1991 German Grand Prix

1991 German Grand Prix
Race 9 of 16 in the 1991 Formula One World Championship
Race details
Date	28 July 1991
Official name	Grosser Mobil 1 Preis von Deutschland
Location	Hockenheimring, Hockenheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Course	Permanent racing facility
Course length	6.802 km (4.227 miles)
Distance	45 laps, 306.090 km (190.195 miles)
Weather	Hot and sunny
Pole position
Driver	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Renault
Time	1:37.087
Fastest lap
Driver	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Renault
Time	1:43.569 on lap 35
Podium
First	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Renault
Second	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Renault
Third	Jean Alesi	Ferrari
Lap leaders

The 1991 German Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at the Hockenheimring on 28 July 1991. It was the ninth race of the 1991 Formula One World Championship, and the first German Grand Prix to be held in Germany after the reunification between West and East Germany.

The 45-lap race was won from pole position by British driver Nigel Mansell, driving a Williams-Renault. It was Mansell's third consecutive Grand Prix victory. His Italian teammate Riccardo Patrese finished second, with Frenchman Jean Alesi third in a Ferrari.

Drivers' Championship leader, Brazilian Ayrton Senna, failed to score in his McLaren-Honda after running out of fuel for the second consecutive race, allowing Mansell to close to within eight points of him.

Pre-race

Ayrton Senna spent a night in a hospital in Mannheim after crashing during pre-race testing a week earlier. Senna suffered a tyre failure at the end of a long straight, causing the car to launch into the air and turn over several times. The McLaren-Honda went 15 feet into the air and was destroyed in the crash, according to witnesses. After regaining consciousness, Senna was taken to hospital with neck and chest bruising. ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}

There were two changes to the entry list, the first was at Lotus where Johnny Herbert was replaced by young German Michael Bartels because of the former's Japanese Formula 3000 commitments, and the second was at Footwork where Alex Caffi was back in action after his road accident. Elsewhere Satoru Nakajima announced he would retire at the end of the year.

Qualifying

Pre-qualifying report

The participants in the Friday morning pre-qualifying sessions were reshuffled prior to this event, the season having reached its mid-point. Scuderia Italia (Dallara) and Jordan had scored points, and were thus relieved of the requirement to pre-qualify, and could automatically join the rest of the field in the main qualifying sessions from here on. By virtue of Nicola Larini's seventh place finish at the first round in Phoenix, the Modena team were also lifted out of pre-qualifying, despite struggling in the sessions at recent Grands Prix. ^[5]

Taking their places during the Friday morning sessions were Brabham, AGS, and Footwork, who had all failed to score points so far in 1991, or match Modena Lambo's seventh place finish at any race. Fondmetal and Coloni were also still required to pre-qualify.

Here at Hockenheim, the fastest pre-qualifier was Martin Brundle in the Brabham BT60Y. He was over a second faster than the AGS JH25B of Gabriele Tarquini, with Michele Alboreto just a tenth behind in the Footwork FA12C, despite gearbox problems. The fourth pre-qualifier was the other Brabham of Mark Blundell. ^[5]

The four entrants missing out included Fondmetal driver Olivier Grouillard, who suffered an engine failure and finished fifth fastest, ahead of the second Footwork of Alex Caffi, who had returned to the cockpit after missing four races. The second AGS of Italian Fabrizio Barbazza was seventh, nearly a second ahead of regular backmarker Pedro Chaves for the cash-strapped Coloni team. ^[5]

Pre-qualifying classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Time	Gap
1	7	Martin Brundle	Brabham-Yamaha	1:42.810
2	17	Gabriele Tarquini	AGS-Ford	1:43.939	+1.129
3	9	Michele Alboreto	Footwork-Ford	1:44.034	+1.224
4	8	Mark Blundell	Brabham-Yamaha	1:44.257	+1.447
5	14	Olivier Grouillard	Fondmetal-Ford	1:44.645	+1.835
6	10	Alex Caffi	Footwork-Ford	1:45.282	+2.472
7	18	Fabrizio Barbazza	AGS-Ford	1:46.604	+3.794
8	31	Pedro Chaves	Coloni-Ford	1:47.546	+4.736

Qualifying report

In Saturday practice Érik Comas had a massive accident at the Ostkurve chicane in his Ligier. The French driver was unhurt, but it raised questions about the safety of the second chicane. In qualifying, Nigel Mansell took pole from title rival Ayrton Senna. Gerhard Berger was third, followed by Riccardo Patrese- the Williams and McLaren cars were within 4 tenths of each other but were all nearly 2 seconds faster of the next fastest cars, the 2 Ferraris of Alain Prost and Jean Alesi, which were a second quicker than the next fastest car behind them. Then following the Ferraris were Andrea de Cesaris, Nelson Piquet, Roberto Moreno, and Pierluigi Martini in the Minardi, taking full advantage of his Ferrari engine around the high speed circuit.

