30 September 1997 The current Renault Sport technical director, Bernard Dudot, will join the Prost team in 1998 as technical director.
30 September 1997 Villeneuve and Frentzen will both stay at Williams for 1998.
29 September 1997 Villeneuve shot to the lead of the driver championship after M. Schumacher was forced out of the race by his own brother. In the initial shamble when the lights changed R. Schumacher collided with team mate Fisichella and then bounced off to hit M. Schumacher's car, who had to retire on lap 2 with a damaged suspension. Both Jordans had to retire too. The race was lead with a very good margin by Hakkinen followed by Coulthard. the two McLaren drivers stayed unchallanged until both their Merceded engines went up in smoke at almost the same time (just as it had happened to the Prost cars last week) on lap 42. The two McLaren's retirement left Villleneuve in the lead of the race and of the championship. Frentzen, who ran a terrible first half of the race, managed to finish third behind Alesi. Berger was forth while Diniz gained his first two points of the championshop and Panis showed that he has almost fully recovered from his accident in Canada by finishing sixth.
26 September 1997 At 11.43am (GMT+1) a strong earthquake hit the area of the Mugello in Italy, where the racing track is. At present there are no reports on the damage to people and structures.
25 September 1997 Flavio Briatore is leaving Benetton at the end of the year. His place as executive chief of Benetton will be taken by David Richards.
24 September 1997 At the 21st session of Senna's trial Roland Bruynseraede and Federico Bendinelli testified. First is Bruynseraede, the Belgian FIA representative who approved the licensing of the Imola track in 1994. He said that two months before the race he inspected the track. The owners of the track have always complied with all the suggestions to improve the safety of the track made by FIA after every GP for the following year. The last inspection was carried out on the Wednesday before the race and nothing unusual or irregular was found. FIA never asked for changes to the Tamburello to be made and has never received complaints from drivers about that section of the track.
Next was lawyer Bendinelli, who in 94 was administrator and now is president of Sagis, the company that manages the Imola track. He said that in time the track has been modified to a certain extent and all changes had been approved by FIA. In 89 the very first real change at the Tamburello was carried out following a suggestion by Alain Prost, who advised to have the grass section substituted with the one made of concrete, to allow a better control of the car if someone left the track there. The changes required by FIA after 94 were very general and were not aimed only at the Imola track.
Lawyer Laudi, defender of Bendinelli, asked his client about the changes at the Tamburello. Bendinelli replied that the Tamburello is different now from what it was before, but the slope and the transition between the track and the area outside it is identical to how it was before. In the meantime Sagis has obtained from FIA three approvals.
The trial will restart on 3 October with Williams, Head and Newey. Coulthard will testify on the 28th and on the 31st the trial will enter its final stage.
23 September 1997 Afternoon session in the Senna trial, dedicated to the counter-examination of the simulation created by engineers Minen and Guttilla and presented on 16 September. The simulation was produced using the Adams and Driver software. Expert for the prosecution is prof. Fanghella, of the University of Genoa. Prof. Fanghella said that his graphs show that superimposing the curves of the telemetry and those of the simulation there is a time displacement of 1"5. The simulation of the car movement on the bend (produced with the Driver software) cannot be superimposed at all on the real data. The error between the two graphs gets as high as 25%-50% and in a few points even over 100%. The simulation only takes into account the movement of the car and not Senna's corrections to the trajectory. The angle of steering of the simulation program does not comply with the settings of the steering wheel.
Minen replied that the relationship between the steering wheel settings and the angle of steering is not omogeneous because there was no stability due to bumps on the road surface. This only happened once and, according to Minen, was the cause of Senna's accident. The time displacement between the simulation and the real data is only 1"2 and is not relevant. It is not possible to determine the angle os steering imposed by Senna simply by looking at the yellow button on the steering wheel.
Today the 21st hearing will take place.
