Original subtitles

And a very good afternoon to you from a sunlit Magny-Cours circuit near Nevers,

which is just about slap in the middle of France, where I have some good news

and maybe some not so good news for you. The good news is that the very, very

heavy storm rain that we had during the night and this morning for the opening

part of the half-hour warm-up has stopped. The circuit has dried out. The

maybe not so good news...

is that there is some very heavy cloud formation overhead, which you can't see,

but which I can, and which I don't like the look of at all. It wouldn't surprise

me at all if we had some rain during this 72-lap race.

Now, this Magny-Cours circuit, 2.65 miles long, is unique amongst Grand

Prix circuits. It is billiard table smooth.

This is both a good thing and a bad thing for the Ligier team, whose

headquarters is right here, just on the edge of the circuit.

They're able to use it as their test track, and they resolve to go extremely

well at Manucor. The bad news for them is that when they go anywhere else with

the car set up for Manucor, where the circuits are bumpier, they are in

trouble. But we had two excellent days on Friday and Saturday for the...

two one-hour qualification sessions, as a result of which, after a really,

really exciting battle yesterday afternoon, right down to the last

minute, Damon Hill took his third successive pole position at this Man Utd

course circuit.

1995, 1994, 1993, Damon starts from first position on the grid. Next

to him, Michael Schumacher.

who started third on the grid last year, behind Nigel Mansell, who was in a

Williams, and Damon Hill, who was in pole position.

And now Michael Schumacher is seven points ahead

of Damon Hill in the World Championship.

And I talked to Damon Hill about the importance of the French Grand Prix to

him.

All I see is it's vital, there's no question about that.

I haven't won for three Grands Prix's now and in Canada things were looking a

little bit poor.

So I'm glad that we've managed to recover some form and I've got to take

my hat off to the team and to Renault.

Especially the team, we've been working very, very hard to recover some

performance and getting pole position is a step in the right direction.

Now, you've had some reliability problems lately, but you were fastest in

the testing at Silverstone. You've been fastest here. Are you happy they've been

overcome?

Well, it's still a concern, but I know that, again, the team have been working

very hard to sort the problem out, and I think they've got good reason to believe

that there won't be a problem in the race. And we did over 200 laps at

Silverstone last week in preparation, and we didn't have a problem. So

hopefully then we won't have a problem in the race.

I look forward to win the race.

That's what we try and do. We had some problem in a particular section of the

circuit where the car isn't handling very well.

Where other sections, we were actually quicker than the Williams car. So I

think we have a fair reason to believe we have a chance. And if you're on the

ball tomorrow, it's going to be all systems go for Silverstone.

He has to do, obviously, a bit of a rehearsal for Silverstone, but it's

still part of the championship. It's ten points if you win.

And it'd be nice to actually win here and come to Silverstone a bit more

buoyed up.

Well, Damon's got an excellent chance of doing that, starting from pole position

on the grid. Now you can see those rather blackish-looking clouds overhead.

David Coulthard is in third position on the grid. So it's the two Williams

drivers sandwiching the world champion Michael Schumacher in his Benetton

Renault. And Coulthard drove an exceptionally fine qualifying session

because he's never driven in the French Grand Prix. He's driven at Man U Corp in

Formula 3000 races.

But this will be his first French Grand Prix.

Jean Alessi, the victor in Canada.

He's starting from fourth on the grid in his Ferrari.

And at least he's improved on his usual grid position, which is fifth.

But he had some very bad luck yesterday. He lost the whole of the practice

session in three going yesterday morning.

He lost an hour and a half of setting up time.

Damon Hill out of the car.

This race is really, really important to him.

This is 41st Grand Prix, and it's the 7th time he's starting from the grid.

So, there is Damon Hill, but I know a lot of you wonder about some of the

background to Grand Prix racing, and in particular, what happens from the time

qualifying finishes at 2 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, and the start of the

race which you're about to see. Well, let Jonathan Palmer explain it to you.

As soon as the final qualifying session finishes at 2 o'clock on Saturday

afternoon, all the teams begin the huge task of re-preparing the cars for the

race itself.

At Williams, some 200 people work at the factory, but at each race, 45 mechanics

and other personnel come to look after the two cars of David Coulthard and

Damon Hill, and already at half-past two, they're heavily involved in

dismantling the cars.

Meanwhile, the drivers and engineers are discussing just how to improve the car

for the race, in a meeting that can take hours, feeding decisions back to the

mechanics. By 2.45, the bodywork and wings have been taken off, and the

gearbox is now being removed for overhaul and replacement of the actual

gears with new ones.

Within another 15 minutes, the engine is removed, having reached its 300-mile

service life, as the new unit is prepared, ready for fitting.

Even the radiators have taken off to be replaced with new in the continuing

quest for optimum race reliability.

And after just one hour's work, the chassis is virtually bare.

All the systems are tested thoroughly, and here a little fuel is being put in

to allow the vital fuel pumps to be tested.

By four o'clock, the new Renault engine is bolted to the chassis, but that's the

easy bit.

Meticulously connecting all the oil, water and hydraulic pipes, and

particularly the myriad of electronics, takes another hour.

Then the overhauled gearbox is replaced and the suspension reassembled, each

part having been renewed or tested for cracks.

One of the fastest-wearing components are the carbon fibre brake discs and

pads, and again, these are replaced with new. In fact, the central chassis is

about the only major part not to be changed.

By 7.30, a temporary exhaust extractor mechanism is linked to the exhaust pipes

to reduce noise and fumes, and the new engine started for the first time.

Once it's been warmed up and checked, along with the gearbox, it's time for

supper for the hard-working mechanics.

Back at work, the rear wing is reattached, and finally the rebuilt car

lowered to the ground for careful checking and adjustment of the

suspension settings.

At last, at 10.30 in the evening, the car's complete, and the work's finished

for the Williams mechanics, who can now return to their hotel, satisfied that

they've done everything possible to help their drivers win the French Grand Prix.

Is it going to be Williams driver Damon Hill starting from pole position? Well,

there's Tony Jardine waiting to talk to him.

Damon, you were slightly late onto the grid. Is everything okay?

Yeah, that's just because I was slightly late getting in the car, really. But no

drama, so looking forward to the race.

What about these changeable weather conditions? Are you worried about them

at all?

Well, I think there could be a chance of rain. I mean, in an hour and a half

time, you never know, the clouds could build up.

We could be looking at some exciting last few laps, but hopefully it'll be

dry. You were one of the few drivers to try slicks this morning in the damp

conditions. What was the track like?

It wasn't too bad, but I think I tried a little bit too early for slicks, but it

was worth experimenting anyway.

Big battle today with a certain German driver?

It's always the same, isn't it?

He's there alongside me on the grid again, but I'm on pole, and if I make a

good start, then he's got to find a way past, but hopefully we can pull away.

All the very best. We're all rooting for you. Thank you, Damon.

Damon Hill diplomatically failing to mention that when he went out on his

slicks, he spun.

But that's fair enough. It was very, very damp and difficult when Damon went

out in the Williams.

And so there we are. That's Max Mosley, who is the president of the

FIA, the company body of International Motorsport, with Flavio Briatore, the

head of the Benetton team.

And that's one of the 240 cars, number 22. That weird green thing is actually

meant to be number 22 on the rear wing. It's Roberto Moreno. The other one is

Pedro Diniz. In the centre of your picture now, that grizzled veteran of

just about every class of motor racing, Tyler Alexander.

As you look at Luca Badoa, the Minardi driver.

And you've heard from Damon Hill. Now hear from David Coulthard, third on the

grid, Tony Jardine.

David, you were second in warm-up. You've been consistently quick

throughout the weekend. What's your feelings about this French Grand Prix?

Well, I've just done a couple of laps there and the car feels quite good. So

I'm fairly confident we can be there at the end.

Jean, lazy, your adversary is next to you again. Are you worried about the

Ferrari threat today?

Well, I'm always worried about Jean at the start.

You know, it's going to be quite tight around this first corner and down to

that late hairpin, anything can happen.

But, you know, you've just got to see how the race unfolds.

Now, that first win isn't far away, but are there any team orders holding you

back at all?

No, there's been no discussion of that whatsoever.

So, you know, maybe later in the race, if there's a situation, then it's

entirely up to Frank.

So today you're going for it?

I try and go for it every time, but it's a new light on me, so hopefully I'll be

quicker. Thank you, David. Thank you very much.

24-year-old David Coulthard from Twynham in Scotland.

He's had six races. He's only finished in two of them, so he really does need

points today.

He's currently in sixth position in the championship behind Schumacher Hill, the

two Ferraris of Alessi, Berger, Johnny Herbert that you just saw on your

picture, who's fifth in the Benetton, and incidentally...

Herbert has been going better in the Benetton, not as well as he would want

to go. He's only starting 10th on the grid.

Martin Brundle is starting from 5th position, as you look at world champion

Michael Schumacher. The grey-haired chap is Pat Simmons. That was his race

engineer. And now Mark Blundell, who's driving the McLaren Mercedes.

Mark is starting from 13th on the grid. Sadly, the McLarens don't seem to be

going any better here than they have done previously this year.

Mika Hakkinen is in 8th position.

But the Ferraris are the cars that we're going to be watching in particular.

And that is Jean Alessi, the man who won in Canada his 91st Grand Prix, his first

victory.

We were beginning to think that he was going to be like Chris Amon, the New

Zealander who drove in so many Grand Prix and finished so well in so many of

them, but never actually won one. But happily, that is not the case because

Alessi came home victorious in Canada, admittedly as a result of Schumacher

having a problem.

But for Jean Alessi, the best yet victory.

His only victory, in fact, was in Canada.

Honestly,

for me, it was something wonderful because I had so hard moments, so

difficult races, and finally I won my first race.

Now, you've had a lot of problems, but the problems have not been with Jean

Alessi. They have been with the car.

Are you happy now?

Yeah, now we improve a lot everything, the team, the car, engines.

Everybody is working together, and now we really have a great team. That is the

reason why the results are coming.

Ferrari's drive back to the front has been helped to no small extent by their

consultant, the great three-times world champion, Niki Lauda.

It took us, I would say, a year and a half to get the right people back into

Ferrari.

And then the right people started to work. And as you know, it is not as

quick. Formula One today is very complicated.

You really have to have a real good technical department to build you a good

car. And last year...

I think we were going in the right direction, but unfortunately the car we

started the season off was not as quick as the others.

So we had to modify it all through the season, and then finally by the end it

worked. This year we started different. We started competitive.

We are right there with Williams and with Schumacher.

And we have to improve the car still, because now who improves the car in no

time will win the races.

Don't misunderstand me, but Canada was, in a way, a lucky race. You have to be

there to win, and Giorno Laci was there, but Schumacher was a long way ahead.

Do you feel that Ferrari is now up to the pace of the Williams and Benetton?

No, it is certainly not, and you can see it here again.

I think in the moment we're missing about three to four tenths. It depends

on the circuit, either to the Benetton or to the Williams, and this gap we have

to catch up quickly.

And as you know, the last couple of tenths are the most difficult ones.

So we are struggling in the moment to really get where we should be. And where

we should be is, in my opinion, the car which has to be beaten at every race

should be a Ferrari.

There are going to be a lot of people who will say yes to that.

Now, Martin Brandl is the Englishman driving Belige. Starting from ninth on

the grid, what's he got to say about things, Tony?

Martin, this is the local race really for Ligier. It's their 300th Grand Prix.

Can that local knowledge help you onto the rostrum today?

Well, it certainly can't hurt us. We've done a lot of work. We feel ready for

the race.

Obviously, we'd have liked a dry warm-up this morning, but we're going to be

trying extra hard for Guy Ligier and the team.

Now, your teammate Panis had a problem this morning. Is everything okay with

your car?

Yes, his problem was in the T car.

My car is just fine.

You seem in very determined mood. You have been all weekend. Is that an

accurate description?