Qualifying classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Gap
1	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Renault	1:37.467	1:37.087
2	1	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda	1:38.208	1:37.274	+0.187
3	2	Gerhard Berger	McLaren-Honda	1:37.946	1:37.393	+0.306
4	6	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Renault	1:38.146	1:37.435	+0.348
5	27	Alain Prost	Ferrari	1:39.422	1:39.034	+1.947
6	28	Jean Alesi	Ferrari	1:39.391	1:39.042	+1.955
7	33	Andrea de Cesaris	Jordan-Ford	1:40.387	1:40.239	+3.152
8	20	Nelson Piquet	Benetton-Ford	1:40.560	1:40.878	+3.473
9	19	Roberto Moreno	Benetton-Ford	1:41.968	1:40.957	+3.870
10	23	Pierluigi Martini	Minardi-Ferrari	1:40.998	1:41.373	+3.911
11	32	Bertrand Gachot	Jordan-Ford	1:41.443	1:41.308	+4.221
12	16	Ivan Capelli	Leyton House-Ilmor	1:42.025	1:41.330	+4.243
13	3	Satoru Nakajima	Tyrrell-Honda	1:41.515	1:41.390	+4.303
14	4	Stefano Modena	Tyrrell-Honda	1:41.566	1:41.952	+4.479
15	7	Martin Brundle	Brabham-Yamaha	1:42.294	1:41.615	+4.528
16	15	Maurício Gugelmin	Leyton House-Ilmor	no time	1:41.735	+4.648
17	25	Thierry Boutsen	Ligier-Lamborghini	1:41.823	1:41.929	+4.736
18	21	Emanuele Pirro	Dallara-Judd	1:42.021	1:42.672	+4.934
19	24	Gianni Morbidelli	Minardi-Ferrari	1:42.132	1:42.058	+4.971
20	22	JJ Lehto	Dallara-Judd	1:42.171	1:42.708	+5.084
21	8	Mark Blundell	Brabham-Yamaha	1:43.414	1:42.216	+5.129
22	30	Aguri Suzuki	Lola-Ford	1:45.037	1:42.474	+5.387
23	11	Mika Häkkinen	Lotus-Judd	1:44.816	1:42.726	+5.639
24	34	Nicola Larini	Lambo-Lamborghini	1:44.596	1:43.035	+5.948
25	29	Éric Bernard	Lola-Ford	1:43.797	1:43.321	+6.234
26	26	Érik Comas	Ligier-Lamborghini	1:43.803	1:43.364	+6.277
27	9	Michele Alboreto	Footwork-Ford	1:44.362	1:43.409	+6.322
28	12	Michael Bartels	Lotus-Judd	1:46.409	1:43.624	+6.537
29	17	Gabriele Tarquini	AGS-Ford	1:43.787	1:43.918	+6.700
30	35	Eric van de Poele	Lambo-Lamborghini	1:44.489	1:44.207	+7.120

Race

Race report

On Sunday, a couple of hours before the race, there was a FIA driver's meeting and Senna requested to race director Roland Bruynseraede that the tyre walls at the chicanes be replaced with traffic cones because of the possibility of hitting the tyres and rolling; that happened to him during qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix, and this heated up when FIA president Jean-Marie Balestre, Senna and a few other drivers had a brief argument over the regulations involving safety. Balestre then instigated a democratic vote, and the vote went towards removing the tyre walls and replacing them with traffic cones.

At the start of the race, Mansell made a great start while Berger slotted into second ahead of team-mate Senna, with Prost, Patrese, and Alesi rounding out the top six. At the back Mark Blundell spun but continued, although Larini spun off into retirement in his attempt to avoid the Brabham. Berger made a bad pit-stop and fell back to tenth, while Prost started to reel in Senna. Mansell was running away at the front and when he pitted for tyres he dropped just behind Alesi, but did not waste time in changing the situation and passed Alesi two laps later to re-take the lead. While Mansell was surging away, a tremendous battle developed for third place between Senna, Prost, and Patrese, with Riccardo beating both men before setting off after Alesi. Senna and Prost continued to squabble over fourth and the major talking point came on lap 37 when Prost attempted to pass Senna going into the first chicane. Prost was faster and tried to go around the outside, Senna would not give way and Prost went off and proceeded to stall the engine. Prost blamed Senna and said he would not be so forgiving the next time while Senna accused Prost of complaining for the sake of complaining. Prost's comments would earn him a one-race suspended ban, while the FIA ordered a sit-down meeting between the two men at the next race. Meanwhile, Mansell cruised to his third straight win, leading home Patrese, Alesi, Berger, de Cesaris, and Gachot. Senna was running in fourth place, but ran out of fuel on the last lap for the second straight race and was classified seventh, allowing Mansell to close to within eight points of Senna in the drivers championship.

