1996 Monaco Grand Prix

  1996 Monaco Grand Prix

Race details
Race 6 of 16 in the 1996 Formula One season
Date	May 19, 1996
Official name	LIV Grand Prix Automobile de Monaco
Location	Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo
Course	Street circuit 3.328 km (2.068 mi)
Distance	75 laps, 249.600 km (155.094 mi)
Scheduled Distance	78 laps, 259.584 km (161.298 mi)
Weather	Overcast, mild, wet at first, drying later, light rain at finish
Pole position
Driver	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari
Time	1:20.356
Fastest lap
Driver	Jean Alesi	Benetton-Renault
Time	1:25.205 on lap 59
Podium
First	Olivier Panis	Ligier-Mugen-Honda
Second	David Coulthard	McLaren-Mercedes
Third	Johnny Herbert	Sauber-Ford

JS43 of the type driven by Olivier Panis at the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix, on display.

Formation lap

The 1996 Monaco Grand Prix was a Formula One race held at Monaco on May 19, 1996. The race was run in wet weather, causing significant attrition and tying a record for the fewest number of cars (4) to be running at the end of a Grand Prix race. Olivier Panis scored his sole career Formula One victory, earning the last ever Formula One victory for the Ligier team (and the first ever for engine manufacturer Mugen Motorsports) after switching to slick tyres in a well-timed pitstop.

Report

Practice and qualifying

Michael Schumacher had taken pole position but had caused minor controversy on his slowing down lap when he impeded Gerhard Berger right at the end of the session. Coming out of the tunnel Schumacher was cruising slowly, acknowledging the crowd, while Berger was on a hot lap. Schumacher tried to get out of Berger's way but the Austrian was going too fast and had to spin at high speed to avoid the Ferrari, entering the chicane backwards.

The Ligiers were 14th and 17th in qualifying, both below their expectations after the team had mis-firing issues, preventing a top six position.

Race day

Olivier Panis was fastest in the warm-up. Jacques Villeneuve was 18th after running a wet-setup in preparation for the expected rain.

Between the warm-up session and the race, heavy rain fell at the circuit. An additional 15-minute session was added to allow the drivers to get use to the changed conditions as it was the first time rain had fallen over the race weekend. The session took place at 13:15 CEST (GMT +2). Several drivers went off during the session, including Pedro Lamy, Pedro Diniz and Giancarlo Fisichella, but all continued. The only two drivers to escape with damage were Mika Häkkinen and Andrea Montermini, who suffered damage to their car. Jean Alesi suffered a puncture at the end of the session, but was able to return to the pitlane. Several drivers opted to skip the session. The Footwork team chose not to participate as they did not have any spare parts, and any crash would have marked the end of their weekend. Häkkinen was fastest, setting his time before his crash, with Alesi, Rubens Barrichello and Johnny Herbert behind. The two Williams cars were 7th and 8th, Villeneuve ahead of Damon Hill with Schumacher behind them in 9th.

The race started at 14:30 CEST.

In the warm-up Montermini crashed his Forti coming out of the tunnel, and the team's lack of a spare car meant the Italian was unable to start the wet race, therefore 21 cars would take the start. Hill got the jump on Schumacher into Ste Devote while further back there was trouble already. Jos Verstappen, who had opted to start the race on slicks, slid straight into the wall. The two Minardis were then eliminated when they tangled coming out of the first corner. And so 18 cars climbed the hill on the first lap. Hill began to pull away while polesitter Schumacher lost control coming out of Lower Mirabeau and hit the wall, leaving 17 cars running. Coming into the Rascasse, Barrichello's race was over as he spun. After five laps, there were only 13 cars remaining as Ukyo Katayama (accident), Ricardo Rosset (accident) and Diniz (transmission) joined the list of retirements. A significant gap began to open between the leaders and Eddie Irvine in fourth. Indeed there was a queue of eight cars behind the slow Ferrari. Berger retired from third place on the 10th lap with gearbox trouble leaving 12 cars while Heinz-Harald Frentzen damaged his front wing trying to pass Irvine, dropping to second last, ahead of Luca Badoer.

On lap 31, Martin Brundle spun off, which left only 11 cars in the race. Three laps later, Irvine was eventually passed when Panis forced his way through at the Loews hairpin in an electrifying move. Irvine lost control, became stuck and had even undone his seatbelts before he restarted his car with the assistance of the marshals. Hill, meanwhile, had briefly lost the lead to Alesi when he made a pit stop on lap 30 to change to slicks as the track began to dry, but regained the lead a lap later when he overtook the Frenchman (who was still on wet tyres) on the track. Alesi made his pit stop shortly afterwards, allowing Hill to extend his lead to nearly 30 seconds and continue untroubled at the front until the 40th lap, when a gearbox mistake led to engine failure coming out of the tunnel, his first retirement of the season. Alesi took over the lead after otherwise having a quiet race in second. He lasted 20 laps in the lead when his suspension failed, handing the lead to Panis. Luca Badoer was running six laps down in the Forti when he collided with Villeneuve at Mirabeau, retiring both drivers.

