety car did not have to go out. The accident was
caused by Fisichella, who should have given way to Alesi since the
Frenchman had the racing line. On lap 30 Irvine pitted and lost second
position to Coulthard, but since so many cars were out of the race at
this stage, the Irishman rejoined on a clear track with no traffic and
easily took third position. At the same time his team mate M.
Schumacher was putting in all he had and clocking the fastest laps,
trying to regain some of the positions lost. Both Hakkinen and
Coulthard pitted one after the other and retained the same positions
(first and second). M. Schumacher came up to challenge his brother
Ralf for fourth position, but the Jordan driver did not let him pass and
the older brother risked making a second driving mistake by going very
wide, but recovered. Verstappen's engine blew up at this point and his
car became stuck in the middle of the track, having sprayed oil and
water on the tarmac. M. Schumacher eventually managed to overtake his
brother and went to chase team mate Irvine, who allowed him to close
rapidly on him, claiming brake problems, and eventually to overtake to
take third position. Hakkinen went on to win the GP, followed by team
mate Coulthard, M. Schumacher, Irvine, R. Schumacher and
Villeneuve.
McLaren managed to get back to the glory of the beginning of the season
by putting in the first one-two since the Spanish GP. Coulthard ran an
excellent race, by managing to go from last of the pack to second. M.
Schumacher jeopardised his challenge for the championship by making a
very silly driving mistake but the sturdiness of the Ferrari, which
clocked some of the fastest laps after the accident and without side
deflectors, his ability as a driver and the help of team mate Irvine
allowed him to embark on a damage-reduction exercise. The German is now
eight points behind Hakkinen, after the race in which he had hoped to
take the lead in the Drivers Championship. Similarly, the gap between
McLaren and Ferrari in the Constructors Championship has now increased
to 12 points. Fisichella showed his lack of experience by trying to
pass Alesi where he obviously could not, thus ruining the race in which
he had gained the first pole position of his career. R. Schumacher
managed to get two more points for Jordan while his team mate Damon Hill
still has not finished in the first six. Next race will be in a week
time in Germany.
26 July 1998 The silly season continues. Now Coulthard has been linked to BAR to partner Villeneuve. It is also possible that the two BAR cars will be competing with different colours next year.
24 July 1998 Nelson Piquet and Emerson Fittipaldi would like to be the organisers of a second Brazilian GP. It would take place at Jacarepagua' in Rio de Janeiro with the name of South American GP. The two ex-drivers would like the GP to be included in next season's calendar.
23 July 1998 Sauber has officially confirmed that next year they will be using the Ferrari V10 engines again. The Swiss team will have the 047 engines Ferrari is using this season.
23 July 1998 Jacques Villeneuve has signed an agreement to drive for British American Racing (BAR) in 1999. The official announcement was made by BAR managing director Craig Pollock.
22 July 1998 Irvine and Ferrari are still in talks regarding renewing the Irishman's contract. Ferrari has also contacted Coulthard, Panis and Salo.
22 July 1998 BAR is expected to announce officially today that Villeneuve will race for them next year. Alex Zanardi is rumoured to be his possible substitute in the Williams team, while Montoya might take Frentzen's place. If Panis leaves Prost, Frentzen might take his place.
21 July 1998 Ferrari has agreed to provide Sauber with engines next year too and the official announcement is expected at the end of the week.
17 July 1998 M. Schumacher is going to work as a consultant for new technologies for FIAT. He will also tie his public image to FIAT products. Apparently this was discussed when M. Schumacher met some of FIAT top brass at the Salone dell'Automobile in Turin. Back then they had a meeting on the cooperation between car racing and the production of standard cars.
17 July 1998 M. Schumacher signed this morning the contract with Ferrari until 2002.
17 July 1998 Gary Anderson of the Jordan team complained that Goodyear is designing tyres following only Ferrari's requirements. The results is that the tyres are not good at all for Jordan's requirements.
