Herbert's breakthrough F1 victory

When Damon Hill launched his Williams up the inside of Michael Schumacher's Benetton at the Priory left-hander on lap 46 of the 1995 British Grand Prix, he believed the move would seal a famous home win.

As both cars flew into the gravel trap after the inevitable and infamous collision, it's doubtful that Hill spent any time reflecting on the fact that he had guaranteed a British victor - it just wasn't him.

Just over 40 seconds behind, Johnny Herbert was minding his own business in third
with the second Benetton-Renault, unaware that this was going to be the biggest day of his racing life. He was just 16 laps away from winning at Silverstone, an achievement that seemed impossible in the aftermath of his horrific F3000 crash at Brands Hatch seven years earlier.

The Hill/Schumacher clash cleared the way for Herbert to take the lead © LAT

"The gap to the top two was there, but I was solid in third," recalls Herbert. "Pace-wise everything was good and then the accident happened with Damon and Michael. But I didn't think, 'Now I'm first', it wasn't until I got a call from Ross [Brawn] on the radio that I realised I was in the lead."

Herbert did have the Williams of David Coulthard not far behind. But DC would have
to wait another four years for his first British GP victory, for he was served with a stop-go penalty for speeding in the pits. Herbert was informed of the penalty, so when Coulthard attacked into Stowe on lap 49, the leader didn't put up a fight. He reclaimed the lead a lap and a half later and turned it into his first grand prix win. Not that it was easy.

"The weird thing was, and I didn't get it every race but quite a few, was the way my toe got chopped off in my accident and stitched back on led to me having a big callus scar underneath it on my throttle foot," says Herbert. "For the last 14 or so laps it got so unbearably painful that I had to revert to left-foot braking, which I couldn't do normally because my ankle hardly moves so I had to do it all through the knee and hip.

"I left-footed for one lap, then did two normally, just to allow time to recover. Luckily, pace-wise I didn't go any slower but it was a struggle because I was screaming in the car! I never told my teams about it because I'd be straight out.

"Fortunately, with DC getting the penalty, the pressure was off and I didn't have to race him."

Herbert crossed the line 16 and a half seconds clear of Jean Alesi's Ferrari, with Coulthard having to be satisfied with third.

"That last lap, coming up to the line, my biggest thought was about everything that I had gone through to get into the position to win," says Herbert. "All the problems getting back after the crash - I was very lucky that Peter Collins gave me the initial chance at Benetton in 1989. If I hadn't done Rio and finished fourth, I would never have had a career.

Points on F1 debut in 1989 were crucial to Herbert's career © LAT

"Is winning the British Grand Prix as big a deal as you expect it to be? Damned right it is!

"It was an awesome experience to be there with the thousands of people who turned up. For the last five laps, I remember the flags were waving all around the track. That's the great thing; they supported all of the British drivers and it was a really nice vibe.

"That slowing-down lap felt like a month because you had this whole spectacular scene to absorb. I can still pop my head in the bubble today and go back there, which is nice."

Herbert's win could not have been more timely. Relations between him and team principal Flavio Briatore were non-existent - as early as the second race of the season in Argentina, Herbert had lost access to Schumacher's data. Before the British GP, rumours abounded that Herbert was on the brink of being replaced by ex-Benetton driver Jos Verstappen, still under Briatore's management but out of a drive after the closure of the Simtek team.

"The relationship with Flavio never got better after I was told about the data stuff,"
says Herbert. "I had finished second in Spain for a one-two, but there was never any dialogue. Then you see the photos at Silverstone and he's hugging me.

"The worst thing is that he asked me for my cap and being the nice idiot I was, I gave it to him. Stupid... that's the one thing I regret doing. Then, when I won later in the year at Monza, he got on the podium, took the constructors' trophy, pissed off and that was that. He was always focused on Michael. I just had to concentrate on doing the best I could.

"It was difficult because I knew in qualifying I had no chance - my pins weren't working in the right way - but it was better in the race. I just had to concentrate and do the best I could in the car. Michael had a very sharp input, massively sharp and I never liked that. But you couldn't just wind off the front wing because that made it understeer. It's impressive what Michael did with that car.

"Driving is all about where the rotation point is. When I used to drive, it was around the middle of the car but for Michael, it was about five metres in front of the car! As soon as I so much as coughed, the thing turned in."

The bottom line is that Briatore built Benetton around Schumacher and the second driver was there simply to play the support act. Looking back, Herbert can see that things were never likely to work out as he hoped at Benetton.

"When we first sat down with Flavio, the big thing for the team was the constructors' championship," said Herbert. "Then, in Argentina, the data thing happened and I realised that it was never really going to be me and Michael fighting it out together.

"I did an interview before the season saying this was my chance to win a world championship. Then there was an article in Germany with Michael saying he'd heard I believed I was going to go for the championship and that I was going to have another thing coming. He was right, I really did have another thing coming.

The relationship with Schumacher was frosty from early in the 1995 campaign © LAT

"I never understood Flavio's mindset until I looked back and understood how he got results with Michael and then latterly with Fernando Alonso. It wasn't just me, others like Jarno Trulli, maybe Giancarlo Fisichella and Jenson Button had problems as well.

"Even when I was dropped in 1989 by Benetton, Flavio was already there and he never spoke to me about it - he got his secretary to call me. During 1995, we never spoke by phone or at the race. But I do respect what he achieved; it's unfortunate that it wasn't to my benefit."

Given relations pre-Silverstone were so frosty, especially after Herbert had been given a jump-start penalty and then fined £10,000 for clashing with Jean Alesi in the previous two races, that win was especially sweet.

"In the back of my mind I was throwing a knife at Flavio and saying 'take that' - he was there and the pictures of him there celebrating were a bit fake," admitted Herbert. "It's a shame, because there was never that togetherness that was promised at the beginning."

The victory at Silverstone guaranteed Herbert's place in the team for the rest of the season. He finished a career-best fourth in the drivers' championship and helped Benetton to the constructors' title. There was also the Monza victory, which came after Hill again collected Schumacher.

But it was clear long before Monza that he wasn't going to stay on at the team. A quote from Tom Walkinshaw, then Benetton engineering director, that ran in AUTOSPORT in late August, spoke volumes about the way Herbert was treated in the team.

"He has a lot of talent," said Walkinshaw. "He can certainly string one lap together. But I don't think he knows how he does it, and I don't think he is really interested in finding out.

"If he is not with Benetton next year, it will be his own fault. We have spent hours trying to get him to understand what is required from a top-line driver. If he doesn't want to pick it up and run with it, there's nothing more you can do for him."

Herbert found a berth at Sauber for 1996. Another indication of just how well he actually did at Benetton is that the following year Jean Alesi scored only two more points than Herbert in a car that still handled the way Schumacher wanted it to.

"When Gerhard Berger was at Benetton the following year, in testing he came up to me and said, 'I can see now why the hell you couldn't drive the thing, because it is so sharp'," Herbert recalls.

But at Silverstone, that car still gave Herbert his day of days. One that those there to witness it will never forget.