22 September 1997 A bleak race for Ferrari, who lose the Constructor's Championship to Williams, and has M. Schumacher only one point ahead of Villeneuve in the Drivers Championship. The start saw Villeneuve make a bad job of it from pole position and lose two position to Hakkinen and Trulli. Hakkinen's engine gave way almost immediately, leaving young driver Trulli on the Prost to lead the race for 37 laps, up until the pit stops. Trulli stayed a brilliant second behind Villeneuve after the pit stops but suffered a blown engine with twelve laps to go, a few second after the same thing had happened to his team mate Nakano. On lap 38 a collision between Irvine and Alesi which sent the Frenchman flying lead to the yellow flag being waved. M. Schumacher did not see the flag and overtook Frentzen, bringing upon himself a 10 seconds penalty which caused him to rejoin the race in 9th position. M. Schumacher managed to regain positions until the last lap, when he found himself in 7th position behind Hill and, not having anything to lose, managed to overtake the reigning WC from a good way behind to finish in the points and retain the smallest lead in the Drivers Championship. The Austrian GP has been one of the most exciting races this year, after th eutter boredom of Monza and has reopened the fight for the chmapionship with only three races left to go.
19 September 1997 Benetton announced that Wurz will partner Fisichella next year.
19 September 1997 It has been officially confirmed that Damon Hill has signed a two-year contract with Jordan worth 5 million pounds a year.
18 September 1997 Allegedly Damon Hill has already signed for Jordan for next year and the official announcement will be made tomorrow.
17 September 1997 Arrows has officially announced that Damon Hill will not race for them next year. His place will be taken by Mika Salo. Prost and Hill failed to reach an agreement on the driver's salary and their deal has collapsed. Now Jordan looks like the most likely option for the reigning World Champion.
17 September 1997 Jordan is to appeal against the court ruling that Fisichella should drive for Benetton in 1998.
17 September 1997 At the 19th hearing in the trial for Senna's death Williams defence asked the court to accept as evidence a written statement by D. Coulthard, who should have been present but was not. Dominioni said that Coulthard will not be able to come back to Italy until after the end of the F1 Championship, therefore the written statement should be accepted. Passarini replied that since Coulthard lives in Montecarlo, it would not be difficult for him to come to Italy and be present at the trial. On the other hand, if the written statement does not add anything to what already said by the defence, there would be no reason to allow the statement as evidence in the trial. Dominioni then asked for Coulthard to be counter-examined with Alboreto about how much a steering wheel can move by in a F1 car.
Alboreto had said that a steering wheel could only move by a 2-3 mm and, considering the torsion of the arms of the driver and the nature of the material, could never get to a few cm. Moreover, the movement can depend from the distance from the base to the column, but can never get to as much as 10 mm. Alboreto added that he was making this statement from his experience as a driver both at Imola and on lots of other tracks. After hearing Alboreto Dominioni insisted that since Coulthard thinks exactly the opposite, it is mandatory that he testifies in court. The judge allowed the testimony of Coulthard, provided the Scot comes to trial in person.
After the trial Alboreto repeated that he is more than ever convinced that Senna went out because of a mechanical failure. Senna's wheels were straight, Alboreto added, perhaps he wanted to go out? There is no steering wheel in F1 that can move by a few cm and if Coulthard says so it is because he still has a long career in front of him while he himself (Alboreto) is due to retire soon and is not scared of talking openly. It is human for people working in the F1 circus not to want to make enemies. Nobody will be jailed for Senna's death and it is logical that it is so because all motorsports have a component of danger that cannot be easily avoided, but this trial must be used to defend the memory of two drivers (Ratzenberger and Senna) who cannot defend themselves. Alboreto concluded by saying that he is annoyed that everybody is trying to maintain positions that cannot be defended in this trial.
The trial continued with a discussion between Passarini and the Williams consultants (engineers Minen and Guttila) about the simulation produces by Williams to prove that the behaviour of Senna's car was "ideal". Passarini, using the images from Senna's on-board camera proved that the Brazilian steered to the right. Vitali, another Williams expert, said that the movements of the steering wheel visible in the film are not only circular, as there are other forces at play and this is normal. Finally, Stirano showed a new video with a reconstruction of the movement of the steering wheel before the accident, in which the steering wheel was moving in a way compatible with the materials used and the force put on it by the driver. Coulthard's written statement says that the steering wheel in the McLaren 96, which he drove, had a very similar behaviour.
Next hearing will be on 22 September with COulthard (if he chooses to appear). The most important hearing will be on 3 October, with Frank Williams, Patrick JHead and Adrian Newey.
