The 1997 Spanish Grand Prix (formally the XXXIX Gran Premio Marlboro de España) was a Formula One motor race held on 25 May 1997 at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmeló, Spain. It was the sixth race of the 1997 Formula One World Championship.
The 64-lap race was won from pole position by Canadian Jacques Villeneuve, driving a Williams-Renault. Frenchman Olivier Panis finished second in a Prost-Mugen-Honda, six seconds behind Villeneuve, having only started 12th. Another Frenchman, Jean Alesi, finished third in a Benetton-Renault.
The win, Villeneuve's third of the season, put him back into the lead of the Drivers' Championship by three points from German Michael Schumacher, who finished fourth in his Ferrari.
Race summary Michael Schumacher, having started 7th, ended the first lap in 2nd position, and was challenging Villeneuve in the Williams for the lead. However, Schumacher, in the spare Ferrari, was unable to stay with the leader and was starting to slow the cars behind him. By lap 13, the gap between him and Villeneuve was approximately 20 seconds, and a train of cars consisting to David Coulthard, Jean Alesi, Mika Häkkinen, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, and Johnny Herbert was behind him. His lap times were approximately 1:26 while Villeneuve's was 1:22.
In this high tyre wearing race, especially for the Goodyear tyres, the first pit stops started at approximately lap 14, with the final one being on lap 25, which was Olivier Panis, in his finely balanced Prost with Bridgestone tyres. Soon after, beginning from lap 29, three stop runners were starting to pit for the 2nd time. This enabled Panis to gain positions, and by lap 34, he was 4th, and closing on Alesi and Coulthard who were 2nd and 3rd respectively. Soon after, Panis overtook Coulthard, who was on inferior Goodyear tyres, in a fine move on the approach to turn 1. Panis managed to jump to 2nd place ahead of Alesi in the pits.
Panis was gaining on the leader, Villeneuve, by approximately 1.5 seconds per lap. By the end of lap 49, the gap was 10.8 seconds, from 13 seconds at the end of lap 47. However, during lap 50, Panis was held up by traffic, firstly Ralf Schumacher's Jordan and then the Ferrari of Eddie Irvine. With marshals not waving the blue flags, Irvine failed to let Panis through, and thus allowing Jean Alesi and Michael Schumacher to catch him up. When Irvine finally yielded on lap 57, the gap between Panis and Villeneuve was back up to 16.1 seconds. Irvine later received a stop-go penalty for his actions. After Panis cleared the traffic, he was lapping 1.5 to 2 seconds faster than the leader and managed to close the gap to less than 6 seconds by the end of the race, but it was too late and Villeneuve took his 3rd victory of the season. This was Panis's final podium finish in Formula One.
Classification
Qualifying
Pos No Driver Constructor Time Gap 1 3 Jacques Villeneuve Williams-Renault 1:16.525 2 4 Heinz-Harald Frentzen Williams-Renault 1:16.791 +0.266 3 10 David Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes 1:17.521 +0.996 4 7 Jean Alesi Benetton-Renault 1:17.717 +1.192 5 9 Mika Häkkinen McLaren-Mercedes 1:17.737 +1.212 6 8 Gerhard Berger Benetton-Renault 1:18.041 +1.516 7 5 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:18.313 +1.788 8 12 Giancarlo Fisichella Jordan-Peugeot 1:18.385 +1.860 9 11 Ralf Schumacher Jordan-Peugeot 1:18.423 +1.898 10 16 Johnny Herbert Sauber-Petronas 1:18.494 +1.969 11 6 Eddie Irvine Ferrari 1:18.873 +2.348 12 14 Olivier Panis Prost-Mugen-Honda 1:19.157 +2.632 13 17 Gianni Morbidelli Sauber-Petronas 1:19.323 +2.798 14 19 Mika Salo Tyrrell-Ford 1:20.079 +3.554 15 1 Damon Hill Arrows-Yamaha 1:20.089 +3.564 16 15 Shinji Nakano Prost-Mugen-Honda 1:20.103 +3.578 17 22 Rubens Barrichello Stewart-Ford 1:20.255 +3.730 18 21 Jarno Trulli Minardi-Hart 1:20.452 +3.927 19 18 Jos Verstappen Tyrrell-Ford 1:20.582 +4.057 20 20 Ukyo Katayama Minardi-Hart 1:20.672 +4.147 21 2 Pedro Diniz Arrows-Yamaha 1:21.029 +4.504 22 23 Jan Magnussen Stewart-Ford 1:21.060 +4.535107% time: 1:21.882Source:
Race Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 3 Jacques Villeneuve Williams-Renault 64 1:30:35.896 1 10 2 14 Olivier Panis Prost-Mugen-Honda 64 +5.804 12 6 3 7 Jean Alesi Benetton-Renault 64 +12.534 4 4 4 5 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 64 +17.979 7 3 5 16 Johnny Herbert Sauber-Petronas 64 +27.986 10 2 6 10 David Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes 64 +29.744 3 1 7 9 Mika Häkkinen McLaren-Mercedes 64 +48.785 5 8 4 Heinz-Harald Frentzen Williams-Renault 64 +1:04.139 2 9 12 Giancarlo Fisichella Jordan-Peugeot 64 +1:04.767 8 10 8 Gerhard Berger Benetton-Renault 64 +1:05.670 6 11 18 Jos Verstappen Tyrrell-Ford 63 +1 lap 19 12 6 Eddie Irvine Ferrari 63 +1 lap 11 13 23 Jan Magnussen Stewart-Ford 63 +1 lap 22 14 17 Gianni Morbidelli Sauber-Petronas 62 +2 laps 13 15 21 Jarno Trulli Minardi-Hart 62 +2 laps 18 2 Pedro Diniz Arrows-Yamaha 53 Engine 21 11 Ralf Schumacher Jordan-Peugeot 50 Engine 9 22 Rubens Barrichello Stewart-Ford 37 Engine 17 19 Mika Salo Tyrrell-Ford 35 Puncture 14 15 Shinji Nakano Prost-Mugen-Honda 34 Gearbox 16 1 Damon Hill Arrows-Yamaha 17 Engine 15 20 Ukyo Katayama Minardi-Hart 11 Gearbox 20
Championship standings after the race
Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Jacques Villeneuve 30 2 Michael Schumacher 27 3 Olivier Panis 15 4 Eddie Irvine 14 5 David Coulthard 11Source:
Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Ferrari 41 2 Williams-Renault 40 3 McLaren-Mercedes 21 4 Benetton-Renault 17 5 Prost-Mugen-Honda 15Source:
References