The was the 45th
FIA Formula One World Championship season. It commenced on
March 27 ,
1994 , and ended on
November 13 after sixteen races. It was one of the closest in history, and provided a season with many highs, lows, extremes, deaths, records and controversy.
At the start of the year,
Williams were searching for their third straight drivers' and constructors' double with the assistance of star driver
Ayrton Senna , recruited from
McLaren to replace the retired reigning champion
Alain Prost and 34 year old
Damon Hill , entering his second year with the team.
Benetton 's hopes lay with young
Michael Schumacher , and Ferrari had
Jean Alesi and
Gerhard Berger as title contenders.
The first two races saw Senna take pole relatively comfortably, before being forced to retire at
Brazil after spinning off and
Aida due to a first-lap collision. Schumacher took comfortable wins, taking a lead in the championship. But what happened in the next race shook the Formula One racing world.
At
San Marino , in Friday practice
Rubens Barrichello 's
Jordan left the track on the high speed
Chicane called "Variante Bassa," giving the young Brazilian severe injuries. Swift action by F1 doctor
Sid Watkins was all that prevented Barrichello swallowing his tongue. Then, on Saturday during qualifying,
Roland Ratzenberger 's car hit a wall at the fast Villeneuve corner, killing the
Austria n on impact. Senna was so shaken by these events he considered retiring and not taking part, but he evetually decided that he should race. At the start, there were further complications, as
JJ Lehto stalled his
Benetton and was hit by
Pedro Lamy , which caused the safety car to be deployed. After a six-lap safety car sequence, racing resumed, but just one lap the steering appeared to fail on Senna's car as he went through the fast left-hander of Tamburello and the Williams-Renault FW16 slammed head-on into a wall at 135mph. Senna died, according to sources, that night in hospital. A touching and chilling thing was later discovered about Senna's car – inside his FW16 a blood-soaked Austrian flag was found, that Senna had planned to use as a victory tribute in honour of
Ratzenberger .
A shaken Formula one world moved on to
Monaco , where Schumacher took a convincing win, his fourth in a row. In Spain, he looked on course for another, only for his car to jam in fourth gear and Hill to win instead. Schumacher, however, still nursed his car for many laps in one gear to finish second. For many, Schumacher's crushing dominance all but wrote off the chance of a competitive championship. This seemed so, until the FIA began what many viewed as political cleverness to tighten the championship.
At
Silverstone Schumacher illegally overtook on the formation lap. He was given a stop-and-go penalty, which he decided to ignore as his team protested. For several laps, Schumacher refused to honour his penalty, which resulted in a black flag. He was stripped of his second place behind
Hill , and banned for two races, pending an appeal.
Hill took advantage of this, cutting back at Schumacher's lead. However, neither drivers scored at the
German Grand Prix , where Berger took Ferrari's first win since 1990. Schumacher, however, was at his best at the
Hungarian Grand Prix and at
Belgium , taking sensational victories. However, when the car was investigated after the Belgian GP, it was found that the bargeboards were outside of regulations, and Schumacher was disqualified from this second victory, and then missed the next two races as his appeal against the two-race ban imposed at Silverstone failed. Hill yet again took advantage of this, taking 20 points with two wins during his absence, giving Schumacher a lead of just one point. Schumacher won in
Europe with Hill second, but Hill drove a superb race in
Japan in torrential rain to win with Schumacher following him home. This kept the points margin between them at one point, so the F1 racing world prepared for a nailbating climax at
Adelaide .
At Adelaide, Schumacher had one thing on his mind: aerodynamics. The angles of his front and rear wings were set to extremely low levels, giving a high straightline speed, but impaired cornering due to lack of downforce and therefore grip. This was in order to achieve a top speed comparable with the more powerful Williams-Renault.
Nigel Mansell assisted at keeping Schumacher at bay for Williams by taking pole position, but he was eventually left behind in third after a poor start as the two title protagonists fought hard for the lead, and indeed, the title. Schumacher's extreme aerodynamic package began to unravel late in the race when his car ran wide and clipped a wall on the outside of a corner. Hill slipped through on the inside of the next corner, but Schumacher, upon regaining balance and control of the car, attempted to protect his line and had his car collide with Hill. Schumacher was out on the spot, but so was Hill in the pits, with broken suspension. Schumacher, at age 25 was Germany's first Formula 1 World Drivers' Champion, but under highly controversial circumstances. While Mansell took his 31st and final win of his career, the feeling lingers to this day that Schumacher's collision with Hill was far from a mistake, but rather an attempt to take his rival out. On the other hand Schumacher had nearly always beaten Hill in direct comparison and the disqualifications (such as in the Belgian GP) and bans for Schumacher have also been controversial.
The following
Teams and
Drivers competed in the
1994 FIA Formula One World Championship .
