The rise of Schumacher and Benetton

The foundations for Benetton's remarkable 1994 season were laid three years earlier. The team was in competitive limbo when Tom Walkinshaw came on board to manage the engineering side, alongside commercial boss Flavio Briatore.

The Scot brought in his Jaguar sportscar technical director Ross Brawn, and subsequently headhunted Michael Schumacher after the German's debut for Jordan at Spa.

Through 1992-93 Schumacher and Benetton began to develop into a serious force, although Williams remained dominant. The 1994 rules then presented a reset for everyone, as they brought the end of driver aids such as traction control.

In addition, refuelling was back after an absence of a decade, while as the works Ford team Benetton also had a new V8 engine. All of these elements came together in the B194, designed by Rory Byrne.

"I think when we first ran the '94 car it was just one of those times where you just knew straight away," says Schumacher's race engineer Pat Symonds. "Michael got out of the car after his first proper run in it and said, 'We can win races with this'.

Benetton mastered pitstops with the return of refuelling in 1994 © LAT

"It was a car that was just stunningly quick, it was really easy to drive, it was really easy to set up. The only problem was that it didn't have a hope in hell of ever finishing a race! The Zetec-R kept breaking cranks, so all the way through testing we were just chomping through engines like there was no tomorrow."

An updated unit finally allowed the B194 to run some decent mileage at Silverstone, but there was still a lot of work to be done. "We went off to Brazil and it was probably one of the hardest weekends I've ever known," adds Symonds. "From Thursday through to Sunday we barely slept, we just worked day and night. We were still very nervous about engine life."

The car ran reliably in the opening race at Interlagos, and Schumacher won comfortably, leaving the Williams of Ayrton Senna behind. He triumphed again in the second race at Aida, where Senna crashed on the first lap.

"In the first races we caught Williams by the balls," says former Benetton sporting director Joan Villadelprat. "They had 100bhp more than us. Every single pitstop was quicker, we were up at the front, and I think we made Ayrton and Williams desperate, and we made everybody crazy!

"We started the year very well prepared, and Rory did a fantastic car. It was the first time for refuelling, and I think I prepared the guys for the pitstops better than anybody else."

Schumacher and Benetton proved the masters of this new game of racing between fuel stops. "I think it was something that as a team, we were pretty good at," says Symonds. "As with most things at Enstone of that era we were good lateral thinkers, we grasped the importance of things, often long before some of the more traditional teams.

"We wrote strategy software, and I wouldn't be surprised if other teams didn't have anything like what we had, and in fact many of them didn't have anything at all. We had basic models compared to the high powered maths we use these days, but at least we understood how to go racing in a refuelling situation.

"We practised and practised and I think we regularly had the best pitstops. The final part of the equation was that we had a driver who was capable of driving three sprint races during a grand prix, and he was bloody good at that."

Schumacher dominated the first half of the season in the B194 © LAT

Everything changed at Imola. After the restart Schumacher went on to log his third victory of the year, and he also won the next race in Monaco. Meanwhile the sport was in turmoil. Max Mosley seized the initiative and announced a series of technical regulation changes, led by a chopped diffuser, to be implemented within a matter of weeks.

Given that Benetton had the best package, Briatore and Walkinshaw were not happy. They made their opposition known by letter, much to Mosley's annoyance.

In Spain Schumacher found himself stuck in fifth gear, and he pulled off a minor miracle by not only bringing his car home, but also hanging on to second place.

"He obviously slowed down for a little bit," says Symonds. "But after a couple of laps we were thinking, 'What the hell is going on here?' We were in the early days of real time telemetry then, the data was showing us he was always in fifth gear, but the lap times didn't suggest it.

Afterwards he said he had a think about it and referred back to his Mercedes [Group C sportscar] days. Michael had learned a lot about using long gears, and he just adapted so quickly to that situation."

Schumacher continued to set the pace, triumphing in Canada and France. From seven starts he had six wins and one second place, and he led Damon Hill by 66 points to 29. However, the tide was about to turn against Benetton - and in the view of the team, it was not by coincidence.

"We could almost win the title in the middle of the year, and obviously for television and everything else, that's not very good," says Villadelprat. "Also Max had decided to change the diffuser after Barcelona and it was a big thing. And Tom and Flavio were the two leaders of the revolution to try and screw up Max..."

