The 1995 Pacific Grand Prix (formally the II Pacific Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on 22 October 1995 at the TI Circuit, Aida, Japan. It was the fifteenth round of the 1995 Formula One World Championship. Michael Schumacher for the Benetton team won the 83-lap race starting from third position. David Coulthard, who started the Grand Prix from pole position, finished second in a Williams car, with Damon Hill third in the other Williams. Schumacher's win confirmed him as 1995 Drivers' Champion, as Hill could not pass Schumacher's points total with only two races remaining. This was also the last race for Jean-Christophe Boullion.
Hill started the race alongside Coulthard on the front row, amidst pressure from the British media for not being "forceful" enough in battles. Schumacher attempted to drive around the outside of Hill at the first corner, but Hill held Schumacher off as Jean Alesi, driving for Ferrari, got past both on the inside line to take second position. As a result, Hill dropped down to third and Schumacher dropped down to fifth behind Gerhard Berger. Schumacher then managed to get past Alesi and Hill during the first of three pit stops. This allowed him, on a new set of slick tyres, to close on Coulthard who was on a two-stop strategy. Schumacher opened up a gap of 21 seconds by lapping two seconds faster per lap than Coulthard, so that when his third stop came, he still led the race.
Background The race, originally scheduled to be held as the third round of the season on 16 April 1995, was moved to October as the local infrastructure and communications were badly damaged from the Great Hanshin earthquake.
Heading into the 15th race of the season, Benetton driver Michael Schumacher was leading the Drivers' Championship with 82 points; Williams driver Damon Hill was second on 55 points, 27 points behind Schumacher. A maximum of 30 points were available for the remaining three races, which meant that Hill could still win the title. Schumacher only needed a fourth-place finish to become Drivers' Champion as, even if Hill won, Schumacher would be more than 20 points ahead of Hill with two races remaining. Behind Hill and Schumacher in the Drivers' Championship, David Coulthard was third on 43 points in a Williams, with Johnny Herbert and Jean Alesi both on 40 points. In the Constructors' Championship, Benetton were leading on 112 points and Williams were second on 92 points, with a maximum of 48 points available. In the two weeks leading up to the race, there was heavy criticism towards Damon Hill, with pundits feeling that Hill had not been "forceful" enough in his battle at the against Schumacher. In an interview leading up to the race, part-time Ligier driver Martin Brundle said:
Schumacher, his title-rival, said that Hill made "half-hearted attempts" to overtake, which led to him "getting into trouble". The comments were prompted after a series of battles between Hill and Schumacher in previous race meetings, most notably at the , where Hill accused Schumacher of blocking him. At a Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) World Motor Sport Council meeting on October 19 to discuss driver etiquette, they opted against introducing new rules on the issue. Formula One's governing body emphasised that the International Sporting Code would be enforced on the basis that drivers are free to drive as they wish "provided they do not deliberately endanger another driver or repeatedly obstruct him on a straight", following incidents during the year involving Hill and Schumacher.
Williams were favourites to win the race due to the nature of the track—their Williams FW17 car was more suited to high-downforce tracks like Aida, and thus had the advantage over Benetton. In an attempt to match the pace of the Williams cars, Benetton introduced a revised rear suspension geometry to the Benetton B195 for the race.
There were five driver changes heading into the race. Having been in one of the two Ligier cars since the tenth race of the season at Germany, Martin Brundle was replaced by Aguri Suzuki as part of the two sharing the drive for the season. Jan Magnussen was drafted into the McLaren team to replace Mika Häkkinen because of the Finn's operation for appendicitis. The third driver change was Ukyo Katayama's return to Tyrrell after missing the European Grand Prix due to a crash at the . Gianni Morbidelli returned to the Footwork team replacing Max Papis, while at Pacific, Bertrand Gachot came back to replace Jean-Denis Délétraz, both men having driven for these teams at the start of the season. Délétraz was replaced as he had not made agreed payment instalments to the Pacific team for the privilege of the drive. Pacific had originally intended to run local driver Katsumi Yamamoto in place of Délétraz, but he was not granted an FIA Super Licence and so Gachot retook the seat. Similarly, the Forti team's plans to replace Roberto Moreno with Hideki Noda came to nought for the same reason, even though Noda had started three Grands Prix for the Larrousse team the previous year.
Practice and qualifying
Two practice sessions were held before the race; the first was held on Friday morning and the second on Saturday morning. Both sessions lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes with weather conditions dry throughout. Schumacher set the fastest time in the first session, posting a lap of 1:16.057, three-tenths of a second quicker than Hill and Coulthard, in second and third places respectively. The Ferrari cars were fourth and fifth fastest; Gerhard Berger ahead of Jean Alesi, with McLaren driver Mark Blundell rounding out the top six. Coulthard lapped faster than Schumacher in the second practice session with a time of 1:15.730. Hill was second in the Williams, three-tenths of a second behind Coulthard. Eddie Irvine in the Jordan car was fourth, seven-tenths behind Coulthard. He was split by the Ferrari cars who were third and fifth; Alesi in front of Berger. The Benetton cars were sixth and seventh; Schumacher in front of Herbert. Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jean-Christophe Boullion were eighth and tenth in the Sauber cars, with Rubens Barrichello ninth in the Jordan, two seconds off the pace.