I was a bit too determined yesterday. I flew off the road. But, yeah, I'm very

determined the whole season, as usual. But I'm really very focused at the

moment. Just building up the Silverstone as well.

Of course. Looking forward to seeing everybody there.

Thank you, Martin. Good luck.

Thank you. Sadly, it looks as though Silverstone, the British Grand Prix in

two weeks' time, may be the end of Martin Brunville's tenure in the second

Ligier seat this season because he'll be handing back to the Japanese driver,

Aguri Suzuki, with whom he's sharing that car during the season.

But Martin knows this track extremely well. Of course, he knows the car

extremely well. And as I said earlier on, the car is set up perfectly for this

Man Utd course circuit because it is the home track of the French Concern, which

is now headed up by Tom Walkinshaw, owned by Flavio Briatore, the man who's

in charge of the Benetton team.

So expect something good from Martin Brundle. He's never actually won a Grand

Prix yet. He's had second places.

And that is the Japanese driver, Taki Inoue, who is starting from well at the

back again.

Now, Eddie Irvine, who has qualified extremely well.

He was fifth fastest in the warm-up this morning.

He's a bit down the grid compared with his teammate, Rubens Barrichello, but

that's very unusual.

And Jonathan Palmer, what about you?

Well, I think Eddie's being rather frustrated this weekend, in fact,

because for the first time this year, he's been out-qualified by his teammate

Rubens Barrichello.

And Barrichello has been one of the stars of this weekend so far, qualifying

the Jordan in fifth place, a tremendous performance.

And that puts Barrichello just ahead of Olivier Panis in the lead Ligier.

Ligier, as we've heard, this is their home testing circuit. That means they've

done days and days and days, probably 15 days, a pounding round, honing the setup

to a fine point to help their performance.

And indeed, I think Martin Brun... could well have been ahead of Pannis there in

sixth place had he not, as he very candidly said, flew off the road on his

very first lap of the qualifying session yesterday and that meant that he could

take no further part in what was generally a quicker day. So we've got

Ligier who really looked a lot better here, Barrichello, but I think for me,

Damon Hill's pole position lap was absolutely superb.

He knew that he had to beat a cracking time from Michael Schumacher and he

really drove a neat, immaculate lap.

He knew that he had to do it on his first flying lap because this track is

one in which tyre wear is very high and strategy is going to be very important

here, I'm sure, today. The standard sort of strategy for this race, I think, will

be two stops. Maybe the first stop roundabout lap 21, the second stop

roundabout lap 45.

That was what happened last year for Damon Hill and for Gerhard Berger. But

last year, Michael Schumacher stopped three times, even though his first stop

was again on lap 21.

And we could expect, perhaps, if anyone's going to go... for three stops

I think Schumacher is one candidate and the other people that might Ligier are

clearly very eager to make an impression on their home Grand Prix they've

qualified pretty well and it would certainly make some sense for them to go

for three stops which would mean that they'd run their car lighter and that

would mean that it would be faster in the opening stages of the race and if we

see Pannis hounding Barrichello potentially even getting by him and

keeping up with a Lacey and indeed Martin Brundle trying to find a way

around Mika Hakkinen who himself has done an outstanding job in qualifying.

There we are, Mika Hakkinen there, some supporters showing their support for the

Finn. The McLaren has undergone a whole range of changes here relating to the

underfloor, the rear bodywork, the side pods, but really, frankly, to no avail

because the qualifying performance has still been pretty dismal with Hakkinen

in 10th place for a lot of the time before doing another Hakkinen mega lap

to bring him up to 8th place with Marc Blundell down in 13th.

Well, I'm glad to say that the rain looks as though it is going to hold off

for this 72-lap French Grand Prix, so fingers crossed.

Although a bit of rain might make things more exciting, we certainly don't want

the really, really heavy stuff.

Damon Hill sitting calmly in the car. There are only just a few minutes to go

now, five minutes to go before the start of the French Grand Prix.

So, looking down on the track at Magny-Cours in the centre of France for

the 81st French Grand Prix. In fact, this is the 100th anniversary of the

Automobile Club of France, the oldest of them all.

And the traditional long-standing French Grand Prix, which started so long ago,

is going to renew itself in 1995 in just a few minutes' time.

With a Williams and a Benetton on the front row of the grid, followed by a

Williams and a Ferrari. Excellent fifth by Rubens Barrichello and the home

driver, sixth Olivier Parnis in the Ligier Mugen.

Gerhard Berger in the second Ferrari. That's the top McLaren, Mika Hakkinen.

The second Liget, Martin Brundle. Johnny Herbert in the second Benetton starts

tenth on the grid, eight places behind his team leader.

Then the Jordan of Irvine, Frentzen in the Sauber, Marc Blundell in the

McLaren. Bouillon is the new driver who has replaced Karl Wendlinger in the

Sauber. Taki Inui starts 18th. He was only 24th in the warm-up, 10 seconds

slower than the fastest man in the warm-up, who was Jean Alessi, as he was

in Canada.

The two Pacifics are on the road together, followed by the two 40 Fords,

one of which, that of Pedro Diniz.

is a much modified car with a higher nose, very different aerodynamics. It's

going better, but still not nearly well enough. And those are the eyes of the

world champion, Michael Schumacher, second on the grid.

And I think this French Grand Prix is going to be the most competitive for a

long time because after the performances at Canada for the Williams team, and

there we are looking there.

Back at Damon Hill, when the car was neither quick enough nor reliable

enough. A great deal of work has been going on at Didcot and at Silverstone,

testing. There are various new tweaks to the Williams car, most particularly the

little fairings by the rear wheels, on the inside of the rear wheels. And the

work that's gone on in improving the set-up has meant that Williams, I think,

have come back ahead of Benetton for this race.

Damon Hill drove outstandingly to take the pole position with 17.22, one minute

17.22.

But Michael Schumacher there is right behind. And so far this year, we've seen

that if anything, Schumacher races better than he qualifies. And indeed,

the Benetton team's fuel strategy and pit stop routines really are as close to

perfection as you can get. So I think with Coulthard being third place, we've

got the Williams duo sandwiching Schumacher. And I think these three are

going to be going out in front, pulling away from Jean Alessi. that we're

looking at now, the Canadian Grand Prix winner.

Lacey was some 1.5 seconds slower than Damon Hill in qualifying, and indeed he

was nearly a second slower than David Coulthard.

So Ferrari clearly not on the level of pace of the two Williams and the leading

Benetton, but very close between those three drivers. Then I think it's going

to be very close between Gionna Lacey on fourth on the grid, Barrichello on

fifth, and Olivier Panis on sixth, with then another little group probably

behind that of Berger, Hakkinen and Brundle further back.

Johnny Herbert's had a disappointing time in qualifying.

There we are. That's the overhead camera that's on Rubens Barrichello's car this

time, and he did that outstanding fifth place in qualifying, benefiting from his

engineer, Gary Anderson, paying a lot more attention to his particular car.

Berger's had a disappointing qualifying time. He really could not find the kind

of form that he wanted to see out of the Ferrari, and he's quite a frustrated man

at the moment.

There he is.

That's Olivier Parnis, Rubens Barrichello.

Miccosalo. Michael Schumacher.

And Miccosalo.

And there's Schumacher again.

And that is Damon Hill. Pole position.

After the start, the first corner is the 120 mile an hour long right-hander,

Esther Ill.

Incidentally, Renault have got some...

6,000 guests here today packing the stands to watch, hopefully from their

point of view, their cars doing well, their cars, of course, being the two

Williams and the two Benetons, all four of which are fitted with a new evolution

of the Renault engine, but Renault is by no means the only French engine supplier

here. The Peugeot Concern has supplied a new evolution of their V10 engine to

the Jordan drivers Rubens Barrichello and Eddie Irvine. And as you've heard,

Rubens Barrichello is starting from the highest ever grid position for the

Jordan team and is in fifth position.

So the first corner is Estoril, the right-hander, then the fast dash up to

Adelaide, the hairpin bend, which is second gear as they get away for the

parade lap.

And the final formation lap now as the cars peel away, that's the flat-out left

-hander, that 180 miles an hour through that in sixth gear. Then they come up

this long right-hander now, this is fourth gear, 120 miles an hour, pulling

about 3G through there, and that's where Martin Brundle incidentally spun off.

Now they come down to the longest straight here.

And they'll start with pulling up about 190 miles an hour down towards that

intermediate one logo that you can see there. Coming down to the hairpin at the

very end.

Hill leading the pack through there.

Schumacher coming right up the inside.

And Hill going around second gear, right about 50 miles an hour. Up then through

the gears to fifth gear before the right-left Nürburgring chicane. And a

lot of these corner names, as you will deduce, have been derived from other

Grand Prix circuits.

through that Nürburgring chicane, and about fourth gear, and 130 miles an

hour, down to second for the next hairpin, that's the 180 degrees,

imaginatively named there, out of there, second gear, 60 miles an hour, punching

up through the gearbox, and they'll then be approaching, when they're under full

tilt, 170 miles an hour, going into this Imola chicane, that then follows, we're

now riding up with Rubens Barrichello, as we come up towards that, pulling to

170 miles an hour at this point, and then turning, through this right-left at

130 miles an hour, once again in fourth gear, and then finally down at tighter

right, this is second gear, around about 60, 70 miles an hour, up through the

gears and down to the final chicane. And you can see Gerhard Berger there, sorry,

John Alati there, weaving the Ferrari around, getting the temperature into

those tyres he needs to have, and that's Rubens Barrichello doing just the same.

They need to work those tyres to get the temperature in them through this right

-left chicane and then down the hill.

turning right onto the start line and the start and finish line is immediately

after the lycee which is that second gear 35 mile an hour corner so if

there's two people coming down towards that corner at the end of the race it's

going to be very hairy indeed

Not so good news, I have to tell you, in spite of the blue sky that you can see

there, is that it is getting darker all the time and I continue to be worried

about rain. But we're shortly to see the start of the 81st French Grand Prix,

round seven of the 1995 World Championship.

Damon Hill in pole position as he was last year, as he was the year before

that. Michael Schumacher, second.

So it's Williams and Benetton. Then Coulthard is third.

Alessi in the red Ferrari is in fourth position.

Watch for the lights.

It's go. This is the critical time.

Damon Hill's got away well. Schumacher's tucked in behind him.

Coulthard. And there's a Jordan come up. And so that must be Rubens Barrichello

in the Jordan Peugeot on its home ground.

Poor Peugeot is up into third place.

So Damon Hill leads. Schumacher is second. Barry Kellough is in third

position. And now they come round the long right-hander at Estoril. Here's

Damon Hill leading. There's the gap between him and Michael Schumacher.

Coulthard in fourth place is challenging Rubens Barrichello as they go into

Adelaide. There is a Ligier behind Barrichello and already there are two

cars off. Well, one of them is a Tyrrell, I can tell you that. Whether

it's Duccio, Catayama or Miccosala, I don't know. And across the gravel goes a

McLaren. That's likely to have been Nicker Hackenham because he was ahead of

Mark Blundell on the grid.

But he's been very lucky. He's managed to keep going.

And Schumacher is still chasing as they come up to the Imola chicane. And now

the Chateau d'Eau. This is almost at the end of the first lap.

Damon Hill is where he wants to be and needs to be. But Schumacher has gained

ground. Hill leads.

Schumacher is second. Down to the chicane.

Already there's a gap developing. It's Rubens Barrichello in third place.

This is that second gear, 35 mile an hour.

Right-hander, one lap completed, 71 laps to go. Damon Hill leads already, as we

have seen so many times in the past.

It's a battle between the two men who fought for the world championship last

year and are fighting for it this year. The Williams Renault of Damon Hill, the

Benetton Renault of Michael Schumacher, the world champion.

Barrichello, third quarter. start fourth. Parnis is in fifth position.

Johnny Herbert in the second. Benetton is in sixth place ahead of both the

Ferraris. Jean Alessi. So Alessi has dropped down from fourth to seventh on

that opening lap. And that's very, very bad news indeed for him.