16 July 1998 Jean Cristophe Bouillon has been hired by BAR as test driver.
16 July 1998 FIA will pass a ruling on McLaren's complaint about the result of the British GP on the 27th of July, one day after the Austrian GP. Three race stewards have been asked to appear in front of the FIA commitee on the 29th of July.
15 July 1998 German paper Bild reported today that M. Schumacher is ready to sign for Ferrari until the year 2002 with a salary of 54 billion lire per year. According to Bild the contract will be signed tomorrow morning and the official announcement will be made on Friday.
13 July 1998 The McLaren team has brought its complaint against the outcome of the British GP in front of FIA. FIA's decision might not be known until next GP in two weeks' time.
12 July 1998 The race steawrds have rejected a complaint by McLaren on M. Schumacher's victory. It appears from the official statement that M. Schumacher might not have had to take the stop-go penalty anyway, because the Ferrari team was only notified of the penalty 31 one minutes after the event occurred, instead of the maximum 25 minutes as for regulation.
12 July 1998 This race report is going to be slightly different from the usual format as I (site maintainer) was at the Silverstone and will report on the impression I got from it, rather than basing myself on the televised event. The British GP saw an exciting and very wet, cold and windy race. Hakkinen and M. Schumacher shared the front line on the grid, but the Finn managed a very good start and easily took the lead with the German behind, followed by Coulthard, who recoved well from a start from fourth position. Irvine had a disastrous start of the race and dropped down several positions. R. Schumacher and Panis started from the back of the grid after irregularities were found with their cars and their qualifying times were taken away. At the beginning of the race it was not raining, despite having been a very wet day from the morning and most cars, including the Ferrari, started on intermediate tyres. McLaren chanced it on dry tyres and used the advantage to build up distance. After a few laps it started to drizzle, but not enough to make a difference. On lap 17 local hero Damon Hill had to retire, to the disappointment of the British croud, who had been cheering him all along. The support of the British fans shifted to Coulthard, who had every intention of not letting the chance of winning his home GP, and the championship, slip from his fingers. The Scot soon overtook M. Schumacher and took second position, chasing team mate and championship leader Hakkinen to challange him for first position. In the meantime Irvine, after his bad start, had been steadily gaining positions and performing some good overatking manouvres. With one third of the race gone, Hakkinen and Coulthard were in the first two positions, with the two Ferrari and then the two Benneton following. R. Schumacher was also working his way through the field from the back of the grid. Around halfway through the race the rain really started pouring down and several cars span and were forced to retire. Coulthard span, stalled his engine and had to retire. His frustration was evident as he threw the steering wheel away in rage, only to pick it up and put it back in plca, as for regulations, to avoid being fined. The British fans at this point started, to my surprise, supporting M. Schumacher becasue he was the only one in with a chance to beat Hakkinen, who has been favoured by the McLaren team over British team mate Coulthard. Hakkinen too lost control of the car in the wet, but managed to glide across the gravel trap, kept the engine going and regained the tarmac, miracolously pointing in the right direction, and rejoined the race still in the lead. Other casualties of the weather were Frentzen and Verstappen, who peformed a nice spin out of the race just in front of were I was. The yellow flag was displayed at this point due to the number of cars which had span out, but M. Schumacher failed to see it and overtook a car. The weather conditions were atrocious and the drivers had no visibility at all, so the safety car was sent out with about only 15 laps to go. The presence of the safety car allowed the group of leading cars to compact again, in particular M. Schumacher, who was second with a large margin, caught up with Hakkinen, albeit with a Benetton (lapped) in between the two. Behind him another lapped Benetton, then Irvine. Jean Todt was seen in the Benetton pits making sure that Fisichella and Wurz would move out of the way and let M. Schumacher and Irvine through without trouble. As soon as the safety car left the track, with eight laps still to go, M. Schumacher immediately overtook the Fisichella and set off in pursuit of Hakkinen. Similarly, Irvine passed Wurz and speeded away. With the surface still wet Hakkinen made a mistake and cut a bend, losing precious time and