At Silverstone Schumacher qualified second to Hill. On the formation lap he jumped ahead of the Williams, before falling back in line. Later the stewards decided to give him a stop-and-go penalty, but the team contested the decision. Schumacher was then black-flagged, and the team initially told him to ignore it, before finally telling him to come in and take the stop-and-go.

"We had the communication of that penalty late," says Villadelprat. "The rules specified that you had a time when the communication had to come from the FIA - it was a piece of paper in those days - so I argued and said this is already out of the time.

"Then there was a lot of shit, in the end we called him in, did everything that we were supposed to be doing, and we carried on and finished second."

After the race the team was fined $25,000, and Schumacher kept his second place. However, behind the scenes, wheels were in motion, thanks to a report from FIA observer Roberto Causo.

Sixteen days later the FIA not only disqualified Schumacher from Silverstone but also banned him from two upcoming races and fined the team $500,000. Benetton lodged an appeal, which allowed Michael to contest his home race at Hockenheim.

Meanwhile controversy continued to rain down on the team. All year there had been dark suggestions that Benetton was still using banned driver aids, and before his death Senna had made his feelings clear. A lightning start by Schumacher at Magny-Cours also set tongues wagging.

At Imola the FIA had seized the black boxes of the top three finishers, and its report on Benetton revealed seemingly damning evidence of a hidden reference to launch control under the ominously named 'Option 13'. In the end no action was taken - officially it was deemed that there was no proof it had been used at Imola, the race in question - but Schumacher's success was now marred by a cloud of suspicion that remains to this day.

"If someone wanted to be really devious, they could have hidden it from me, but they couldn't have hidden it from him," says Symonds. "Michael would have had to be involved, and I don't think he would have been.

"He did some things that were unsporting, let's say, but he always did them on the spur of the moment. His instantaneous decision-making was sometimes not very good.

"But I don't think he ever had any preconceived ideas of doing anything wrong. That's why I don't think he would have gone along with anything like launch control, and absolutely he would have had to have known about it."

Hockenheim pit fire led to more controversy surrounding Benetton © LAT

Schumacher retired at Hockenheim, but the big story was a huge pit fire suffered by team-mate Jos Verstappen. Yet more controversy was stirred when an FIA investigation revealed that a filter was missing from the refuelling rig. Villadelprat says it was his decision, but insists he was given verbal permission by the FIA.

Schumacher bounced back to win in both Hungary and Belgium, but there was more trouble after the latter race. Germany had been the scene of the rushed introduction of the 'plank', designed to prevent teams gaining performance by running their cars too low. At Spa Schumacher's was deemed to be worn, and he was excluded.

"That incident at Spa was just so bizarre," says Symonds. "The rules were very clear. If the plank was found to be below the minimum thickness, then it had to be taken off and weighed, and the weight of it had to be no less than 90 per cent of its weight new.

"So when they checked the plank it was under in one area, which was not a problem; they should have taken it off and weighed it, and they wouldn't do it. They totally ignored that and said it was illegal. So we thought that the process was wrong.

"It had been wet from P1 all the way through to the race, so we weren't 100 per cent certain that we'd got our rideheights correct. But also he'd had quite a big off during the race, where the car had clattered across the kerbs.

"Because the wear was quite localised we thought that's probably what did it. We didn't know, we couldn't tell, even these days we probably wouldn't be able to tell. So we appealed the decision. It just seemed that we could do nothing right that year."

Indeed more bad news was coming: the team lost its appeal against the Silverstone penalty, so Schumacher subsequently had to miss Monza and Estoril, where Verstappen and JJ Lehto proved to be bit-part players. At the same time the team escaped penalty for the fuel filter offence, despite being found guilty.

In an unusual conclusion the FIA noted that Benetton had agreed to make "substantial management changes". For the following season Walkinshaw would move across to sister team Ligier.

Schumacher returned from his two-race absence to win at Jerez. Then in the penultimate race at Suzuka - a two-part aggregate affair thanks to rain - he was beaten by Hill.

"It was one of the few times when he actually hadn't really understood what we were doing," Symonds admits. "Timing systems weren't that sophisticated, so you had to hand-calculate your position. I was just pushing him on, saying, 'You're behind schedule'.

