Short but Sweet: the 1991 Australian GP

The day after the season-ending 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix on November 2, 2008 will be the 17th Anniversary of the shortest grand prix in history - the November 3, 1991 Australian Grand Prix, which ended the 1991 season in a deluge.

The official race distance that day on the slick streets of Adelaide, was 32.86 miles travelled at an average speed of 80 mph. A mere 14 laps were scored before Ayrton Senna, with cars spinning everywhere on the track, waved his hands furiously from the cockpit of his McLaren-Honda saying "No Mas!"

Adelaide - which hosted the Australian Grand Prix 11 times before the race switched to Melbourne in 1996 - often threw up interesting races. Two years earlier in 1989, there had been another rainy Adelaide, with drivers threatening not to get into their cars (Alain Prost withdrew in protest after driving for just two laps); after starting and stopping the race, and then re-starting it, Thierry Boutsen won in a Williams-Renault. Even Senna did not survive that race, having plowed into Martin Brundle in the driving rain without knowing he was there.

Two years after Formula One's shortest race at Adelaide, in 1993, Tina Turner would give an electrifying concert in the nearby park and drag a shy-looking Senna, whom she was a fan of, up on to the stage to celebrate what would poignantly turn out to be the Brazilian's last victory, dedicating her performance of here trademark song "Simply the Best".

But although the soggy 1991 Australian Grand Prix may not have been Simply the Best, the times in which the race took place were certainly among the best, redolent with the sights, sounds and smells of real and varied racing.

Change was also in the air that day in Adelaide in the context of the governance of F1, changes that would dictate the course of the sport from that day to this. Just three weeks earlier, on October 9, 1991, Max Mosley, then known principally as a prior co-owner of F1 constructor March Engineering, who also acted as legal advisor to Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA), had unexpectedly defeated Frenchman Jean Marie Balestre to become president of FISA, the sporting affiliate of the FIA. He then became president of the FIA in 1993. Now, as then, Mosley had the votes, with 43 delegates voting for Mosley and only 29 voting for Balestre. The Adelaide 1991 race was Max's second race as the head of the sporting authority.

The race cars and the drivers of the time

Today, with the short-lived Super Aguri team having gone into liquidation after its last appearance at the 2008 Spanish Grand Prix, the grid is made-up of 10 teams and 20 cars.

Nelson Piquet, Benetton B191 Ford © LAT

Manufacturers like Fiat, Mercedes-Benz, Renault, Toyota and Honda dominate the scene with privateers like Williams, Red Bull and Force India dependent on those carmakers for engine supplies. And with the world's economy contracting, who knows how many of those manufacturers will be in F1 two years from now.

By contrast, in qualifying for the 1991 Australian Grand Prix, there were 32 cars on the entry list, including Aguri Suzuki himself, driving one of the Larrousse team's Lola L91-Fords. He did not qualify. Aguri's Larrousse teammate Bertrand Gachot also failed to qualify as did Martin Brundle in the Brabham BT60Y-Yamaha and other notables, including Eric van de Poele (in the Modena-run Lamborgini-engined Lambo 291), Gabriele Targuini (in Fondmetal F1's Fomet F1-Ford) and Naoki Hattori (in the Coloni C4-Ford).

Conspicuous by its absence at Adelaide in 1991 and moving away from racing at that juncture was Mercedes-Benz which, on November 28, 1991, announced that it was discontinuing its successful sportscar collaboration with Peter Sauber (which ran Michael Schumacher, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Karl Wendlinger in the Group C sportscar championship). The German company would return to motorsport when the Swiss manufacturer entered Formula One in 1993 with Mercedes-Benz 'blessed' Ilmor V10s.

Today, Honda has lost its competitive way, though Ross Brawn will doubtless turn things around. But as of Adelaide 1991, Honda was in its salad days with McLaren-Honda, having achieved four straight constructors' championships from 1988-1991. The engine behind Senna's McLaren MP4 at Adelaide 1991was the 700 horsepower Honda V12, the last of the line of Honda engines that took Senna to three world titles - the 1.5-litre V6 turbo, the normally aspirated 3.0-litre V10 and the 3.5-litre V12 powerplants.

