Berger: Making Ferrari win again in F1

Gerhard Berger laughs. "The natural thing for a person is to forget things he didn't like," he says, "so half of the things I cannot remember!"

On that basis, it's probably fair to say that his memory of the 1993 Formula 1 season - which we're discussing - is, let's say about 25 per cent. And that's being generous.

Berger had joined Ferrari when the Maranello team was at rock bottom, switching over from McLaren to replace Ivan Capelli in a big-money move - so much so that, when the Austrian topped the weigh-in before the 1993 season opener in South Africa, Keke Rosberg quipped that he must have left his wallet in his racesuit.

Later in the season, Berger recalled of his first test of the Ferrari F93A at Estoril: "That night I went back to the hotel and thought, 'Jesus Christ, what have I done?' But then we began to make some progress. Now we have just two problems: one is reliability, the other is performance!"

It was the final year of active-ride suspension, a philosophy that Ferrari never got its head around. Sometimes the handling was bad enough to terrify Berger and team-mate Jean Alesi.

Berger had to deal with the difficult F93A on his Ferrari return © LAT

The F93A was intended as an interim car, with a new machine planned for mid-season. But, when it was announced that driver aids would be banned for 1994, Ferrari decided to concentrate on development of the following year's car, leaving Alesi and Berger to plug on with the F93A.

A series of accidents left Berger at his lowest ebb as an F1 driver, and he finished the season eighth in the championship with a mere 12 points - two places behind, with four points fewer, than Alesi.

"The only guys who really understood active ride in a complex way were Williams," says Berger today. "Williams was starting to have a proper, working active ride, while some of the teams didn't understand it at all, and unfortunately we were one of them.

"We had actuators going where they shouldn't go, and we had no correction when we should have had correction. The system was slow; it wasn't reliable. On top of it, we did it in too much of a complex way, because we tried to do the front, rear, and play with the aerodynamics.

"I think if someone had decided to just go back and put the springs and dampers in, we would have done much better. Politically it wouldn't have been possible."

Indeed, Berger asked new Ferrari sporting director Jean Todt for exactly that before the season-closing Australian Grand Prix; Todt, while understanding and agreeing with his driver, had to turn him down for exactly the political reasons Berger alludes to.

"You remember 1992, when the Ferrari had that double floor?" Berger continues. "The double floor produced quite a lot of downforce but it was too sensitive to the ground, so it didn't work.

"In 1993, we developed an active suspension but we put in a very simple floor to make it less sensitive to the ground - and this was exactly the opposite to what should be done!

"An active suspension should be there to make a sensitive, high-performance downforce, because the active should correct the height to the ground all the time. You should either leave the complex high-downforce setting and make the active work, or make a less sensitive downforce and put the normal springs in."

But Ferrari did make progress, thanks to enlisting the assistance of Honda. With the Japanese manufacturer quitting F1 at the end of 1992, Berger - who had won three GPs in McLaren-Hondas - was instrumental in enlisting help on Ferrari's engine. Ferrari dropped its 60-valve V12 in favour of a Honda-style 48-valve V12, and performance improved.

Ferrari was the last team to stick with thirsty, but powerful, V12 engines © LAT

"I remember this, yeah," says Berger. "It was another political role. I came from Honda and one of the advantages was very much the cylinder in the valve system; everything was very much pneumatic-valve system. So, we tried to make a cooperation to improve our performance, and made a step forward."

The hopelessness of Ferrari's active ride was perfectly illustrated when the teams arrived at the Circuit de Catalunya for a four-day test in December 1993.

With everyone running passive suspension in preparation for '94, Berger topped the overall times - and went four seconds faster than he had managed in qualifying for the Spanish GP seven months earlier!

"I know what to do with this bloody suspension," he said at the time. With designer John Barnard back in the Ferrari fold - "I worked very well with him and I rated him well," says Berger today - and the beautiful 412T1 on the way, things looked good for 1994.

But the season started in disappointing style and, as Berger admits, "beautiful and quick are different!"

In the opening round, the Brazilian GP, Berger qualified 17th, shot to eighth on lap one, but retired five laps in with engine failure.

Afterwards, the team took Alesi to Mugello for a test of a new front wing designed to eradicate understeer, but it became too lairy at the back end and the Frenchman crashed heavily, crushing vertebrae and forcing him out of the next two races.

While Alesi was away, Berger finished a distant second to Michael Schumacher in the Pacific Grand Prix - his best result since returning to Ferrari for 1993 - and stand-in driver Nicola Larini would replicate that result in the tragic San Marino race.

At Imola, the final piece in the jigsaw was trialled in qualifying - a 75-degree V in the 12-cylinder engine, which sent Berger to the top of the speed traps and qualified third.

By 1994, Ferrari was alone in using a 12-cylinder powerplant. "Most probably we had the most power," says Berger. "But we had to carry more weight because of the fuel we needed, which meant we were heavier at the back."

Even so, Berger went on to finish third in Monaco (he was running second before running down the Ste Devote escape road when he hit oil), was fourth in Canada and took third in France, where a modified version of the car - the 412T1/B - made its debut.

This was a vast improvement over 1993, and presaged a burst of form in mid-summer. Berger used the 75-degree V12 to battle Schumacher and Damon Hill for pole position at Silverstone, and was just heading out in a bid to snatch the top spot back when he clanged the pitlane barrier.

Then at Hockenheim, it all came together: using a 'conservative' version of the 75-degree V12, he ran that configuration in a race for the first time and won the German GP from pole.

What was the difference from 12 months earlier? "Simply we weren't really racing in 1993; we were trying to understand the active, and every day ending up in bloody Fiorano trying to improve. It was the concept, the base engineering work that was not up to the right level, so we wasted our time in the wrong direction."

The race at Hockenheim featured an early battle with Schumacher. The Benetton couldn't get past, and finally Schumacher made his first fuel stop. Berger was planning just one stop, but couldn't be sure if Schumacher would make another, so he had to press on until the Benetton's engine failed.

"He was on my gearbox and I think he overheated the engine in the end," says Berger. "It was a long time he was fighting with me.

Berger streaked away from pole en route to German GP victory in 1994 © LAT

"Schumacher was trying very hard to come by, but obviously Hockenheim was very difficult to pass on, even on the long straights because they were a bit narrow. You just have to put your car in the middle and it's difficult for anyone to pass you."

Berger had taken Ferrari's first win since the 1990 Spanish GP, and would come fairly close to two more. At Monza, he was leading the Williams pair of Hill and David Coulthard when he lost time in the pits - he was charging back at them by the end of the race, and passed the Scot for second on the final lap when Coulthard's engine died.

Then, in the infamous finale in Adelaide, Berger was leading eventual winner Nigel Mansell when he touched a kerb and ran wide, before finishing second.

Still, his season this time netted 41 points and third in the championship, with Alesi fifth on 24. A massive turnaround and one that set Ferrari back in the right direction.

"It was important, especially for me because I came to help develop the car," says Berger. "It was the second time I'd come to Ferrari where they'd gone a long time without winning anything.

"Ferrari brought me there in 1993 to consolidate everything and try to get something together for '94. But we had two big issues at the time. One was the 12-cylinder engine; we were focused on power at a time when you needed to be focused on aerodynamics and weight.

"The other thing is we had wasted our time with active suspension, because we did not have the development skills to get it working."

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.

The rise of Schumacher and Benetton
How the controversial Enstone squad took on and defeated the might of Williams

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