"He didn't really comprehend it, and afterwards he said, 'I just didn't realise...' It was maybe the only time I can think of that he wasn't completely on top of a race."

The result left Schumacher going into the Adelaide finale just one point clear of Hill, having lost 16 points to disqualifications, and missed two races.

"He was pretty damn motivated to win the world championship, and now he had the chance to do it," continues Symonds. "I don't know how all that affected him, but it was probably the same as me. It was probably this mix of absolute determination to prove them wrong and the absolute horror of being accused of things that were not correct."

The championship was decided on lap 36 when Schumacher and Hill made contact after Michael had gone off and clipped the wall. Both men were out, but the German still had that one point advantage.

"There wasn't a moment of enjoyment in it, there really wasn't," says Symonds. "I remember after the accident I just went ballistic, I'm the calmest person in the pitlane, and that was too much for me. I honestly didn't believe that we'd won the championship. I thought, 'Here we go again, another bloody enquiry'.

"I didn't believe that he did it on purpose. I know the steering was broken, I could see the data, and I didn't think that he had control of the car. I guess after '97 with [Jacques] Villeneuve, and then Monaco 2006, I wondered about '94. As I said earlier, there were times when Michael's judgement was not very good."

Controversy raged of course, but Schumacher was world champion, and nobody could take it away from him.

"We produced an absolutely wonderful car," says Symonds. "The changes that were made to the technical regulations after Imola, things like cutting the diffuser down, putting vents in the airboxes, putting the plank on, each one of them made our absolutely wonderful car average, or even below average, because I think by the end of the season the Williams was a better car.

The title was decided with a frantic battle in the Australian GP © LAT

"We did four races less than anyone else, two of which were podiums. Honestly at the end of '94 I got within hours of just resigning and leaving motorsport. I was so fed up with the accusations. I knew that I had personally done nothing wrong.

"I felt that there were forces at work, and I really didn't want to be part of this any more. It was my first exposure to some of the Machiavellian politics that occur in F1 from time to time, and it was a bit much for me.

"Equally, it made the 1995 victory just so much better. It's still the most important thing I've done in my life, winning the two championships in '95. To my mind it justified that we were a good team, we were competitive, and the accusations levelled at us in '94 were just not justified."

That team would gradually break up. Brawn and Byrne joined Schumacher at Ferrari, and Symonds and most others have subsequently moved on, including Schumacher's mechanics Jonathan Wheatley and Kenny Handkammer, now key players at Red Bull as team manager and chief mechanic respectively.

Among the '94 alumni still at Enstone are current Lotus team manager Paul Seaby, and trackside operations director Alan Permane. For all of them it was a year not to be forgotten.

"We'll never know what was behind it all," says Symonds. "But there is no doubt that proper practices were ignored, because people felt that the ends justified the means. I'm absolutely certain of that. What the end was, to this day I'm not quite sure."

Villadelprat adds: "It was really hard year, because there was a lot of things that happened to us. But I can guarantee you that as far as I know, the car was absolutely perfectly legal.

"I think we caught everybody by surprise. We broke the establishment a little bit. And when you do that, you always have a price to pay, and I think we paid that price through the year."

For more stories from the remarkable 1994 season, take a look at the special August 7 issue of AUTOSPORT magazine, guest edited by Damon Hill.

Hill lifts Williams in tragic season
The story of Damon Hill's rise to title contender after the death of Ayrton Senna

Tech Focus: Williams FW16
The difficult and unloved machine that turned into a championship winner

Why were there so many crashes in 1994?
The challenge of the non-gizmo cars and their part in the run of crashes

Mansell on his last F1 hurrah
The 1992 world champion talks of his final return to Williams

Brundle and McLaren: missed opportunity
Martin Brundle on the trials and tribulations of his season with the F1 superteam

Too injured to race
Why 1994 ended the F1 careers of JJ Lehto and Karl Wendlinger

Separated at birth: Benetton B194 and Pacific PR01
The best and worst cars of 1994 were more closely related than you might think

The final days of Team Lotus
Johnny Herbert remembers the day he could have saved a famous name

Safety legacy
Max Mosley on how the FIA turned tragedy into life-saving triumph