One and a half laps continued up to the Imola turns again. The right and the

left. Now the Chateau d'Eau.

And Schumacher is pushing Damon Hill very hard indeed. Now, Jonathan and I

are both looking for signs early on in the race of whether these two are going

to be making two pit stops or three. You can see that the way they're pulling out

means not only that they're in very, very good cars and that they're very,

very good drivers, but that they may be driving lighter cars.

Well, we're going to need to wait and see for a few laps, I think, for the

times to be stabilised, but let's hope we get another shot of that start,

because Damon Hill was very lucky indeed to keep the lead away from the line,

because he got the car, I think, with rather too much wheel spin, and it got

really quite sideways as he chopped across to prevent, to prevent, and then

we are riding with Michael Schumacher there, second place now, that's that

flat-out left-hander, to prevent Michael Schumacher coming up the inside just

there, in fact.

And he was successful in doing so. So a very good defensive move from Hill, but

one that I think that was only required because he didn't get the start quite

right. We saw a number of particles coming out. In fact, I think it was dry

ice from the car. They've been very concerned about temperatures of the

engines here. And by packing the radiators with dry ice, we saw a bit of

it come out of the car. Great for that Adelaide hairpin on the first lap.

They kept the engine cool. But great start from Rubens Barrichello. That

really was terrific.

He's not used to being fifth on the grid. And to capitalise on that by

getting up to third was superb.

Mika Hakkinen was charging hard.

And coming alongside now, having a look at the inside of...

of that Schumacher, I think, there. It's Jordan Lacey and Johnny Herbert. There

is Johnny Herbert, and he spins out. Johnny Herbert spins out from sixth

position. I didn't see any contact there, but Johnny Herbert is out of the

race. He's being pushed away, and there's nothing he can do about it

because he's stalled his engine, and you're not allowed to have a push start.

Here is a replay.

Now, was there a contact? Yes, indeed, there was.

Alessi's left front wheel touched Johnny Herbert's right rear wheel and because

of that and the momentum of the Ferrari who is avoided by his own team mate

Gerhard Berger has passed both of them I think went Martin Brundle there's a

replay of the spin again and so John Alessi trying very hard indeed maybe a

bit too hard understandable on his own track And now we're on lap four out of

the 72-lap French Grand Prix. We're riding with Michael Schumacher in second

place. He's made the fastest lap of the race so far. He's pushing Damon Hill

extremely hard.

The gap in time doesn't matter. It's the visual gap.

But there's three and a half seconds now between Hill, the leader, Barak Pella,

who he's third, Coulthard, he's fourth.

Parnis is in fifth position. His teammate, Martin Brundle, it was him who

passed to Lacey and Berger because he is up into sixth position.

Down to seventh and eighth goes the two Ferraris. Ninth is Mika Hakkinen. Tenth

is Eddie Irvine. Eleventh is Brinson. And twelfth is Marc Blundell.

Yes, I imagine Johnny Herbert's going to be pretty livid with John Alessi there.

This was exactly what happened to Herbert at the last Grand Prix in Canada

when Mika Hakkinen came up the inside into the hairpin at Montreal.

And now it's happened with the same thing again. I think Alessi really was

much too ambitious at that point.

It was delayed both a Lacey and Berger, but Herbert put him out. Of course, he

was the Benetton that was ahead of a Lacey then.

But Pannis has made a good start from that too, and he is now just half a

second behind David Coulthard, so really going well. But this is a battle. We

have got nothing between these two.

Schumacher really crawling all over the back of Damon Hill, and we have to hope

at this stage that they are on the same strategy because that means that they're

going to be very, very closely related in terms of racing. But looking at the

way Schumacher... after pushing hard, one might surmise that in fact he's

running a three-stroke strategy with a lighter car, and that's why he's able to

push Damon Hill, who may be on a two-stroke strategy with a heavier car,

as hard as he is now.

If he is, he will want to get past Hill and build a cushion between the two of

them to allow for an extra stop, but there were three retirements on that

lap.

Johnny Herbert's out, Katiyama is out in the Tyrrell, that was the other one that

was involved in the contact.

and the first one that was involved in the contact was Taki Inui's arrows.

So, out goes Katayama, out goes Inui, out goes Johnny Herbert.

There are, however, still 21 cars left, and on lap five, this is the battle, a

terrific battle. It's a replication of what happened for the final qualifying

yesterday, and the situation is exactly the same. That is, Damon Hill is ahead

of Michael Schumacher.

Hill, who has already won 12 Grand Prix. You've got a brief glimpse of Johnny

Herbert there. Helmet off. That will be a more than bitter disappointment for

Johnny because he's overshadowed by the world champion Michael Schumacher in the

Benetton team and is looking so hard to do well in order to retain his place in

the team in 1996.

Into the Estoril bend again.

In at 120, out at 105 miles an hour. Now they build up speed to 180 miles an

hour, which they do just before they brake very hard indeed. For the second

gear, 30 mile an hour Adelaide hairpin, this is it.

One year Michael Schumacher went off not once, but twice at that corner. He

hasn't done it this time.

And now it's up towards Imola.

The chicane, fourth gear, 110 miles an hour.

Right, left.

On the brakes to the Chateau d'Eau, second gear.

Barrichello is still third, four seconds behind this battle that you are

watching. He's just ahead of Coulthard and fifth and sixth for Parnis and

Brundle, who's now the fastest driver on the track. Because Martin Brundle has

just done the fastest lap, 1 minute 21.346 in his Ligier, and he's gaining

on his teammate Olivier Parnis, who is in fifth place.

As the leaders drop down to the litet to complete their sixth lap.

What a scrap. Wonderful stuff.

Yes, and I think looking at the performances of these two Ligiers here

with Parnes in fifth, Brundle having capitalised on the problems with the

Ferraris going by Herbert there after lately stuck Herbert.

Brundle flying. Now, I think this is very much consistent with the two

Ligiers doing a three-stop strategy. That's running light at this stage.

And Hill has responded. Hill has now done a 21.0.

Schumacher on 21.1. At the moment, I think Damon Hill is on a two-stop

strategy. I think the times are not quite quick enough. He's been stopping

three times.

We shall actually find out by about lap 20. If he stopped before lap 20, then I

think it could be a three-stop after lap 22 or so.

or roundabout lap 31, it would almost certainly be for two stops. But the

question we don't know at the moment is what Schumacher is doing, because he's

being potentially held up by Damon Hill at the moment, because Schumacher, if he

could go quicker, really couldn't get any closer.

Well, he certainly couldn't get any closer. I was just about to say, is that

good news or bad news in your view, Jonathan? And you answered the question.

So, now up to the completion of the seventh lap, and already we are almost

up to one-tenth distance in the French Grand Prix.

And these are the two men who are not only leading the race, but leading the

World Championship.

Michael Schumacher, who is second in the race, leads the World Championship.

And the reverse applies to Damon Hill. Number one in the French Grand Prix on

the track. Number five in the car. Number two in the World Championship.

Another lap completed into lap eight in the background.

You see Rubens Barrichello and Poulvard in the second Williams as close to each

other in third and fourth places as Hill and Schumacher are.

And now you're watching as you see the Ligier.

Parnis is in fifth place, and he's only half a second behind Coulthard. So

there's a terrific scrap for fourth and fifth places. Barry Kello, Coulthard and

Parnis. Martin Brundle is just a little bit further back in sixth position.

Alessi and Berger in the very disappointing Ferraris here. Both of

them lost a lot of time yesterday due to hydraulic problems, and the hydraulic

systems control so much in the cars these days.

Passed. A tail ender that is one of... It's Montemini in the Pacific, and he

has been lapped already on lap eight.

Montemini, who is 21st and last, has been lapped already.

He has actually been in the pit, but he's been lapped very early in this

race. And while you're watching these two, let me just tell you very quickly

that there is talk of a new rule for next year.

That if a car does not qualify within 107% of the pole

position time, it won't be allowed to start the race. A lot of controversy

about that. Out goes Schumacher's pit board. And behind him now, the gap

behind Schumacher to Barrichello is five seconds. The gap from Barrichello to

Damon Hill is five and a half seconds.

So it's the old, old story. The Renault-powered Williams, the Renault

-powered Benetton of Hill and Schumacher are pulling away from the opposition.

Will they wear each other down? Will Damon Hill's Williams be reliable?

He's had one or two problems in recent races.

There's a long way to go yet, though. We're on lap nine out of 72.

And it's going to be a very frustrated David Coulthard, I fear, back in fourth

place at the moment. He's being held up now, undoubtedly, by Rubens Barrichello,

and that's nothing against Rubens Barrichello.

But Coulthard lost out at the start.

Barrichello forged ahead.

And the three that we thought would be leading and pulling away of Hill,

Schumacher and Coulthard are, of course, without David Coulthard.

And the Jordan car is losing about 7 tenths of a second to Hill and

Schumacher. And it's going to be difficult for David Coulthard to find a

way by. But that's what he's got to do. Or it's going to be, ah, now that's

going to be just what David Coulthard needs. That's a jump start penalty for

Barrichello. And that means that within the next four laps, Rubens Barrichello's

got to bring his Jordan into the pit lane.

And Olivier Pannis, that's going to be another big blow for Pannis there, the

Ligier driver.

This is, of course, again a reflection of the fact that with today's automatic

jump start electronic detection mechanisms, one can't afford to let the

car move even half a metre. You've got to keep the car absolutely still or the

electronics will peck you out. And that's what's happened.

So that means that we've got Hannes and Barry Kello going to be coming into the

pit for a stop-go penalty.

They'll be held up for ten seconds at the end of the pit lane and then coming

out. They're not allowed to use that.

They certainly can't change tyres or fuel at that time. And that's going to

give David Coulthard some clear space ahead of him for him to try and catch up

Hill and Schumacher. He'll have to go to do that, but he will move up to third

position and it means that Martin Brundle will move up into...

Fifth place, and it will mean, I think, that Lacey moves up to sixth position as

the Ligier of Olivier Parnis and the Jordan of the unfortunate Rubens

Barrichello drop down after ten-second penalties. The ten-second penalty means

they have to stay stationary in the pit lane for that time, and you have to add

on, of course, the time that it takes to get off the track and stop.

And then the time to get away and up to racing speed again. So a 10 seconds

penalty is much more stringent, in fact, than just 10 seconds. It's probably more

like 30 seconds, allowing for slowing down and speeding up.

But Damon Hill resisting the pressure from Michael Schumacher is now on the

one-seventh distance lap. He's completed ten laps in this 72-lap race.

You can see the gap between himself and Schumacher. We're riding with the German

now. Try as he may, and there is no question in my mind that he's not trying

as hard as he possibly can to close up on and get past Damon Hill.

This is not a situation where Schumacher will be saying, I've got a different pit

stop strategy to Damon Hill, I think, and I can take it easy. He's trying very

hard indeed.

Incidentally, in one of the previous races, Damon Hill was understandably

miffed to find out that Michael Schumacher, during the race, apparently

knew how many stops Damon Hill was going to be making.

Down comes the Williams. Down comes the Benetton.

Barrichello and Tulfard are still fighting on the track for third

position, although, as we know, due to Barrichello having to stop, that is a

false fight.

Parnis and Brundle are fifth and sixth, but Parnis is going to lose that fifth

position. I'm right over the pit lane, so hopefully I'll see those cars come

in. Alessi's seventh, Berger is eighth.

Vika Hakkinen is the top McLaren. Irvine is 10th in the Jordan.

11th is Frentzen in the Salva. And 12th is Marc Blundell in the second McLaren

Mercedes.

Another lap completed. That's 11 out of 72.

And the gap between Hill and Schumacher in terms of time as they crossed the

line was...

0.538 seconds. The fastest lap we've had so far is that of Damon Hill on

lap nine.

And here is Barrichello coming in to take. And Carney's behind him.

You can't see a board, but there is actually a digital board which flicks

over the number. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. It's done it. Out they go

together.

Barrichello and...

The 12th man has gone through. Mark Lundell has gone through.