Amongst the 26 drivers and cars that qualified for Adelaide 1991, was a cornucopia of human talent and technological diversity. Nigel Mansell in his blue and yellow Canon-sponsored Williams-Renault was Senna's chief rival; Ricardo Patrese was Mansell's teammate. Alain Prost, the other luminary of the times, had spent that season as a Ferrari driver, but having called the Italian team's 643 a 'truck' within earshot of the media, the Frenchman was fired before the last race of the season. A very happy and proud Italian, Ferrari test driver Gianni Morbidelli, was given his one and only drive for the Scuderia in Adelaide 1991, and he would survive the squalls that Sunday to finish in sixth place.

The other drivers present were also an interesting lot, running the gamut from rookies to retirees.

For Satoru Nakajima in his Tyrrell-Honda, Adelaide was to be his last race; he had set fastest lap in the last rainy Adelaide race in 1989 in his Lotus-Judd. This year in the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix, his son, Kazuki Nakajima, will celebrate his first full year in the sport in which his father was a pioneer Japanese driver.

Michael Schumacher was completing his debut year in F1 at Adelaide 1991, having been given his first chance mid-season by Eddie Jordan in the pretty 7UP-sponsored Jordan 191 at Spa, only to be snatched away by Benetton's Flavio Briatore in the very next race at Monza. It was only in 1988 at the Australian GP at Adelaide that Flavio had attended his own first F1 race as a guest of Luciano Benetton.

Satoru Nakajima, Tyrrell 020 Honda © LAT

Who would have thought all these years later, that Flavio would still be in the sport and it would be Schumacher and Jordan who had retired?

Scuderia Toro Rosso's co-owner, Gerhard Berger, was Senna's McLaren-Honda teammate at Adelaide in 1991. Berger was fresh from a win at Suzuka, which Senna gifted to him once Mansell's Williams had spun off and the 1991 World Drivers' Championship was in the bank for the Brazilian.

Like Nakajima, Nelson Piquet, the veteran triple champion paired with rookie Schumacher at Benetton, would be participating in his last grand prix. Piquet outqualified Schumacher for the one and only time during their time together at Benetton in Adelaide.

In mid-1992 he would have a horrific accident during practice for the 1992 Indianapolis 500, that still causes him to limp around the paddock. Ironically, this 2008 season-ender in Brazil, may mark the early egress of Piquet's son, Nelson Jr, from the Renault team, also run by Briatore. Two generations of Piquet pink-slips?

Emanuele Pirro, who last month retired from Audi's all-star driver endurance line-up as a five-time Le Mans winner, was driving a Dallara 191-Judd for Scuderia Italia and would retire from F1 after this Adelaide 1991 race. His career is proof positive that there is life after F1.

Mika Hakkinen was still earning his spurs with the once-proud Team Lotus in 1991 that was by now beginning to fall on hard times. In the Lotus 102B-Judd, he qualified 25th of 26 cars and was outpaced by his teammate Johnny Herbert.

As with Hakkinen, Jean Alesi's career was just beginning. The French-Sicilian driving for Ferrari, had already established himself in 1990 in a Tyrrell-Honda at the US GP in Phoenix, where he distinguished himself in a street fight with Senna, finishing in second place and achieving his first podium. As of the end of his third season, Alesi was now, improbably, the No. 1 driver at Ferrari in Prost's absence. In the 2000 and '01 seasons, Prost and Alesi would come back together in Prost's ill-starred F1 team. Alesi fondly remembers his relationship with Ferrari and still has the Ferrari 412T2 he used to win the 1995 Canadian Grand Prix, his only win, parked in his gym at home for inspiration.

Nicola Larini was with the modest Modena Team at Adelaide 1991; he remains the last Italian to have driven a Ferrari in an F1 race, when he got his chance in 1994, finishing second at Imola that year, the race where Senna was killed. In Adelaide 1991, his Lambo 291-Lamborghini was retired in a multi-car accident on lap five.