The race did not run its full distance as the 2 hour time limit came into effect. Panis was leading David Coulthard by a small margin with only five other cars behind them. Irvine capped an eventful afternoon by spinning at the same point that teammate Schumacher crashed. As he tried to rejoin, he was hit by Mika Salo, who was in turn hit by Häkkinen. All three cars retired and the marshals had their work cut out to clear the track. Fortunately there were only four cars circulating, with Frentzen running last. The German, who so easily could have been leading the race, decided to pull into the pits on the penultimate lap as he was running last anyway, and everyone else had already seen the checkered flag. Therefore only Panis, Coulthard and Herbert were counted as finishing the race (even though Frentzen was the last car still racing), with the Frenchman winning his one and only Grand Prix and Ligier's first win in 15 seasons. Frentzen, Salo and Häkkinen were classified in the final points positions with Irvine credited with seventh place.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Time	Diff.
1	1	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1:20.356
2	5	Damon Hill	Williams-Renault	1:20.866	+0.510
3	3	Jean Alesi	Benetton-Renault	1:20.918	+0.562
4	4	Gerhard Berger	Benetton-Renault	1:21.067	+0.711
5	8	David Coulthard	McLaren-Mercedes	1:21.460	+1.104
6	11	Rubens Barrichello	Jordan-Peugeot	1:21.504	+1.148
7	2	Eddie Irvine	Ferrari	1:21.542	+1.186
8	7	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:21.688	+1.332
9	15	Heinz-Harald Frentzen	Sauber-Ford	1:21.929	+1.573
10	6	Jacques Villeneuve	Williams-Renault	1:21.963	+1.607
11	19	Mika Salo	Tyrrell-Yamaha	1:22.235	+1.879
12	17	Jos Verstappen	Footwork-Hart	1:22.327	+1.971
13	14	Johnny Herbert	Sauber-Ford	1:22.346	+1.990
14	9	Olivier Panis	Ligier-Mugen-Honda	1:22.358	+2.002
15	18	Ukyo Katayama	Tyrrell-Yamaha	1:22.460	+2.104
16	12	Martin Brundle	Jordan-Peugeot	1:22.519	+2.163
17	10	Pedro Diniz	Ligier-Mugen-Honda	1:22.682	+2.326
18	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Minardi-Ford	1:22.684	+2.328
19	20	Pedro Lamy	Minardi-Ford	1:23.350	+2.994
20	16	Ricardo Rosset	Footwork-Hart	1:24.976	+4.620
21	22	Luca Badoer	Forti-Ford	1:25.059	+4.703
22	23	Andrea Montermini	Forti-Ford	1:25.393	+5.037
107% time: 1:25.981

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	9	Olivier Panis	Ligier-Mugen-Honda	75	2:00:45.629	14	10
2	8	David Coulthard	McLaren-Mercedes	75	+4.828	5	6
3	14	Johnny Herbert	Sauber-Ford	75	+37.503	13	4
4	15	Heinz-Harald Frentzen	Sauber-Ford	74	Withdrew	9	3
5	19	Mika Salo	Tyrrell-Yamaha	70	Collision	11	2
6	7	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren-Mercedes	70	Collision	8	1
7	2	Eddie Irvine	Ferrari	68	Collision	7
Ret	6	Jacques Villeneuve	Williams-Renault	66	Collision	10
Ret	3	Jean Alesi	Benetton-Renault	60	Suspension	3
Ret	22	Luca Badoer	Forti-Ford	60	Collision + Electrical	21
Ret	5	Damon Hill	Williams-Renault	40	Engine	2
Ret	12	Martin Brundle	Jordan-Peugeot	30	Spun off	16
Ret	4	Gerhard Berger	Benetton-Renault	9	Gearbox	4
Ret	10	Pedro Diniz	Ligier-Mugen-Honda	5	Transmission	17
Ret	16	Ricardo Rosset	Footwork-Hart	3	Spun off	20
Ret	18	Ukyo Katayama	Tyrrell-Yamaha	2	Spun off	15
Ret	1	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	0	Accident	1
Ret	11	Rubens Barrichello	Jordan-Peugeot	0	Spun off	6
Ret	20	Pedro Lamy	Minardi-Ford	0	Collision	19
Ret	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Minardi-Ford	0	Collision	18
Ret	17	Jos Verstappen	Footwork-Hart	0	Accident	12
DNS	23	Andrea Montermini	Forti-Ford		No Car	22

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Damon Hill 43 2 Jacques Villeneuve 22 3 Michael Schumacher 16 4 Olivier Panis 11 5 Jean Alesi 11

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Williams-Renault 65 2 Ferrari 25 3 Benetton-Renault 18 4 McLaren-Mercedes 16 5 Ligier-Mugen-Honda 11

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

Trivia

David Coulthard took second place wearing one of Schumacher's helmets, having borrowed it before the race because his was steaming up.

External links

• F1 Rejects article

Previous race: 1996 San Marino Grand Prix	FIA Formula One World Championship 1996 season	Next race: 1996 Spanish Grand Prix
Previous race: 1995 Monaco Grand Prix	Monaco Grand Prix	Next race: 1997 Monaco Grand Prix

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