And that included Parnis and Barrichello. So, in effect, the 10th man

has gone through. And I think they're therefore down to 11th and 12th places.

We're looking down from the roll bar of Rubens, Barrichello, Jordan, Peugeot.

Bad news for the Peugeot concern that because he started from his highest ever

grid position.

and seemed to have got on top of the psychological problem he had with his

teammate Eddie Irvine, who has out-qualified and out-raced him so often

this season.

And we've got the usual problem now at this point of the race. Lap 12, because

Damon Hill and Schumacher, virtually as one, are coming up to tail-enders.

And if anybody gets in the way, that's one of the 40s, I can tell you that. But

which one it is, I don't know.

It's Roberto Moreno, who's in 19th position.

Montemini has already been lapped. Now, there's Roberto Moreno in the yellow 40,

which is miles an hour and seconds a lap slower.

Damon Hill goes to the right.

Michael Schumacher tries to get through, closes right up on the gearbox of Damon

Hill's car, and they're coming up to the Adelaide hairpin, and Michael Schumacher

has another look.

He'll remember from the past that he's been off there, and he'll probably be a

bit wary about that corner. So, out of the Adelaide hairpin, up to the

Nürburgring, the right left flick, which they take at 125 miles an hour. Here's

the replay.

Yes. The fat marker being in the way is just the opportunity that someone like

Schumacher can use.

But Damon Hill was in the wrong place for Schumacher at that time. And

although there we can see that Damon Hill actually made his car appropriately

relatively wide. And although Schumacher had the momentum and had he found a

clear bit of track, he might have pulled by Damon Hill. He just could not find

the space to do so. Now, the next chance that Schumacher may have to do that will

be in about another two or three laps when they come up to lap the next fat

marker. And that's one of the Pacific cars. I think it's Montemini.

These days, it's just coming up behind back markers that provides rare

opportunities, and there's another one! And it looks like, oh, that was very,

very close indeed, and I'm sure that caught Damon Hill completely unaware.

That is a highly irregular overtaking spot, and I suspect if Schumacher had

tried to continue with that manoeuvre, Hill would have not have realised he was

there, and he would have turned in, and they both would have been out.

Well, you'll certainly know in future, Michael Schumacher's revealed his hand,

perhaps inadvisably.

Incidentally, it was at that corner in a previous year that Ayrton Senna, knowing

that if he went through the corner as fast as he possibly could, he would

spin, did that very thing, because it was not in the race, it was in a

qualifying session, and as a result of that, and deliberately allowing the car

to spin after he crossed the line, he got pole position.

But Schumacher can't afford to do that in this race. Damon Hill will be

watching very carefully on the inside of the right-handed Leaf Bay corner in

future. The sun is shining. The skies are actually lifting, I'm delighted to

say. Hopefully we are going to have a dry race. We're on lap 14.

Hill leads Schumacher by the distance that you can see. Coulthard is now third

because Barrichello has gone in, of course, for that 10-second penalty.

Brundle is up to fourth. Alessi is up to fifth. Berger is up to sixth.

Seventh is Hackenham, eighth is Irvine, and Barrichello and Carnice, as a result

of their stops, are down to ninth and tenth places as the leaders come through

to complete lap 14 now.

And that traffic that we saw in the attempt by Schumacher to get by Damon

Hill has certainly slowed those two up because David Coulthard has taken one

second off what was an eight-second gap between Schumacher and Coulthard. It's

now seven seconds.

And of course, Rundle's only 2.2 behind that, but I'm sure that Damon Hill is

sitting in his Williams at the moment, keeping it precise and neat, but hoping

desperately that Michael Schumacher is certainly on a three-stop strategy,

because if Damon Hill knows he's on a two-stop, and I don't know whether he is

or not, to have Michael Schumacher crawling all over the back of him as he

is is certainly not comfortable, and it certainly intimates that Schumacher's

car is the faster of the two.

And if they are both running the same fuel load, that's going to be a real

worry for Damon Hill. And Damon's going to want to see that Benetton come into

the pit before he does.

And if Schumacher is doing a three-stop run, that will probably mean around

about 16, lap 18, something like that. And if Damon finds that he's had to pit

before Schumacher, he's going to be a worried man. Because that's exactly the

scenario that we had at the Monaco Grand Prix, when Hill came in earlier, despite

being pressurised by Schumacher for a lot of the first stints.

And you can see how Schumacher is pressurising the race leader now, the

World Championship second-placed man, Damon Hill, as they come up to another

back marker.

It's Gachot, I think, who passed. Yes, it is Gachot in the Pacific. And the

last corner, it's both Damon Hill and Schumacher passing. Bertrand Gachot,

who's got a lot of Grand Prix experience, saw them in his mirrors,

politely moved over, let them through, and that was the right and proper thing

to do.

And Martin Brungle's really charging. He's in fourth place, but he's now

closed up from 2.2 seconds behind David Coulthard to 0.9 of a second in just two

laps. So I'm sure indication that Brungle is running the Ligier light and

therefore indication that Williams with Coulthard are planning on making two

stops because that would make the Ligier routine to be three stops.

And I would suggest that probably Damon Hill's on the same two-stop strategy. So

I think that we are beginning to get the picture now. It's going to be important

for Brundle to see if he can manage to get by David Coulthard before he comes

in for his first stop. And I would expect the Ligier drivers of Pannis or

Brundle to be one of the first in, and that to be within the next five laps.

The two top men of Grand Prix racing of today at the front, almost indivisible.

And there is Martin Brundle in the Ligier.

And there's Damon Hill with Schumacher right behind him. Martin Brundle, as

you've just heard from Jonathan, is up with David Coulthard. So there's a

battle between two cars for the lead and Schumacher swarming all over the gearbox

of Damon Hill's Williams.

Schumacher seems to attack, attack, attack at the end of every lap. And

that's what Brundle will be doing now.

Indeed, you can see that both Hill and Schumacher are really sliding those cars

now. Tire wear is quite a factor here, and the tires do go off. They've now

done 16 laps on those tires, and you can see the consequences from the way the

car is sliding. Now, what Damon needs to do is to keep neat and keep precise and

really just make sure that he's aware of just where Schumacher is having a go at

him or trying to, and that's particularly into that final corner.

It's the one-off with this chicane down into this next lisse corner.

We need to make sure that he's in the right place just to keep Schumacher

behind, because what Damon's got to hope is that Schumacher is indeed on a three

-stop strategy, and he's holding him up. Now, look at that. That is Eddie Irvine

in the Jordan, who is eighth. Right behind him, his teammate Rubens

Barrichello, who has had that ten-second penalty, who is ninth. Right behind him

is Olivier Parnis, who has also had the ten-second penalty, who is in tenth

position. And they are both ahead of Mike Carroll-Frentzen.

As we rejoin the Seoul Benetton in this race with Johnny Herbert out in the

opening stages.

Herbert out, Katiyama out, Inoue is out. Coming up to the end of another lap,

dropping down from the Chateau d'Or. They're doing about 155 miles an hour

here.

But as you watch Michael Schumacher in the background, his teammate Johnny

Herbert out of the race is in the pit lane with Tony Jardine.

Johnny. Johnny, I don't know how you're managing it, but you've got a small

smile on your face. Second race in succession, you've been put out. What

happened? Well, it was just basically, I got a good start off the line, and then

I was, when Alessi and Mick had sort of had a close one, I got past them both

there, so I was up to, I think it must have been sixth, I think, at the time.

And I was comfortably ahead of Alessi, and then we seemed to be closing slowly

on the ones in front.

And then, again, he seemed to just do such a silly move.

So, well, it wasn't even a move because he never even tried to get up the

inside. He tapped my back wheel and it just spun me round. But then I had a few

problems with the gearbox after that. I couldn't see where to find the gear.

You're going to have to save it all for the British Grand Prix now. Hard luck,

Johnny. Thanks. Well, that is Olivier Parnis who is making the first tyre

stop. On lap 18 from 10th position after his 10 second penalty. You might

think it would be a good idea to change cars when you have your 10 second

penalty. But quite rightly, the organisers and administrators don't. If

you come in and take a penalty, that's all you're allowed to do.

So Farnese has had to come in very soon after his penalty stop.

To have a tire stop. Damon Hill on the curbs there.

Lucky for him, it was at the approach to the Lise.

Again, Schumacher right behind him. This is lap 18. These two must be coming in

soon. And Schumacher is really pushing Damon Hill now. But the Englishman is

resisting the pressure superbly.

He knows that if he stays where he is now, it's going to be extremely

difficult for Michael Schumacher to get past him. What's those? Well, I'll tell

you what's happening behind.

Coulthard is in third position, nine and a half seconds behind Damon Hill, as

Schumacher has another look.

Brundle is in fourth position, just one second behind Coulthard, and in fifth

and sixth position are the two Ferraris who are effectively out of the race

unless anything happens to the cars in front. They're not on the pace of the

leader. Fifth is Alessi, sixth is Berger, seventh is Hackenham, well up in

the McLaren Mercedes, eighth is Eddie Irvine, who we've just seen battling.

With his team-mate Ruben Barrichello is ninth.

Heinz-Harold Frensen is tenth. Mark Blundell is eleventh in the McLaren

Mercedes. Olivier Parnis after his penalty stop is in twelfth place.

Bouillon is thirteenth. Bader in the Minardi is fourteenth.

Thalo is fifteenth. Morbidelli is sixteenth. And Martini is seventeenth.

Now, here's some good news for Damon Hill fans, and that's that the tyre

covers apparently are off in the Benetton pit. Now, it seems like there's

a Benetton that's still running.

And that means that Schumacher must be due in soon. That would be certainly the

consequence of that. And indeed, there he comes in now.

Right underneath me, Michael Schumacher takes his stop. And this is lap 20.

Michael Schumacher from second place.

Damon Hill stays out.

Now, this presages the... Jonathan.

Yeah, now that's good news for Damon Hill, that really is, and that's Martin

Brundle coming in in the Ligier, because that means that Schumacher was indeed

running a lighter fuel load, and yet he was not able to exploit the advantage of

that because he couldn't find a way past Damon Hill. So, effectively, Schumacher

has had the penalty of having to come into the pits, and will have, I'm sure,

three times, and has not been able to make use of the advantage of that

because he couldn't find a way by Damon Hill. Last year, of course, he...

got ahead of Hill off the line. I'm sure he expected to do the same thing here,

but he wasn't able to do so. Now, we have to look and see what happens with

Hill and see when Hill comes in, because that's the next thing.

Well, you've just seen Jonah Lacey now in the background, and he's behind

Michael Schumacher as Damon Hill is carving his way through the field.

That is a Minardi in front of him. It'll be Luca Bado... No, it'll be Pierluigi

Martini, who is in 17th place. Ahead of Martini is Morbidelli. Ahead of

Morbidelli is Salo. So Damon wants to get some cars between him. Right, he's

got past Morbidelli.

He hasn't got past Morbidelli. I'm sorry, that's the next one he's going to

get past.

Then it will be Pierluigi Martini.

And so...

Martini in the Minardi. They've had a big problem here because all their...

Oh, never mind that, because here is David Coulthard from second in the race,

which he had moved up to after Michael Schumacher's stop.

David Coulthard comes in for his pit stop on lap 20.

So... Varnis has stopped. Schumacher has stopped. Brundle has stopped.

Poulthard has stopped and there is Jean Alessi who has also stopped.

Harness of course has been in twice, once for the penalty and once for tyres.

That's Mika Hakkinen. Behind him is Alessi who gets out.

It's fast and furious.

A lot of activity in the pit lane but Damon Hill is still out there leading

the race as Mika Hakkinen rejoins with two great plumes of smoke from

wheelspin. Rubberstone.

Now, is he going to be able to keep ahead of Olivier Parnes, who is in 12th

position? We rejoin on car with race leader Damon Hill.

He may be coming in this lap. I can tell you that the Williams mechanics are

immediately under me now, and I can see them looking up the pit lane. Somebody's

coming in. It's Damon Hill. I'm looking straight down on Damon Hill's car. The

Williams mechanics are all ready with the wheel guns.