The qualifying session was split into two one-hour sessions; the first was held on Friday afternoon with the second held on Saturday afternoon. The fastest time from either sessions counted towards their final grid position. Coulthard clinched his fourth consecutive pole position, in his Williams, with a time of 1:14.013. He was joined on the front row by teammate Hill, who was two-tenths of a second behind. Schumacher was third in the Benetton, edging closer to the Williams drivers throughout both days of qualifying by steadily reducing the downforce on his car. His last run, right at the end of the second session, pressured Coulthard into leaving the pit lane to cover the German. The pole position man thus used an additional set of slick tyres, meaning that out of the allocation of seven sets of slick tyres as set out by the FIA, he had only two sets of brand-new rubber for the race, whereas Schumacher had the advantage of three sets of new rubber. Hill, concerned about starting from the dirty side of the track (the side of the track that is opposite to the racing line), had only two sets of brand new tyres for the race.
Berger took fourth despite going off into the gravel late in the second part of qualifying. Berger's teammate Alesi was fifth, with Irvine completing the top six for his best qualifying position of the season. Rookie Magnussen qualified 12th, only two places behind teammate Blundell, after not making a mistake in either of the two sessions. Returning drivers Suzuki, Katayama, Morbidelli and Gachot qualified 13th, 17th, 19th and 24th respectively, with the grid covered by 7.392 seconds.
Qualifying classification Driver Constructor Q1 Time Q2 Time 1 6 David Coulthard Williams-Renault 1:14.182 1:14.013 — 2 5 Damon Hill Williams-Renault 1:14.289 1:14.213 +0.200 3 1 Michael Schumacher Benetton-Renault 1:14.524 1:14.284 +0.271 4 27 Jean Alesi Ferrari 1:14.919 1:15.131 +0.906 5 28 Gerhard Berger Ferrari 1:14.974 1:15.125 +0.961 6 15 Eddie Irvine Jordan-Peugeot 1:15.696 1:15.354 +1.341 7 2 Johnny Herbert Benetton-Renault 1:15.561 1:15.556 +1.543 8 30 Heinz-Harald Frentzen Sauber-Ford 1:15.942 1:15.561 +1.548 9 26 Olivier Panis Ligier-Mugen-Honda 1:17.071 1:15.621 +1.608 10 7 Mark Blundell McLaren-Mercedes 1:15.652 1:16.166 +1.639 11 14 Rubens Barrichello Jordan-Peugeot 1:16.263 1:15.774 +1.761 12 8 Jan Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1:16.339 1:16.368 +2.326 13 25 Aguri Suzuki Ligier-Mugen-Honda 1:17.019 1:16.519 +2.506 14 23 Pedro Lamy Minardi-Ford 1:17.224 1:16.596 +2.583 15 29 Jean-Christophe Boullion Sauber-Ford 1:16.646 1:23.791 +2.633 16 24 Luca Badoer Minardi-Ford 1:17.612 1:16.887 +2.874 17 3 Ukyo Katayama Tyrrell-Yamaha 1:17.265 1:17.014 +3.001 18 4 Mika Salo Tyrrell-Yamaha 1:17.213 1:17.235 +3.200 19 9 Gianni Morbidelli Footwork-Hart 1:18.288 1:18.114 +4.101 20 10 Taki Inoue Footwork-Hart 1:19.471 1:18.212 +4.199 21 21 Pedro Diniz Forti-Ford 1:20.555 1:19.579 +5.566 22 22 Roberto Moreno Forti-Ford 1:19.745 1:19.779 +5.732 23 17 Andrea Montermini Pacific-Ford 1:22.096 1:20.093 +6.080 24 16 Bertrand Gachot Pacific-Ford 1:22.710 1:21.405 +7.392
Warm-up The drivers took to the track at 09:30 JST (GMT +9) for a 30-minute warm-up session. Both Williams cars maintained their good performance from qualifying; Coulthard had the fastest time of 1:16.831. Hill was third in the other Williams car; Boullion split them in the Sauber for second position. Olivier Panis completed the top four in a Ligier car, eight-tenths of a second behind Hill. Hill drove the spare Williams car along the inside of the start–finish straight in an effort to clean up his grid position on the dusty side of the track. Schumacher finished the session in eighth, despite going off the track, damaging his race car in the process.
Race The conditions for the race were dry with the air temperature . The remote and inaccessible nature of the circuit and the fact that the took place just one week later resulted in a meagre race-day crowd of only 15,000 spectators. The race started at 14:00 JST. Coulthard, from pole position on the grid, held onto the lead into the first corner. Hill, who started alongside Coulthard, had a bad start. Schumacher attempted to go around the outside of Hill at the first corner, but Hill held Schumacher off. Both drivers ran off the racing line in the process, allowing Alesi through into second place. At the end of lap one, Coulthard led Alesi by 2.8 seconds, with Hill a further three-tenths back. Berger was fourth, with Schumacher demoted to fifth. Information from on-screen rundown of lead positions at the end of lap one. Bertrand Gachot in the Pacific became the first person to retire from the race with a gearbox problem on lap two. He was followed by Suzuki and Boullion, who both spun off the track and were unable to continue. Boullion blamed his spin on Minardi driver Pedro Lamy, whom he accused of weaving in front of him. Schumacher passed Berger for fourth position on lap five, and immediately began closing on Hill in third, who himself was only a few tenths behind Alesi. Schumacher attempted to pass Hill on lap 11 for third place at the hairpin, but Hill held him off. As Hill and Schumacher were held up by the slower Ferrari cars, Coulthard pulled away by more than a second a lap in the first eight laps. By lap 18, Coulthard's gap to second place was 14 seconds, and it appeared that he would win the race comfortably.