Jun 2
✍️ taking notes...
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✍️ taking notes...
ok I need to talk about Ferrari's brilliant strategy (yes those words are in the correct order) at the 1997 Japanese GP.
For context, this was the penultimate race of the season and coming into the weekend Jacques Villeneuve was leading the world championship, 9 points ahead of Michael Schumacher.
During practice Jacques was one of the drivers who didn't slow down for yellow flags, and since he already had a suspended race ban from a previous GP he was disqualified. Williams lodged an appeal to allow him to take part in the race, but it was pretty obvious to everyone that they would lose the appeal (Williams would in fact withdraw it after the race), which meant that any points that Jacques got would be taken away.
So his aim for the race wasn't to win (he was starting on pole and Michael was P2), but rather to push Michael back into the field enough that other drivers could overtake and take points away from him.
So what happened? Brilliance happened. Michael was in P2 and Eddie was down in P4 after Mika overtook him at the start, so Michael lifted to allow Eddie to overtake them both in one go.
When I first saw this I thought it was such an amazing move, but knowing the two were working in tandem makes it even more amazing. From what I gather it was a possibility that they had discussed, but the execution really was perfect.
Eddie then overtook Jacques as well...
... and because Jacques' main focus was still on keeping Michael back, Eddie got to work creating a gap. Then Michael overtook Jacques in the pitstops, and the plan culminated in a successful swap between the Ferrari drivers, with Eddie managing to keep Jacques behind.
HHF later nabbed P2 from Eddie in the pitstops, but the strategy still saw Michael emerge victorious and both Ferrari teammates on the podium. Which they were very happy about!
Speaking of the podium... I think Michael was so elated about the strategy working out that HHF had to remind him to take his cap off during the anthem 🤭