Up goes the back of the car.

In goes the petrol filler. Now, Michael Schumacher's stop took 8.6 seconds. We

don't know how much fuel is going in. It looks it's about the same.

8.6, 9.4. The fuel is going in slower these days because there are new

fireproof hoses, which incidentally are made in Britain on the Merseyside, and

they deliver the fuel more slowly as a result of the internal bore

characteristics.

So we can't say that it's 12 litres a second, which it was before.

It's about 10 now. And there is Rubens Barrichello coming in. And on lap 22

of the 72-lap French Grand Prix, which is turning out to be a real

cracker as Rubens Barrichello sprints out of the pit lane.

He's now stopped twice, once for the penalty, once for tyres.

He came in in seventh position.

But Damon Hill is leading.

Yes, it looks as if we've got probably Schumacher and Hill, in fact, on two

stops. I thought earlier on that maybe it looked as if Schumacher was doing

three, but it was probably a little bit late for that, bearing in mind that Hill

and Schumacher both stopped on lap 21 last year as the first of, or certainly,

sorry, Hill stopped on lap 21 as the first of just two stops.

The real loser on the fourth round of fuel stops, I'm afraid, is David

Coulthard, because he spent an extra ten seconds in the pits for his stop. For

reasons that we don't know yet, we might be able to find out. And that's dropped

him back behind Martin Brundle. Martin Brundle is now in fourth place behind

Gerhard Berger, who has yet to stop, but will have to.

And Schumacher is now back out in front. Schumacher leads the French Grand Prix.

And you're looking at him.

as the German goes round the Estoril, that long, looping right-hander at over

110 miles an hour. And the race order at the present moment, as into the pit lane

for his stop comes Gerhard Berger. On lap 23, Schumacher is eight seconds

ahead of Damon Hill, with Martin Brundle in third position, ten seconds behind

Hill. Kuhlbart is in fourth position.

Practically attacked.

And there's a problem there for Berger.

And a real problem there. They can't get the refuelling nozzle on the side of

Berger's car. The clock's ticking away.

It should have been on 22 seconds ago.

And it looks like there's a really major problem. These are quite difficult to

put on. They've got special over-centre caches.

And I don't know what they're going to do here at all. They're going to maybe

have to try one of the other refuelling rigs. Maybe they can get John Alase's

rig prepared and have a go with that one.

You can just imagine how the mechanics feel. You can just imagine how Gerhard

Berger feels. It's inexplicable to me. I'm sure they will have tested it in the

warm-up here. Well, now they have got it on, and this, in effect, is destroying

Gerhard Berger's race.

53 seconds as he goes out. Well, he came in in sixth position, and he will have

dropped down to about 13th or 14th now.

Now we're with Damon Hill.

Fairly flying.

The fastest lap that we've had so far in this race is that of Michael Schumacher

on lap 21, 1 minute 20.2 seconds, which is about 2.8

seconds slower than the all-time lap record held by Nigel Mansell, 1992, in,

of course, the 3.5 litre Williams Renault with active suspension.

All the bells and whistles that it had in those days. Eddie Irvine leaves the

pit. He's come in and taken his fuel stop. So now, on lap 24, Schumacher has

stopped. Hill, that we're riding with, has stopped. Brundle, who is third, has

stopped.

Toulthard has stopped. That is Mark Blundell. Toulthard is fourth. Irvine

has stopped.

Alessi, who is sixth, has stopped. Rubens Barrichello. All the top 12 have

now stopped for refueling and new tyres and wheels.

Well, I'm afraid it's all gone very wrong for Damon Hill now because he's

lost seven seconds in the course of the first round of field stops. He was, of

course, just ahead of Michael Schumacher. Schumacher came in two laps

or three laps before Damon Hill there.

Schumacher certainly spent less time in the hole of the pit lane. The official

figures are 24.7 seconds for Schumacher. That's from the pit lane entry to the

pit lane exit, including, of course, the refueling time. For Damon Hill, 25.5.

Hill only lost about a second in there, but he clearly has lost a great deal of

time on the track. And we have to assume it happened as Schumacher was coming

into the pits with the traffic that then Hill encountered.

But it's going to be difficult now. Hill's lost another three-tenths of a

second back on Schumacher. And Schumacher is currently the fastest

person on the track.

Yes, Schumacher has exploited that situation, which arose as a result of

Damon Hill having been caught in the traffic. And Damon is now eight.

Tekken behind Kumaka, and that is a gap that he cannot afford to happen. Out of

the race goes Pierluigi Martini in the Minardi. I was starting to say earlier

on, but I didn't finish, that the Minardis had all their cars and assets

impounded as the result of an alleged failure to pay a bill, but they've been

allowed to qualify and they've been allowed to race. You're looking now at

the Ferrari people.

who are frantically trying to sort out the problem with the fuel rig. And now

we're with Michael Schumacher coming down to complete his 25th lap through

the final chicane, into the lycee, the last bend on the track, second gear, out

of it, accelerating hard.

And he has completed 25 laps. And I'll tell you what the gap is now.

It was eight seconds. It's now 9.3 seconds between Schumacher and Damon

Hill. Schumacher is pulling away at the rate of a second lap and that is very,

very bad news for Damon Hill.

Martin Brundle is also lapping faster than Damon Hill at the present moment.

Martin Brundle in the Ligier with the Mugen engine. He's in third position and

he's lapping quicker than David Coulthard who is fourth. So Martin

Brundle is a man to watch as well as Schumacher and Hill. British driver,

second,

third, fourth.

That's Hill, Brundle and Coulthard.

In fifth position are Lacey, sixth is Barrichello, seventh is Irvine, eighth

is Hacken and ninth is Parnis and tenth is Frenson. Now at this stage of the

race, both Schumacher and Hill have done very much what they did last year and

that's stop roundabout lap 21.

But when they did that, Schumacher put on less fuel last year and because that

was to be the first of three stops to make a second stop roundabout lap 38,

something of that order.

whereas Damon Hill only made one further stop, the stop at lap 45 last year. Now,

what happened in that situation was that Damon got very disenchanted because he

saw Schumacher pulling away, couldn't understand why, presumed that Schumacher

was on the same strategy as him, and therefore I think the whole thing went

downhill from there. And it could just be, although it's rather too obvious,

that that same strategy is being applied and that Schumacher indeed will be

coming in earlier. But having said that... It looked from the times that

the car spent in the pit, putting in fuel, that Schumacher was about a second

quicker than Hill. And that's about the level of advantage that we tend to have

seen this year so far from, in general, the very slick Benetton team. So it's my

guess that they are, in fact, on the same routine and that we're not going to

see Schumacher make three stops, but two like Daniel Hill.

Over to Tony Jardine in the pits, the Ferrari pits.

There is feverish activity down here as the mechanics, led by Englishman Nigel

Stepney, the chief mechanic, they've got the dead man handle shutting off the

fuel supply on the rig at the moment, and they're changing the whole nozzle at

the end of the fuel pipe so that they can refuel properly next time.

Well, already Gerhard Berger has lost an enormous amount of time. He's been

lapped. He's down to 14th place. Out goes Bertrand Gachot to join the

retirees. His Pacific Ford gone off. You can see all the gravel stuck to the

very, very hot compound on his tyres. As we rejoin Damon Hill, now 9 seconds, 9

.2 seconds behind. Michael Schumacher dropping down to complete his 26th lap.

He's lapped Morbidelli, who's just behind him in 13th place in the Arrows.

Over the line goes the second Pacific of Montemini. Damon Hill comes towards us,

having got past the Arrows. Art of Gianni Morbidelli. And on lap 28 in the

72-lap race, as you watch Damon Hill, there's the gap, 9.192 seconds.

And Schumacher...

did his last lap just a bit faster than Damon Hill. Very little, but the fact is

that it was faster and therefore increased the gap.

Martin Brundle is now a whisker slower than Damon Hill, but he's doing

extremely well in that third position.

Coulthard is still fourth.

Martin Brundle has pulled away from the Scotsman in the Williams.

We're with the other Williams now.

Alessi is fifth. Barry Keller is in sixth position.

And Damon Hill is fighting for points. He's seen the World Championship gap

increase. It increased by two points in Canada. And at the present moment, the

increase is potentially another four points because Michael Schumacher is on

ten points. If he finishes first here in France, as he did last year, Damon Hill

is on six points.

At this point, Damon Hill must be praying that Michael Schumacher ahead.

has indeed put less fuel on, and therefore he will have to make a third

pit stop, and that assumes, of course, that Hill will make two, because if that

is not the case, and they are on the same routine, that means that Damon's

chances of winning this race can only now rely on Schumacher having some kind

of problem, be it incident or reliability, because he's dropping back

at roundabout half a second, seven tenths of a second a lap, and of course

David Coulthard is much further back, so sadly the race at this stage is really

rather falling apart for the Williams team.

Jonathan, you're the ace forecaster. We're on lap 29 now. If Schumacher is

going to be making three stops rather than two, when would you expect him to

be coming in for the second one?

I think it would be somewhere around about lap 38. That's another ten laps

away. That's more or less what he did last time. And so until we get, let's

say, to lap 40, we really won't know.

I think we've got to wait that far to make a judgment.

Damon Hill will know what's going on of course he's not only going to be seeing

pit signals as he goes past his pit as he exits the slowest corner on the

course at the end of the lap but he's also in constant touch with his pit by

radio they'll be telling him what the gap between him felt and Michael

Schumacher is lap by lap there's the Englishman the man who won in Argentina

the man who won in San Marino He's had four finishes from the six races that

he's been in this year, and it's taken him to second in the championship.

But that is the man that he's up against, and the gap is increasing and

has increased again. It's 10.4 seconds now. Michael Schumacher increased the

gap by a further six-tenths of a second on that last lap. We're with him now as

he comes up.

And that's the McLaren Mercedes of Mark Blundell, who is in 11th place.

So Michael Schumacher, on lap 30 out of 72, has lapped everybody up to Heinz

-Harold Frentzen, who is 10th. The next man will be Parney, who is 9th. Then

Hackenon in the second McLaren, who is 8th. Eddie Irvine is 7th, and Rubens

Barrichello is 6th. And Mark Blundell, we can just see him in the back of the

picture behind Schumacher there.

is having a pretty miserable time with McLaren. It's been a miserable year for

McLaren this year. The Mercedes-Benz engine has been going pretty well, but

the chassis really hasn't been living up to expectations at all.

And the team have been working undoubtedly extremely hard on it.

They've had a new underbody section. That's the floor of the car where it

picks up towards the back. It produces the all-important downforce under the

car. They've got new side pods here. They've got new engine cover sections.

And yet for all of that, the performance of the car really is no different. And

in fact, in their second division league, which is together with Jordan,

they've slipped back. Jordan have got the advantage in qualifying with

Barrichello in fifth place. And they're having the race too, because we've got

Barrichello in sixth, Irvine in seventh, with Hacken and Hanging on gamely in

eighth, but Mark Blundell back there in eleventh. And interestingly, McLaren

were so concerned about the performance of their cars on the Friday practice day

that we had here, they had some electrical problems.

But they took all three cars across to a little test circuit called Danielson,

about 10 miles away from Magny Cours, and actually ran the cars that evening

to try and successfully, in fact, sort out some electrical problems.

That's the man to watch at the moment, Marc Blanc, Martin Brundle, in his 134th

Grand Prix, driving for the second time in the Ligier team.

because he drove for them in 1993. He's in third place, coming up to lap Gianni

Morbidelli's Arrows Heart as they go round the Adelaide hairpin.

Morbidelli is 14th. Gerhard Berger in front in the Ferraris in 13th place as a

result of that dreadfully long pit stop when the fuel filler would not go into

the valve on the tank on the car itself.

Martin goes through inside Morbidelli to lap him.

And the gap between Martin Brundle and Damon Hill, who is in second position,

is 14 seconds.