Roberto Moreno, Minardi M191 Ferrari © LAT

Minardi - like its successor-in-interest today, Scuderia Toro Rosso - was using Ferrari engines at Adelaide 1991, driven by the melliflously-named Pierluigi Martini, Minardi's long-lived and most beloved driver, exceeded in the pantheon of Minardi drivers only by Sebastien Vettel, this year's winner at Monza.

The confusingly-named Mark Blundell and Martin Brundle are partners today in driver management, and F1 commentary. As of Adelaide 1991, they had already begun their partnership, as teammates in the Brabham BT60Y-Yamaha team, and it was the lesser-rated Blundell that had the better weekend with Brundle failing to qualify. Brundle and Blundell drove for Motor Racing Developments, the remnants of the team originally created by Australia's three-time world champion Jack Brabham.

In his honour, the main street called Dequetteville Terrace in Adelaide was re-named the Brabham Straight for the weekend of the Australian GP. As of 1991, the Brabham team was no longer owned by Bernie Ecclestone, and was about to enter its last season in F1.

The balance of the field of drivers and cars continued the broad spectrum of people and cars that typified that era: Andrea de Cesaris and Alessandro Zanardi in the inaugural Jordan 191-Fords, Michele Alboreto and Alex Caffi in the Footwork-Fords, Stefano Modena in the Tyrrell-Honda, Karl Wendlinger - who had been sponsored by fellow Austrian Helmut Marko, the current head of Red Bull's driver management programme - and Mauricio Gugelmin drove for Leyton House-Ilmor and Thierry Boutsen drove the Ligier-Lamborghini.

Roberto Moreno, having been terminated from Benetton as of Monza 1991 to make room for Schumacher, was in a Minardi by the time of Adelaide, and JJ Lehto joined Pirro in Scuderia Italia's Dallara-Judd. Dallara as a constructor never made much of a splash in F1 in 1991 but today, Dallara probably makes more open-wheel and sportscar chassis than any other constructor, and the company got its start during this period.

In sum, 26 drivers, 14 different chassis and 10 engine combinations, participated in the 1991 Australian Grand Prix.

One major difference in the equipment available for a rainy race was the absence of a Safety Car (which was not officially introduced until the 1993 Canadian Grand Prix); interestingly, in this pre-Mosley era, the Medical Car was also a shadow of its current self, a smallish mini-van, though Professor Sid Watkins was in attendance and would be called upon before this short day's work was done.

The Race

It was a slow but furious 14 laps. Senna had qualified on pole in the McLaren-Honda and led from the green light (we still had green lights then) to the red flag.

Ayrton Senna and Gerhard Berger lead the start in their McLaren MP4/6 Hondas © LAT

In modern times, the race would probably have been started behind a Safety Car, but all we had that day was Senna. And he did his usual thing and set a high bar for those drowning in and blinded by the McLaren's rooster tails, aquaplaning down the Brabham Straight and holding on for the kerbs and the esses, as he twitched his car this way and that. He was pressed by Mansell's Williams every step of the way.

In many ways, this Adelaide 1991 race presaged the thrilling duel between Senna and Mansell a few months later at Monaco in 1992, when they put on one of their best shows. In Monaco, due to a bad pit stop, Mansell lost the lead and came out of the pits behind Senna. Having a faster car - the all singing and dancing active suspension, anti-skid control Williams FW 14B - Mansell dogged Senna for the last eight laps of the race at every soft spot on the circuit, all to no avail.

The margin of Senna's victory was 0.215 seconds.

At Adelaide in 1991, it was the same cut and thrust between the two rivals throughout the entire race, but this time tip-toeing through the puddles on the bumpy and slippery street circuit, with Senna driving as fast as he dared on the new Goodyear rain tires introduced at this race, and Mansell closing up in the chicanes. The leaders came up on traffic, with Mansell nearly passing Senna at several points, cutting down the gap from four seconds to nil, but never quite able to get by.

