The 1994 Japanese Grand Prix (officially the XX Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on 6 November 1994 at the Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka. It was the fifteenth and penultimate race of the 1994 Formula One World Championship. In wet conditions, the 50-lap race was won by Damon Hill, driving a Williams-Renault, after he started from second position. Hill's Drivers' Championship rival Michael Schumacher finished second in his Benetton-Ford, having started from pole position, with Jean Alesi third in his Ferrari. The win left Hill just one point behind Schumacher in the Drivers' Championship with one race remaining. This also proved to be the last Grand Prix for Érik Comas. This was also the last time in Formula 1 history when the race was split in two parts due to race stoppage and final classification has been set by aggregate time.
Report Going into the race, Benetton driver Michael Schumacher led the Drivers' Championship with 86 points, five ahead of rival Damon Hill in the Williams on 81. Schumacher felt he was "very confident" about the race, and Hill similarly declared that he was "positive".
There were several changes of driver for this race: Johnny Herbert moved from Ligier to Benetton after just one race for the French team, replacing Jos Verstappen. His place at Ligier was taken by Franck Lagorce. Eric Bernard lost his seat at Lotus to Mika Salo who had been racing in Japanese Formula 3000, and likewise Simtek hired Taki Inoue on a one-race deal, replacing Domenico Schiattarella. Finally, JJ Lehto returned to Sauber to replace Andrea de Cesaris after the Italian's sudden retirement from Formula One.
The race started in torrential rain, and as a result, several cars spun out of the race by aquaplaning, including Schumacher's team-mate Herbert on lap 4, Lagorce, the Minardis of Pierluigi Martini and Michele Alboreto, and all three Japanese drivers by the end of lap 3 (with both Ukyo Katayama and Hideki Noda being injured in separate crashes). Lehto also retired at the start with an engine failure. As did Gerhard Berger in the second Ferrari with battery problems by lap 11.
On lap 13, Gianni Morbidelli crashed his Footwork at one of the Esses at the first sector. Shortly afterwards, Martin Brundle spun his McLaren off the track and crashed at the same spot, and as he bounced off the tyre barriers, hit a track marshal who was moving Morbidelli's car off the gravel trap. The marshal suffered a broken leg, adding to the huge list of injuries of the 1994 season, and the race was immediately stopped, as both Brundle and Morbidelli were fortunately able to escape uninjured. Rubens Barrichello soon retired in the pits with transmission problems by lap 17, Blundell was also forced to retire from 10th position when his engine failed on lap 27, which ended an appalling weekend for Tyrrell. This left 13 runners, and there were no further retirements for the remaining 23 laps.
As the rain eased, it was decided to run the remainder of the race, with around one hour to the time limit, on aggregate corrected time. Schumacher had been leading by 6.8 seconds when the red flag was shown, but Hill had a bigger lead (10.1 seconds) at the chequered flag, and thus took the win by 3.3 seconds on aggregate. This remains the last instance of aggregate race time being used in Formula One to determine the winner.
Hill subsequently stated that his driving was "on a different level from how I’d ever driven before", noting that he never would achieve that level of performance again in his career.