They're lapping in about the same time. And Hill seems to have stabilised the

gap between himself and Schumacher.

Schumacher has just gone into his 32nd lap out of 72.

And I tell a lie because the time's come up and the gap has increased. In fact,

Martin... Mike, I wonder, do you think, Jonathan, as we watch Coulthard in

fourth position, that Damon may have some sort of a problem? Because the gap

increased by nearly two seconds on that last lap.

Well, it's difficult to know what's traffic or whether or not there is some

kind of gremlin with the car that's bugging him. We're going to have to just

keep an eye on it to see if he does have traffic on any particular lap to see.

But certainly, performance of Damon Hill-Williams is not...

the sort of performance that the Williams would like. They really came

here expecting to be right on form, and Hill's qualifying performance was

certainly strongly indicative of a very strong showing here. But Ferrari, we see

them ahead. It's been a bad weekend for them, with Berger not being on form in

the second qualifying session, a Lacey missing all of the first session on

Saturday with a hydraulic problem, and in fact a Lacey back in fifth place, but

he's 16 seconds behind David Coulthard. So the form that we saw in Montreal with

a Lacey winning and actually pushing pretty hard.

Really hasn't been repeated here at all.

So, Martin Brundle closing up now on the Ferrari ahead. Now, we're with Brundle.

This is the Imola section, the right, the left.

You went through it then with him at about 110 miles an hour. Now it's down

through the gears into second gear.

Accelerate up to 155 miles an hour. This is the last stretch before the chicane

at the end of the lap.

This roll bar camera is a wonderful place to have it. Look how you can see

the drivers, hands at work, you can see the wheels, you can see the way he

places them for the corner.

Those are Martin's French and English Ligier mechanics in the garage.

They're looking at the monitor too, watching their man in third position.

The other Ligier, Olivier Parnis, is now in ninth place after two stops, and

Martin is getting closer and closer to the Ferrari in front, which is that of

Gerhard Berger. Now, Berger is lapping in about one minute, 22.6.

Martin is lapping in 1.21.8. So he's taking about eight-tenths of a second

out of Gerhard Berger. He'll be right with him very, very surely, but catching

Gerhard Berger is one thing, and as I've said before, getting past... is quite

another. Lap 33, then. Schumacher now leading by 12.8 seconds, going

consistently faster than Damon Hill's Williams Renault. Martin Brundle is

third. Kulthard is fourth in the second Williams Renault. Alessi is fifth.

Barrichello is in sixth place. Irvine is seventh. Hackenon is eighth.

Tarnis is ninth.

Princeton is tenth, and the last person to be on the same lap.

as race leader Michael Schumacher, who is on his 34th lap now.

Mark Blundell has been lapped in 11th position, and we watch Martin Brunel

now. You see he's right up behind the V12 Ferrari now.

And I remind you that this is the Ligier's home track.

Martin knows it like the back of his hand. The car is perfectly set up. That

is David Coulthard. Now you look back and you see the gap, visually, between

David Coulthard, who is fourth, and Martin Brundle, who is in third place.

And over the last few laps, in fact, Martin Brundle has pulled out a little

over David Coulthard. The gap got up as far as five seconds from being 3.9.

Three laps to go. Coulthard's pulled in another three-tenths of a second there

in the last lap. I suspect that's because Brundle is now being held up by

Gerhard Berger.

I'm sure that thoughts of the incident between Berger and Brundle, and that's

one of the Pacific cars there, into that's Monteverny, into the pit there

for a stop for him. I'm sure that thoughts of Montreal when Berger got so

desperate to try and find a way past Martin Brundle that he eventually ended

up pushing him off are going through both those drivers' minds. But Martin

Brundle, I'm sure, to run the kind of pace he is, must be making a three-stop

strategy. And that means that he should come into the pit within the next two or

three laps, I would say, for his second of two stops.

Meanwhile, Gerhard Berger has got quite a bit of fuel on board. And the weight

advantage that Berger, or rather that Brundle will have, means that he should

be quicker. And then we see how Damon Hill is really pushing hard now.

Really, really sliding. I beg your pardon, that is David Coulthard.

Really sliding. Trying to make an impression there on Martin Brundle, who

himself is dropping back some half a second a lap from Damon Hill.

Well, just waiting for Coulthard to go through.

Which he has now done. And into the pits comes Martin Brunville from third

position. So he's losing places all the time, of course. Out he goes. Good stop.

No problems.

Down the pit lane.

We're on lap 35 now, which is as near as makes no difference. Well, it's...

Just one lap under half distance.

That's Gianni Morbidelli with all four wheels of the arrows off the ground. And

coming towards us, the battle between Mika Hakkinen in the red and white

McLaren Mercedes, who is in eighth position, and Olivier Parnis, who would,

of course, would have been a lot higher than ninth had he not had that jump

start. We mentioned the special equipment to...

defined jump start. Each of the cars has a sensor underneath it now, and if it

moves even a whisker, the sensor detects it, sends the information through

electronically, and very early in the race, you see drivers having to come in.

But there's a lot left coming in now that when they first introduce the

equipment, the drivers are learning the hard way that you mustn't move even a

millimetre before that green light comes on.

So... Mika Hakkinen in the McLaren Mercedes.

Eighth position, just half a second ahead of Olivier Parnis as we join

Alessi.

Alessi, who is in fifth position.

And he is about 14... Oh, he's up to fourth now. And I hate

to be a Jeremiah, but I have to tell you...

That is, you've just seen from that shot of the sky that the clouds overhead are

extremely grey. They're much lower than they were when this race began.

They're much darker than they were when this race began.

I'm sure there's going to be rain sometime this afternoon. It's just a

question of when. We're halfway through the race now, and I would be mildly

surprised if there's not at least a shower. Some have been forecast within

the next 36 laps, which we've still got to go.

So, there's the confirmation on your screen. Michael Schumacher, 36 laps

completed, leads the French Grand Prix.

Damon Hill goes through 12.7 seconds behind him. He's now lapping to within

one-tenth of a second in the same time as Michael Schumacher, to which 1 minute

21 seconds, and that compares with the lap record, the new fastest lap, 1

minute 20.2.

Giorno Lacey, there, is in fourth position. Ahead of him is David

Coulthard. Behind him is Martin Brundle, only 3.8 seconds behind and gaining. I

think we're going to soon see a battle between the Ferrari of Alessi and the

Ligier of Brundle for fourth position.

And now Benetton leads. Williams second, Williams third, and it's Coulthard's

first French Grand Prix.

Fine performance.

Now, the next three laps are going to be crucial for the Williams team's

prospects there because...

They are going to be desperately wanting to see Michael Schumacher come into the

pit for that second of three stops, if that's what he's going to do. If he

doesn't do that, if Schumacher has not pitted within the next four laps, then a

two-stop strategy must be the routine that they're going to adopt.

And that means that it's bad news for the Williams team because there is

little that Hill can do about his 12.5 second gap behind Michael Schumacher.

That means that Schumacher and Hill have been driving cars with the same fuel

load. And therefore, the performance differential between them is simply down

to driver and down to the chassis and it's set up. And as we've seen so often,

it does seem that in the combination of those things, there's a locking wheel

there from, that's Olivier Panis. Now, he's being held up behind Mika Hakkinen.

Panis going for his three-stop strategy. He's stopped for his second time. He

knows that he's on better tyres than Hakkinen.

And the Ligier has certainly been quicker than the McLaren this weekend.

and for Pannis to make advantage of that he's going to want to find a way past

but Hakkinen is not an easy man we've seen that so many times and he may well

find his opportunity being squandered by having to follow that McLaren they're

coming up for the Imola turns now the right the left there's Hakkinen exiting

Pannis behind him whilst you can close up behind the car

Finding the extra speed to get past in a situation where both the cars have got

virtually identical performance is very, very difficult indeed. You've just got

to pressure the driver in front, as Parnis is doing now. This is not a

replay. We're with them live.

They've gone through and they've both yet to be lapped.

Hakkinen and Parnis are the next two that will be lapped by race leader

Michael Schoon. I think it should be a little while before that happens.

And so they are now on their 39th lap, as is the race leader, Michael

Schumacher. You can see how evenly matched the Finn in the McLaren and the

Frenchman in the Ligier are.

And that's the point where Parnas had to do it, into the Adelaide hairpin. It was

the same point there that he locked the wheel than that before.

And now, really, Olivier Parnas can do nothing but position himself around the

whole of this lap. It's amazing that in Grand Prix racing you get so many

circuits such as here.

where there is only really one overtaking opportunity per three miles

of the circuit. And therefore, the remainder of the lap must be spent

keeping yourself in touch, as Pannis is with Hacken in there, with the car

ahead, but then closing up at the crucial time, and that's the fast

corner, the Estoril corner, before that long straight all the way down to the

hairpin. You need to get very close indeed. You need to get into the tow to

then, in which case, you could probably pull up about a five miles an hour speed

advantage by being right up behind the car in front.

And of course, therefore, the car in front, and we can see there the clouds

indeed are thickening now. They're becoming darker, and we're going to have

to keep waiting to see if it's going to make any difference. But at the moment,

the track is still completely dry with no rain falling.

I'm hoping Tony Jardine will be able to tell us whether the Benetton team are

getting ready to receive their only car, which is that of Michael Schumacher,

because...

Johnny Herbert has long since disappeared from the French Grand Prix.

We're on lap 40 now out of 72.

Schumacher's leading Hill by 15.15 seconds now.

Hill is some 25 seconds ahead of David Coulthard. And there's news from Tony

Jardine. What is it?

There is nothing happening at the moment. No movement from the mechanics

at all at the moment, Murray. But the worst thing, as you've said, from down

here on the pit lane, looking above, huge dark clouds. They are gathering

strength. And pit personnel are coming out, squinting up at the sky, and

they're twitching, wondering whether they're going to have to pull out the

wet weather tyres.

Well, I'm afraid no news is bad news for Damon Hill, because if the Benetton team

are not getting...

Not getting ready to receive Michael Schumacher. It looks as though he is

indeed on a two-stop strategy, and he's now nearly 16 seconds ahead of Damon

Hill, seemingly on his way to yet another victory, which would be his

fourth in seven races, because he won in Brazil in that contested reign. And

there's spots of rain.

I can tell you that there are spots of rain, and if this develops, it's going

to transform the French Grand Prix.

Is it going to be just a shower which makes the circuit damp and hopefully dry

enough for the drivers to stay out on their non-threaded so-called slick

tyres? And the Williams team are below me and they're getting ready to receive

somebody coming in. So either Hill or Coulthard are coming in.

Or if the track gets really wet...

They're going to all have to stop and put on the very heavily traded wet

weather tyres.

And this could throw the race wide open.

Now, we're with the Ferrari now. It's lap 41.

Who's coming in? Schumacher's leading hill by 16 seconds.

Coulthard is third.

Alessi is fourth.

Here is the Frenchman, Jean Alessi, the winner of the Canadian Grand Prix,

through the chicane where he went off and rammed Rubens Barrichello last year.

Out to complete a lap and start a new one. Jean Alessi goes through. He's 14

seconds behind Coulthard, who is third, who is 25 seconds behind Hill.

who is second, who is 16 seconds behind Schumacher, who leads, and the Williams

mechanics are standing down. The heat has gone off. Whatever was causing the

problem, they are now relaxing, and the wheels are being put away.

Yes, I'm sure indeed it was the prospect of rain here now, but I think the

strategy of the various teams has now become clear, and that, having not seen

any pit stop from the Benetton team, the Schumacher...

I think that we have now Schumacher, Hill, Coulthard, in fact all of the

front runners making two stops. They've made their first, their second stop will

come in about another four laps. That's my guess with the only person of

significance who's differing from that strategy is Martin Brundle with the

Ligier. He's stopped twice and I think he's got a further stop to come and that

will be round about lap 48 towards lap 50. So the next wave of stops.

for everybody except Martin Brundle, and the next wave of stops in four laps from

now. Well, the mystery, the plot thickens because the Williams team are

out now.