16 September 1997 The Senna trial restarts after the summer break. Michele Alboreto testified today and said that a F1 driver would only leave the track at the Tamburello as a consequence of a mechanical failure. He also said that the normal movement of a steering wheel is 2-3 mm, if they were more the driver would know immediately as his hands would hit the chassis. After seeing the images from Senna's on-board camera Alboreto said that he is convinced that the accident was caused a by a mechanical failure. He added that he has seen a video which proves that Senna's steering wheel was moving by as much as 3 cm and if this video is accepted as evidence, it will prove that something was seriously wrong with the Williams. No steering wheel ever moves by centimeters, he concluded.
16 September 1997 Today at Imola the trial for Senna'd death restarts after the summer break. Today's hearing will be the 19th and Michele Alboreto is going to testify for the second time. He will be asked to view the film from Senna's on-board camera, to assess whether the steering wheel was moving in an anomalous way. Apparently the defense will present a written statement by Coulthard (who took Senna's place) saying that the type of movement seen in the film is normal for a Williams.
15 September 1997 Fisichella will drive for Benetton in 1998. Benetton won the court case against the Jordan team, who wanted to keep the Italian driver.
15 September 1997 Alesi has officially signed with Sauber for two seasons.
13 September 1997 Berger is having some more sinus problems and might miss Zetweg.
13 September 1997 The word on the street is that Alesi has signed a sort of "pre-contract" with Sauber and the official announcement is due to be made on Monday.
12 September 1997 The operation on Fittipaldi has been successful and the surgeon said that the ex-F1 champion has 100% chances of being able to walk again.
11 September 1997 Emerson Fittipaldi willundergo surgery today at the Jackson Memorial Hospital to try and correct some paralysis on the left leg. He will be operated by Barth Green, the same surgeon who operated on him after the accident in Michigan in 1996.
The first reconstruction of the accident is that Fittipaldi was flying over his farm in the light plane and threw some oranges down to his wife as a joke. One orange got stuck in the plane tail and caused it to crash to the ground.
10 September 1997 Olivier Panis started driving again yesterday at Magny-Cours, where he tried two runs of 14 and 26 laps in his Prost. This is the first time Panis drives a F1 car since the accident in which he broke both his legs.
9 September 1997 Fittipaldi has been diagnosed as having fractured the second vertebra in the lumbar region. Today he could move his left leg and the doctors exclude that he might be paraliased.
8 September 1997 BMW announced at the International Autoshow in Frankfurt that Williams will be using BMW engines from the year 2000, possibly for a 5 years period. The BMW engine will be built completely in house.
8 September 1997 Ex F1 driver Emerson Fittipaldi (50) suffered a spine injury when his private light plane crashed into a swamp north of Sao Paulo. Fittipaldi's six years old son Luca was on the plane too, but escaped uninjured.
7 September 1997 Fisichella, Coulthard and Villeneuve were given suspended bans for ignoring the yellow flag during practice and warm up.
7 September 1997 Two helycopters used to take VIPs from the Monza track to the Linate airport collided after the race. The rotor blades of one helycopter hit the bottom of the other, luckily close to the ground so that the worst casualty was one of the pilots with a cranial trauma and a broken shoulder.
7 September 1997 A very uneventful Italian GP saw the second victory this season of D. Coulthard on Mclaren-Mercedes, who dedicated his victory to Diana, Princess of Wales. Alesi, who had started from pole position was second after losing the lead in the pits. Frentzen was third, Fisichella fourth, Villeneuve fifth and M. Schumacher sixth. The only excitment of possibly the dullest race this season was provided by R. Schumacher who forced Herbert out of the track at 200 km/h. Herbert was shaken but uninjured. With two cars finishing in the points at Monza, Williams is now only one point behind Ferrari in the Constructors Championship, while M. Schumacher leads Villeneuve in the Drivers Championship by 10 points.
4 September 1997 Mika Hakkinen has been stripped of his third place at Spa Francorchamps for using illegal fuel during the official practice. McLaren-Mercedes had appealed against the disqualification before the GP, so that the Finnish driver had been allowed to compete in Belgium pending a decision on the matter.
Last updated on 30 September 1997 by Federica Massagrande