Schumacher, then still 22 years old, and in only his sixth race, had qualified sixth behind Piquet, but by the second lap, his youthful exuberance and wet weather driving talent was already beginning to show, as he passed his teammate and Patrese's Williams and was up to fourth behind Berger. Alesi in the Ferrari was up from seventh, following Schumacher's wheeltracks in the mist. Piquet, trying gamely to keep up, did a 360 spin over one of the kerbs but no one hit him and he was able to continue.

At a point on lap five when Mansell pulled alongside Senna to position himself for a run at the leader, all hell broke loose up ahead of them and the yellow flag came out for a multi-car pileup involving Schumacher, Alesi, Larini and Boutsen with cars being strewn either side of the Brabham Straight as Senna and Mansell slowed down and threaded their way through the wreckage, robbing Mansell of his best shot at overtaking.

The race went on; only 76 laps left!

During the yellow flag period while the damaged cars were being taken care of, Mansell lost ground to Senna as they made their way around backmarkers and just as Mansell came up on Senna again, Martini's Minardi aquaplaned and turned sharply into the wall on the treacherous Brabham Straight on lap eight, did a 360 degree spin and joined the car park alongside those cars of Alesi, Larini and Schumacher.

Karl Wendlinger's Leyton House-Ilmor was the next car to retire from the race, on lap 12.

Alex Caffi in his Footwork-Ford, who had qualified 23rd and was being lapped by Senna and Mansell, became a moving chicane for the frontrunners, which permitted Mansell to close up once again and set the stage for one last stab by the Williams driver at taking the lead.

Nigel Mansell, Williams FW14 Renault © Rainer Nyberg/FORIX

As of lap 12, Berger was in third place - 7.8secs behind - and the only car in touch with the fearsome twosome up front. Piquet was 26 seconds adrift in fourth place and Mansell's Williams teammate was 43secs behind; Patrese's progress was being hampered by having a piece of debris from one of the accidents stuck up under his front wing. Behind Patrese, no doubt grinning behind his foggy visor, was fellow Italian Morbidelli in sixth place, scoring the first point of his career and driving for Ferrari.

Amazingly, at this point in the proceedings, Berger took away fastest lap of the race from Senna, all the more remarkable because the Austrian was sick to his stomach that weekend and told the McLaren team before the race that he doubted he could run a complete race.

Then, in a thunderclap, Mansell was out of the race, having himself spun in the standing water of the Brabham Straight and hit the wall hard. Alboreto also spun. Elsewhere on the track, Berger, fresh from setting fastest lap, caught a slippery kerb and turned himself around twice on it, but nonetheless got it straight and continued, now in second place on the track. Having survived that spin, Berger went off again at one of the next corners, nearly hitting the wall. Berger decided it was safer to walk back to the pits.

Senna emerged from the last turn and onto the pit straight and began a series of increasingly frantic hand motions, driving with one hand, first pointing to the sky in case the Race Director had not noticed the deluge and then waving back and forth as if his hand was a flag, or a windshield wiper! Race Director Tim Schenken had seen enough and the red flag came out, technically on lap 16, but official scoring looked back to lap 14.

Back at the scene of Mansell's accident, Professor Sid Watkins had arrived on the scene and with Mansell's arms wrapped around the shoulders of Dr. Watkins, the Englishman was removed from the Williams, and gently loaded into the Medical Extraction Team vehicle, not quite as spiffy and well-appointed as today's Mercedes-Benz Medical Car. Sid Watkins was wearing the same red hat he had the last time I saw him! Some things and people don't change.

Postscript

In effect, this Adelaide 1991 marked the beginning of Mosley's era as President of the FIA.

As the 2008 season ends and gives way to the beginning of the 2009 season in Australia, including the teams coming to grips with shrinking budgets and incorporating road relevant technology like KERS into the race cars, the FIA and the newly-formed Formula One Team Owners' Association could do worse than to look back for guidance to the days when most of them began in their F1 roles: the 1991 season.