They're a set of tyres. They're still in their warmers.

The guns are being ready. There is no doubt about the fact that somebody is

coming in. We're on lap 42 now. Through goes a Lacey in fourth position in the

Ferrari. So on lap 42, out of 72...

The race order is Schumacher leads in the Benetton Renault. Hill is second in

the Williams Renault. Coulvard is third in the Williams Renault. Alessi is in

fourth place in the Ferrari.

And he's only two seconds ahead of Martin Brundle in the Ligier Mugen.

Rubens Barrichello has clawed his way up to sixth position after his ten-second

stop. Schumacher has just gone through into his 43rd lap. So we're going to

know very soon if...

Hill or Coulthard are coming in. There seems to be an increasing amount of

tension amongst the Williams mechanics below me.

They're watching Alessi at the present moment. Hill has gone through.

So if anyone from the Williams team is coming in, it's David Coulthard, but

he's due to go past me any second now as you watch the fourth position Ferrari of

John Alessi, his teammate Gerhard Berger is out of the race effectively.

He's down in 12th position, and he's been lapped. It's going to be no points

for Gerhard Berger, who started off the season so well.

And now David Coulthard has gone through, so again the Williams mechanics

stand down.

And to remind you, this race, the pit stops are going to be a little bit

longer than we've seen before because the fuel flow rate has been decreased

from its 12 litres per second down to about 9 or 10 litres per second, and

that's because a stronger, more durable Teflon-lined hose has been used.

and the pressure has remained the same, and it's likely to do so, I gather, for

the time being. So that means that most stops will be around about one to two

seconds longer than we've been used to seeing in the past, plus the fact that

here, the split of the two fuel stops that the teams are undertaking tends to

be skewed towards the early part of the race, because it's generally regarded

that the hard charging will take place in the early stages, and therefore

they've come into the pit for their first stop at... Lap 20, lap 21, and

rather than a third distance at the 72-lap race, which would, of course,

be... And it looks like the rain is coming down there. We can see coats

going on, and this could be really interesting indeed.

And a lacy there is one of the guys who's really going to revel in these

conditions. Hill! Hill!

Hill is in. He's underneath me now. I'm watching the mechanics. The back of the

car is off. You can see it now. And he's got slicks. It's slicks. He's got a new

set of slicks. This is strange because as the rain starts to come down, in

comes Damon Hill and he takes on a set of tyres which are suited more to dry

weather than wet weather. Now, watch the camera on Schumacher's car and see if

you... Yes, you can. You can see spots of rain hitting the lens.

And that is an inexplicable move to me, the Williams move. Jonathan, have you

got any ideas?

Well, just a point then. We saw the drops of rain go down that camera. That,

incidentally, was the film in front of the camera just changing position to

give us a clear view again. And now with that clear view, we can see that the

rain is gently increasing.

Now, the Williams team would certainly have been apprehensive, and that's why

they were looking out to try and work out just what the weather was going to

do. But, you know, it really is not raining hard. We can see it's not

raining sufficiently hard, certainly, to even get the track right at this stage.

And if the Williams team had put wet tyres on at the moment, the tyres, the

car would have been about 10 seconds a lap slower, and the tyres would have

gone off very quickly. All one can actually do is put the correct tyres on

for the conditions at the time. But it looks like the rain is actually

increasing quite quickly now.

Lap 45, the Williams mechanic car underneath me again, and again they're

out with new tyres and wheels.

The problem is I can't tell you what kind of tyres in terms of slips or wet

weather tyres, because the heating covers are still on as Michael

Schumacher comes up to Olivier Parnis. Now Schumacher is leading, Parnis is

intent, he's still got Hakkinen in front of him.

Hackenon will be anxious to keep Parnis behind him. Parnis won't be watching his

mirrors perhaps as closely as he might do. But he's trying to get up to

Hackenon. And we're on lap 45.

Schumacher is now 43 seconds ahead. And more news from Tony Jardine in the pit.

Yeah, I'm in the Benetton pit, Murray. And the Benetton mechanics have just

gone to the back and they've prepared a second set of tyres.

They're still under the covers, but we suspect they could be wet. So they're

being prepared.

Well, if that is so, it's easy for me to be an amateur strategist and I'm

certainly not going to tell Williams what to do and they couldn't hear me and

they wouldn't take any notice of me anyway.

But if Benetton are bringing Schumacher in and they are putting him onto slicks,

it would seem to be the sensible thing to do.

Now, the way with the German, he's just gone through.

That's his 45th lap completed. He's on lap 46 now.

And he's 43 seconds ahead of Damon Hill with, frankly, I have to say, the race

in his pocket if he can just keep going.

Damon Hill is 3.7 seconds ahead of Coulthard, who is 13 seconds ahead of a

Lacey Forth, who is three seconds ahead of Brundle Fifth, who is three seconds

ahead of Barrichello in sixth position. So it's a battle for fourth, fifth and

sixth. And we really should emphasise that the dry weather tyres, these slick

tyres, can be used in damp conditions too. And it's not the case that one has

to come straight in for wet tyres if the rain starts to come down. It's only

spitting at the moment.

But there is no doubt that a wet tyre is absolutely hopeless on a dry track. And

that's the reason why really all teams can do is keep the cars on the

appropriate tyres for the conditions. And although it would be very neat if

the rain happened to fall in cascades at the very time that a second stop was

required for any of these drivers, the chances of that happening are absolutely

minuscule. And therefore, although it may seem very frustrating... There's

little a team can really do but just to put on the appropriate tyres the moment

that that car comes into the pit. And again, although there is a little bit of

a window of time in which these cars can come into their pit stops, maybe over

two or three laps, in general, the amount of fuel they carry dictates what

they can do. And I'm sure that that's going to dictate that Michael Schumacher

and David Coulthard and Lacey, etc., come into their second stop very soon.

Tony Jardine in the Benetton pit.

I really do feel for the mechanics down here, and particularly the tyre

technicians. The Benetton tyre man doesn't know what day it is. He's been

in and out of the back, but he's just managed to tell me that the tyres, the

second set of tyres in the covers that they've swapped back, are the slicks. So

Schumacher's going to put slicks on, but they did have wets ready.

Well, Williams and in the poor Damon Hill have obviously done the right thing

as far as Benetton is concerned if they are bringing Schumacher in again.

Schumacher having already stopped once.

Looks as though he's coming in for a second stop. Damon Hill has stopped

twice. Coulthard has stopped once. Lacey has stopped once. Coulthard is now

stopped twice because here he is coming into the pits and stopping from third

position, 11 seconds behind Damon Hill.

And Alessi may well go up into third position now. I'm waiting to see if the

Ferrari goes through. He's coming in. I think, yes, Alessi is in.

Alessi is stopping for tyres also.

Out goes Coulthard. We're riding with him now. That is Alessi in the pit lane.

And he's now dropped down to fifth position because Martin Brundle has gone

through. And as Lacey exits the pit lane and nearly takes, I think, one of the

McLaren mechanics. Yes, it was, because there's a McLaren coming in from behind.

That will be Micka Hakkinen.

So, lap 48.

Schumacher's in. We're in with Schumacher now. Now, the gap was 41

seconds, so he's got plenty of time to take on new tyres and wheels.

And out.

That's Schumann.

On his 48th lap now.

Well, he's come in. He's now even Stephen with Hill in terms of stops too.

He's even Stephen with Coulthard and Brundle and Alessi who are in third,

fourth and fifth places because they've stopped twice.

And you're looking now at one of the salvers.

It's Frenson. Fights Harold Frenson, who is in 10th position and low on lap 48.

Schumacher leads Hill.

Kuhlbaug third.

Brundle fourth. Olesi fifth.

Barrichello sixth.

Irvine seventh. Hackenham eighth. Parnis ninth.

Frenson tenth.

And the leader has lapped everybody up to Hackenham. And more news from Tony

Jardy. It really is like Piccadilly Circus down here. Cars in and out as you

saw. We were watching Colt Bard in that pit stop.

And he was just moving out from the pit stop, which had gone extremely smoothly,

when Barrichello came barreling down the outside at quite a speed.

Coulthard had not seen him, and the pair nearly collided. It was only the fact

that Rubens jammed on the anchors at the last minute, locked up the brakes. They

missed each other by inches. There was nearly a major collision.

Tony Jardy, thank you, Tony. That's Eddie Irvine, who's had his tyre

stopped, and the same thing seems to have happened to him as happened to

Johnny Herbert at Monaco. The jack seems to have stuck under the back of the car.

Well, they've got it clear now, but he'd stalled the engine, and he's got away.

He came in in fifth position, so he's lost a lot of places. Yes, the

fundamental problem there was Eddie Irvine stalled the engine, the Peugeot

V10, on his Jordan car, and he will have done that by not having enough revs on

with his throttle and actually letting the clutch out too quickly. And that's

an easy thing to do on particularly the Jordan.

as on some of these cars, because the clutch, like with the McLaren, that's

Mark Blundell coming in for his second stop, the clutch is a lever that is

actually on the steering wheel, so it's not as progressive, it does not have the

range of feeding it in of a normal foot-operated clutch.

Now, as a result of Schumacher coming in for his second stop, things are looking

a bit better for Damon Hill, who has stopped twice, because on lap 49 out of

72, the gap is down to...

14.8 seconds from over 42 seconds.

And, of course, that's as a result of the man you're watching, Michael

Schumacher, coming in, slowing down, stopping for the tires and fuel,

accelerating out again, getting up to race speed.

Now, 14.8 is the gap to remember because Schumacher is just completing his 49th

lap. Damon Hill will come through next.

That's the second Sauber Ford of Jean-Christophe Bouillon, who is in 13th

position. He's driving extremely well, incidentally, now. He's the Williams

test driver, and he's getting much closer to the times of his team leader,

Harold Frentzen. Things are getting a bit brighter in weather terms.

And the gap is 14.4 seconds.

Damon Hill just four-tenths of a second faster than Michael Schumacher, but I

think that's the end.

of Schumacher coming out of the pits.

Now,

Martin Brundle is in third place.

He is some 22 seconds behind Damon Hill. He's 10 seconds ahead of David

Coulthard. But all of the front runners now have made their fuel stops. They've

got no more to go. It's a straight race to the flag, with the exception of

Martin Brundle. And I'm pretty sure that he's going to have to make another stop,

seeing what he's done so far.

and that's going to put him, say, 30 seconds further back, and probably round

about sixth place. It looks like he's going to lose out to Poulthard, who will

go through into fourth place, and Lacey, sorry, Poulthard will go through into

third place, and Lacey into fourth, and Barrichello fifth, when Brundle comes in

for his third stop, if indeed that's what he's going to do. But we shall

know, I think, within the next two or three laps, if that's the case.

Well, back again with Olivier Parnis.

Chasing Mika Häkkinen, number eight there, and trying to get seventh

position off in this time. It was eighth position previously.

They've both benefited one place as a result of tyre and fuel stops in front

of them. They go through.

They've still... Häkkinen has been lapped.

Parnis has been lapped.

Only Barrichello, Alethi, Coulthard, Brundle and Hill have not been lapped by

race leader Michael Schumacher on lap 51, who's pulling out again.

He seems to have the legs of Damon Hill and the Williams Renault because he has

increased his gap by two seconds on the previous lap.

That is Bouillon, the French driver, exiting the pit lane,

stalled the Sauber Ford, and I would say, therefore, he's out of the race.

Back again with Parnis. There is Hackenham. Where are they on the track?

I think they're... Yes, at the...

The long left hander, the 180, which they take in second gear at about 50

miles an hour.

Now they accelerate up to about 165 miles an hour for backing off for the

right hander.

And Parney's pushing very hard indeed. The highest place he's ever had in a

Grand Prix was second position in the German Grand Prix when he was followed

into third place by his teammate then, Eric Bernard, both in Ligiers.

An excellent performance by both of them.