allowing M. Schumacher to gain the lead. Irvine was right behind the Finn and attempted attacking him, but to no avail, then started losing ground and settled for third position. With only three laps to go, the race steards notified Ferrari that M. Schumacher had to serve a 10 seconds stop-go penalty for ignoring the yellow flag before the safety car had gone out. Ferrari elected to have the German driver take the stop-go penalty on the very last lap, so M. Schumacher left the track just before the finishing line and went to the pits to take the penalty. Confusion reigned as Hakkinen passed the finishing line, but M. Schumacher's name appeared on the screens as the winner. With all cars back to the pits, it appeared that M. Schumacher (race leader) had passed the finishing line in the pits when he had gone to take his stop-go penalty on the very last lap. The disappointment was evident from Hakkinen's body language, who had greeted the crowd believing to be the winner. M. Schumacher displayed first surprise, then joy, as team mate Irvine (third) convinced him that he had really won the British GP, a victory that had eluded him until now. The two Benetton gained fourth and fifth places respectively with Wurz and Fisichella, while R. Schumacher ran a brilliant race to give Jordan its first point this season by finishing sixth after having worked his way thorugh the field in extreme weather conditions from the last row on the grid. The result of the British GP completely reopens the championship, with M. Schumacher trailing only two points behind leader Hakkinen and Ferrari three points behind McLaren in the constructor championship. The result of the race is even more significant when considering that Silverstone is McLaren's home track and, being a very fast circuit, is better suited to the British car than to the Italian. McLaren was widely expected to dominate completely the British GP, though nobody could have predicted the determining influence of the worst weather so far this season.
11 July 1998 I (the site mantainer) am off to Silverstone, which means that the race report on the British GP will appear later than usual, probably on Monday.
11 July 1998 Hakkinen will be starting the British GP from pole position. M. Schumacher will start from the front row too, while Villeneuve got the third best time and a disappointed Coulthard the fourth. Irvine will be starting from fifth position and Frentzen from sixth.
11 July 1998 After the first qualifying session, Hakkinen has the fastest time, followed by Coulthard and Michael Schumacher.
11 July 1998 The Jordan team has denied reports that Damon Hill wants to leave because he is unhappy with the car performance.
10 July 1998 The software controlling the starting lights have been modified for the British GP. The decision has been taken by FIA to avoid a repeat of the false start in France: the lights went off and came back on after a fraction of a second, but by that time the drivers had already started. The problem at Magny-Cours had been that the software was not design to take into account manual stops of the starting sequence.
9 July 1998 Craig Pollock of BAR said that they would like Damon Hill or Jaques Villeneuve to race for them next year. Hill has the option of leaving his current drive at the end of the season.
9 July 1998 Coulthard said that the McLaren team must let him free to win the British GP, should he find himself in the position to do so, instead of asking him to move aside to let Hakkinen through.
9 July 1998 Craig Pollock and Bill Nicholson have officially opened the new headquarters of BAR in Brackley, a few miles from Silverstone., At present 75 people work there, but the number is expected to raise to 200 by the end of the year.
8 July 1998 Frank Williams said that Villeneuve is showing to be a very good driver by the way he is dealing with the difficult situation the team finds itself in. He also added that they will make a decision about the drivers in two to three months time and that they are keeping an eye on Trulli.
7 July 1998 The Australian GP will stay in Melbourne for at least another eight years. The announcement was made by the government of Victoria. The Australian GP was moved to its present location two years ago from Adelaide, where it had been run for the previous 11 years.
7 July 1998 Gerhard Berger is coming back to F1 as sport director of BMW Motorsport. BMW will provide a V10 (or perhaps even a V12 engine) to the Williams team from the year 2000. Berger said that he will not do tests, as he thinks his time as a driver is over and it is time for him to move on. The new BMW engine will start being tested on Williams cars next February-March.
4 July 1998 David Coulthard said that he believes he still is in the race for the Championship. He's aiming at winning the British GP and then he will take it from there.
Last updated on 29 July 1998 by Federica Massagrande