Classification
Qualifying
Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Time Q2 Time Gap 1 5 Michael Schumacher Benetton-Ford 1:37.209 1:57.128 2 0 Damon Hill Williams-Renault 1:37.696 1:57.278 +0.487 3 30 Heinz-Harald Frentzen Sauber-Mercedes 1:37.742 1:56.935 +0.533 4 2 Nigel Mansell Williams-Renault 1:37.768 2:00.963 +0.559 5 6 Johnny Herbert Benetton-Ford 1:37.828 1:59.729 +0.619 6 15 Eddie Irvine Jordan-Hart 1:37.880 1:57.760 +0.671 7 27 Jean Alesi Ferrari 1:37.907 1:58.610 +0.698 8 7 Mika Häkkinen McLaren-Peugeot 1:37.998 1:58.204 +0.789 9 8 Martin Brundle McLaren-Peugeot 1:38.076 1:56.876 +0.877 10 14 Rubens Barrichello Jordan-Hart 1:38.533 2:01.905 +1.324 11 28 Gerhard Berger Ferrari 1:38.570 1:58.926 +1.361 12 10 Gianni Morbidelli Footwork-Ford 1:39.030 2:07.293 +1.821 13 4 Mark Blundell Tyrrell-Yamaha 1:39.266 2:02.266 +2.057 14 3 Ukyo Katayama Tyrrell-Yamaha 1:39.462 2:04.187 +2.253 15 29 JJ Lehto Sauber-Mercedes 1:39.483 1:59.943 +2.274 16 23 Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Ford 1:39.548 2:01.929 +2.339 17 12 Alessandro Zanardi Lotus-Mugen-Honda 1:39.721 2:02.077 +2.512 18 9 Christian Fittipaldi Footwork-Ford 1:39.868 2:00.084 +2.659 19 26 Olivier Panis Ligier-Renault 1:40.042 2:00.575 +2.833 20 25 Franck Lagorce Ligier-Renault 1:40.577 2:02.780 +3.368 21 24 Michele Alboreto Minardi-Ford 1:40.652 2:02.219 +3.443 22 20 Érik Comas Larrousse-Ford 1:40.978 2:01.035 +3.769 23 19 Hideki Noda Larrousse-Ford 1:40.990 2:05.354 +3.781 24 31 David Brabham Simtek-Ford 1:41.659 2:09.453 +4.450 25 11 Mika Salo Lotus-Mugen-Honda 1:41.805 2:01.637 +4.596 26 32 Taki Inoue Simtek-Ford 1:45.004 no time +7.795 34 Bertrand Gachot Pacific-Ilmor 1:46.374 no time +9.165 33 Paul Belmondo Pacific-Ilmor 1:46.629 no time +9.420 Sources:
Race Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 0 Damon Hill Williams-Renault 50 1:55:53.532 2 10 2 5 Michael Schumacher Benetton-Ford 50 + 3.365 1 6 3 27 Jean Alesi Ferrari 50 + 52.045 7 4 4 2 Nigel Mansell Williams-Renault 50 + 56.074 4 3 5 15 Eddie Irvine Jordan-Hart 50 + 1:42.107 6 2 6 30 Heinz-Harald Frentzen Sauber-Mercedes 50 + 1:59.863 3 1 7 7 Mika Häkkinen McLaren-Peugeot 50 + 2:02.985 8 8 9 Christian Fittipaldi Footwork-Ford 49 + 1 Lap 18 9 20 Érik Comas Larrousse-Ford 49 + 1 Lap 22 10 11 Mika Salo Lotus-Mugen-Honda 49 + 1 Lap 25 11 26 Olivier Panis Ligier-Renault 49 + 1 Lap 19 12 31 David Brabham Simtek-Ford 48 + 2 Laps 24 13 12 Alessandro Zanardi Lotus-Mugen-Honda 48 + 2 Laps 17 4 Mark Blundell Tyrrell-Yamaha 26 Engine 13 14 Rubens Barrichello Jordan-Hart 16 Gearbox 10 8 Martin Brundle McLaren-Peugeot 13 Spun Off 9 10 Gianni Morbidelli Footwork-Ford 13 Spun Off 12 28 Gerhard Berger Ferrari 10 Battery 11 25 Franck Lagorce Ligier-Renault 10 Collision 20 23 Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Ford 10 Collision 16 24 Michele Alboreto Minardi-Ford 10 Spun Off 21 6 Johnny Herbert Benetton-Ford 3 Spun Off 5 3 Ukyo Katayama Tyrrell-Yamaha 3 Spun Off 14 32 Taki Inoue Simtek-Ford 3 Spun Off 26 29 JJ Lehto Sauber-Mercedes 0 Engine 15 19 Hideki Noda Larrousse-Ford 0 Spun Off PL Source:
Championship standings after the race
Drivers' Championship standings PosDriverPoints 1 Michael Schumacher 92 2 Damon Hill 91 3 Gerhard Berger 35 4 Mika Häkkinen 26 5 Jean Alesi 23Source:
Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Williams-Renault108 2 Benetton-Ford103 3 Ferrari64 4 McLaren-Peugeot38 5 Jordan-Hart25Source:
References