Race classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Renault	45	1:19:29.661 [6]	1	10
2	6	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Renault	45	+ 13.779	4	6
3	28	Jean Alesi	Ferrari	45	+ 17.618	6	4
4	2	Gerhard Berger	McLaren-Honda	45	+ 32.651	3	3
5	33	Andrea de Cesaris	Jordan-Ford	45	+ 1:17.537	7	2
6	32	Bertrand Gachot	Jordan-Ford	45	+ 1:40.605	11	1
7	1	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda	44	Out of fuel	2
8	19	Roberto Moreno	Benetton-Ford	44	+ 1 lap	9
9	25	Thierry Boutsen	Ligier-Lamborghini	44	+ 1 lap	17
10	21	Emanuele Pirro	Dallara-Judd	44	+ 1 lap	18
11	7	Martin Brundle	Brabham-Yamaha	43	+ 2 laps	15
12	8	Mark Blundell	Brabham-Yamaha	43	+ 2 laps	21
13	4	Stefano Modena	Tyrrell-Honda	41	+ 4 laps	14
Ret	27	Alain Prost	Ferrari	37	Spun off	5
Ret	16	Ivan Capelli	Leyton House-Ilmor	36	Engine	12
Ret	22	JJ Lehto	Dallara-Judd	35	Engine	20
Ret	20	Nelson Piquet	Benetton-Ford	27	Engine	8
Ret	3	Satoru Nakajima	Tyrrell-Honda	26	Gearbox	13
Ret	26	Érik Comas	Ligier-Lamborghini	22	Engine	26
Ret	15	Maurício Gugelmin	Leyton House-Ilmor	21	Gearbox	16
Ret	11	Mika Häkkinen	Lotus-Judd	19	Engine	23
Ret	30	Aguri Suzuki	Lola-Ford	15	Engine	22
Ret	24	Gianni Morbidelli	Minardi-Ferrari	14	Differential	19
Ret	23	Pierluigi Martini	Minardi-Ferrari	11	Differential	10
Ret	29	Éric Bernard	Lola-Ford	9	Transmission	25
Ret	34	Nicola Larini	Lambo-Lamborghini	0	Spun off	24
DNQ	9	Michele Alboreto	Footwork-Ford
DNQ	12	Michael Bartels	Lotus-Judd
DNQ	17	Gabriele Tarquini	AGS-Ford
DNQ	35	Eric van de Poele	Lambo-Lamborghini
DNPQ	14	Olivier Grouillard	Fondmetal-Ford
DNPQ	10	Alex Caffi	Footwork-Ford
DNPQ	18	Fabrizio Barbazza	AGS-Ford
DNPQ	31	Pedro Chaves	Coloni-Ford
Source: [7]

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Ayrton Senna 51 2 Nigel Mansell 43 3 Riccardo Patrese 28 4 Alain Prost 21 1 5 Gerhard Berger 19 Source: [8]

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 1 Williams-Renault 71 1 2 McLaren-Honda 70 3 Ferrari 33 4 Benetton-Ford 23 1 5 Jordan-Ford 13 Source: [8]

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

References

1. "AUTO RACING; Senna Hospitalized". New York Times. 1991-07-20.
2. "Senna Crashes in Test, Escapes Serious Injury". Los Angeles Times. 1991-07-20.
3. "Senna to compete at German Grand Prix despite crash". UPI. 1991-07-20.
4. "Senna injured at Hockenheim". UPI. 1991-07-19.
5. Walker, Murray (1991). Murray Walker's Grand Prix Year. Hazleton Publishing. pp. 77–84. ISBN   0-905138-90-2.
6. Henry, Alan (1991). AUTOCOURSE 1991-92. Hazleton Publishing. p. 183. ISBN   0-905138-87-2.
7. "1991 German Grand Prix". formula1.com. Archived from the original on 3 November 2014. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
8. "Germany 1991 - Championship • STATS F1". www.statsf1.com. Retrieved 18 March 2019.

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