They haven't matched it since. Eric Bernard has been testing today and

showing people the Renault Espace Formula One car, because this people

-carrier has been specially built with a Formula One Williams engine on a

Williams Formula One chassis, and its performance is absolutely electrifying.

Out of Estoril. That is Parnis. He is eighth. Ahead of him in the red and

white McLaren as they come up to 180 miles an hour. We're riding with Parnis.

You see the McLaren in front. Now it's that. This is where Parnis challenges

every time.

But Vika Hakkinen's got the move covered. He can see the Ligier in his

mirrors. Schumacher has just made the fastest lap of the race.

One minute 20.2.

and he's 18 seconds ahead of Damon Hill, and he's certainly looking as though

he's going to increase his championship lead over Damon Hill and the Williams

runner by another four points before they go to the British Grand Prix at

Silverstone in two weeks' time.

In Damon Hill's pitfall, I'm going to be giving him some pretty demoralising

news, and that's not of Schumacher's fastest lap directly, but indirectly

he'll know that Schumacher is flying, because Hill has dropped one and a half

seconds on Schumacher on that lap.

And again, traffic may have been a factor, but that still does demonstrate

the tremendous superiority that we've seen so frequently from Michael

Schumacher. And now with the Benetton car working well with the Renault

engine, Renault do have further evolved specifications of the Renault V10 3

-litre engine here for the French Grand Prix, as of course do Peugeot in the

Jordans. Although interestingly, the Jordan Peugeot Evolution engines...

expired in the qualifying and warm-up sessions, and so that the Jordan team

are relying on their older specification units, which actually are doing a pretty

good job, with Barrichello back there in sixth place, and Eddie Irvine in ninth.

Actually, Irvine missing out in that second stop, stalling the car, costing

about 15 seconds, 16 seconds, and that's why Irvine has dropped so far back,

because he was within three seconds of Rubens Barrichello before that mistake.

Jonathan, let me put you on the spot. Is Schumacher driving better than Hill, or

is the Benetton better than the Williams, or is it a combination of

superiority from both?

Well, it's always a very difficult thing to say. The only way that we can really

compare drivers is when we see two drivers in the same team. But if we look

at the relationship between the drivers in those respective teams, we know that

Michael Schumacher, in fact, this time here...

at Man Utd out-qualified his teammate, Johnny Herbert, by two seconds. It was a

huge margin. Johnny Herbert had managed to close the gap, the qualifying gap,

and this is terribly important with regard to assessing...

How good drivers are, beating their teammates is desperately important, and

out-qualifying them is most more important probably than out-racing them,

because in many ways qualifying is seen as the ultimate test of pure speed.

Racing, of course, depends on a lot more things, such as how good the setup is,

mistakes, reliability, all of those factors. But Herbert had closed the gap.

He progressively worked his way up. He was qualified sixth in Canada, but now

he's dropped back to tenth, being two seconds behind Schumacher. But what

we're really saying here is that there is a big gap between Schumacher...

and his teammate, Johnny Herbert.

Herbert has always been regarded as being a pretty good driver, who was

almost a match for Hackenham, there's no doubt about that. At Williams, we've got

Damon Hill and David Coulthard, who've been pretty evenly matched this year. Up

until this particular race, in fact, both drivers had out-qualified each

other on the kind of comparison yardstick by three times.

Hill was ahead of Coulthard three times, Coulthard ahead of Hill three times, but

on this occasion, Coulthard remained in third place and Hill took the pole.

So, I think overall, most... of the observers in Formula 1 would agree that

whilst Damon Hill is an exceptionally good driver and is a very dependable

driver and can delve deep into reserves of ability and speed, as indeed he did

in qualifying here, I think the other great highlight from Damon Hill was

qualifying at Monaco too. Then he really was, I think, superbly fast. But I think

at other times, and perhaps we're seeing it here, he really isn't quite a match

for Michael Schumacher.

I think, interestingly, he's more of a match on a one-off lap. But when it

comes to stringing laps together, which is essentially what racing is all about,

completing the 200 miles or 72 laps in a minimum time, it's about being

consistent. And that's a Ferrari coming up the inside of Marc Blundell there. It

looks like it's John Alessi. It looks like that. I think it's Gerhard Berger.

It's Gerhard Berger. And no contact was made. But that really was very fortunate

indeed because that was exceptionally close.

Gerhard Berger is in 12th place, and I was going to say there's only three

battles on the circuit at the present moment.

One is between Parnis and Hackenham for 7th place. The next one is this one

between Mark Blundell and Gerhard Berger in respectively the McLaren and the

Ferrari for 11th place.

And there's a battle for 13th place between Luca Badea in the Minardi and

Gianni Morbidelli, his Italian countryman in the Arrows, who is 14th.

under a second behind Bedard. And that is Berger locking up hard as he

goes into the slow, 30 miles an hour Adelaide hairpin, trying to force his

way through on the inside of Mark Blundell, who keeps his foot down. Mark

Blundell is the man who has taken the place that Nigel Mansell was going to

have and had for just two races in the McLaren-Mercedes team.

And it looks as though Blundell, who we are riding with now in 11th position,

has cemented his place in the McLaren team. We know he's going to be driving

in Silverstone.

Ron Dennis, who is the team boss at McLaren, has said that he's got no plans

to replace Mark Blundell. And Alessi has just gone through. He's in 5th position.

There are the two Ferraris. Alessi, who is in 5th place.

Gerhard Berger, who is in 12th position.

and there are now 2.6 miles between them, because the Frenchman with Jean on

his right sleeve, in that distinctive position, look at the steering wheel,

look right at the top of the steering wheel, because of the positions of his

hands, well, we're with Mark Blundell now, but for when you see Alessi again

from the cockpit roll bar,

you will see that both his hands have got a window between them on the

steering wheel. That's because his high hands position, and this incidentally,

number 25 is in Martin Brundle in the Ligier, and he is

in third position, 27 seconds behind Hill, just to finish the thought. Now

there's the lacy, you saw the lights flash.

Because his hands are so high, he wasn't seeing the red limiter lights come on,

which indicate the time that he must change gear, so they've just put the

lights in the steering wheel.

And that 57, 72 lap race, Hakkinen is still ahead

of Olivier Parnis. The race leader is still Michael Schumacher. There is

Alessi going through.

And Alessi is...

Driving is, darn this, 122.4, but he's still 1.2 seconds a lap slower

than Michael Schumacher.

And if this race has done anything, it's underlined the fact that the Benetton

Renault with Michael Schumacher at the wheel is the class of the field.

Now we can get a good opportunity to see just how Ferrari performance compares,

and Alessi shakes his hand there, shakes his fist at Mark Blundell, and McLaren

being ahead of Alessi, Alessi being... Desperate to close the 8.4 second gap

for David Coulthard ahead.

There Anna Lacey goes through up the inside.

Was clearly not happy about that. He chops across in front of Mark Blundell.

Let's have a look. Anna Lacey goes inside and he's right over the kerbs to

try and find a way by an aggressive maneuver there that Anna Lacey clearly

thought he had to do. He's desperate to catch Coulthard up and have another look

from the same thing. And look how Mark Blundell, well really I'm afraid, Mark

should have given Jean Anna Lacey more room there. He was a lap behind.

John Todd looks on, shaking his head, leaves his cars in one piece.

John Todd being the Ferrari team boss. Here's another replay.

Mark Blundell pushed out, and the race order on lap 58 now is 21 seconds

between Michael Schumacher, who is increasingly dominating this race.

His last lap was marginally slower than that of Damon Hill, but probably due to

traffic. Hill.

is some 38 seconds ahead of Coulthard. So there's 59 seconds between the first

and third men represented by Michael Schumacher. There is David Coulthard,

who is third.

Behind him is Martin Brundle. Beliger is seven seconds behind

this car, David Coulthard's Williams Renault. And in fifth position, it's a

Lacey. Two seconds now behind Brundle. So you can see why John Alati was so

anxious to get past Mark Blundell and to lap him. Mark Blundell, who is in 11th

place. Barry Kello in 6th position. He's just five and a half seconds behind John

Alati, the 5th place man.

So, now look at Coulthard. If we look back, we may see...

Martin Brundle in the background as Coulthard goes round the ethereal right

-hander, climbs up towards Adelaide. Oh, we just didn't hold the shot long

enough.

David Coulthard, it looks as though he is set fair for four world championship

points to add to the nine that he already has.

That would help him in the world championship because Johnny Herbert, who

is ahead of him in the championship by three points, is out of this race.

Hopefully from Coulthard's point of view, he'll move up into fifth position

in the World Championship at the end of this race.

And we are riding with Coulthard now. That was the camera that's mounted on

the left-hand side of the chassis. You can just see it as he goes into the

right-hander here.

And Schumacher's now on his 59th lap.

David Coulthard in his first full season of Grand Prix racing.

Indeed, it won't be until the British Grand Prix in two weeks' time that David

will have driven in 16 Grand Prix, which is the number in a World Championship

series of any one year, although there may be 17 this year.

Head down.

Who puts his head down distinctively like that?

John O'Lacey.

And you see...

But behind Alessi is his Ferrari teammate Gerhard Berger with Mark

Blundell. And Berger has still not got past the McLaren.

Well, this could well be a great final session of the race for Martin Brundle

because he's pulling away a little bit from Jean Alessi.

Alessi was 3.8 seconds behind Brundle. He's now 4.6. So Alessi lost a bit of

ground there.

And on the other hand, Brundle has closed the gap by six tenths of a second

on David Coulthard.

He's now 6.3 seconds behind Poulthard. Poulthard in third place. Brundle in

fourth. We've got another 13 laps to go.

And at the moment, Martin Brundle, who's on pressure tyres, both will have the

same fuel load, of course, because they've both got to have enough to reach

the flag.

Brundle's on the pressure tyres. And it really does look to be a great finish to

the race for the Ligier team. This, of course, being their home Grand Prix. And

by that, we mean that they are the team who are allowed to test here. This is

their designated test circuit. Each team has a designated test circuit.

the English teams for McLaren and for Williams and for Benetton that is at

Filberston and so those teams will have an advantage at Filberston and Ligier

will have a bit of a disadvantage certainly Ligier have made very good use

of this advantage which doesn't always happen and we'll have to follow that

closely and indeed Brundle have taken another 8 tenths of a second off he's

now just 5.6 seconds behind David Coulthard third the most exciting battle

that we've got at the moment is the battle for third place and Cam Martyn

Brundle catch David Coulthard Williams by the flag Well, we're looking at the

wrong man now, because we're looking at Giorno Lisi, who is behind both of them.

And the gap between Brundle, who is fourth, and Lisi, that we are looking

at, who is fifth, has increased to 5.2 seconds.

We're a bit Ferrari-oriented at the moment. It would be nice if we could be

looking at the Williams of Coulthard and the Ligier of Brundle, particularly as

it is Martin Brundle's home track.

Giorno Lisi, so...

We're watching the victor of the Canadian Grand Prix, and as usual, Jean

Alessi looks as though he's going about 20 miles an hour faster than anybody

else, although he is not doing so.

Schumacher's on his 61st lap now, sort of metaphorically, not within sight of

the second flag, but only 10 laps off it. He's stopped twice, as has Hill, as

has Coulthard. Martin Brundle, however, has stopped.

Three times in the Lige.

Alessi stopped twice.

Barrichello, of course, has stopped three times on account of the ten-second

penalty that he had earlier on in the race. And the race order remains.

Schumacher, Hill, Tulfard, first, second, third.

Brundle, Alessi, Barrichello, now.

And Martin goes past that again.

Down comes the gap.

It's not my job to produce the programme, so I'll say nothing.

But we should be looking at Martin Brundle because he's now four and a half

seconds as Schumacher goes across the line. Brundle is four and a half seconds

behind Coulthard on lap 62 out of 72.

It's going to be a grandstand finish for third place at the end of the French

Grand Prix.

And certainly at the rate of closing, Martin Brundle is going to be on the

back of David Coulthard within about another eight laps. That'll be lap 69

-ish in theory. I'm sure it won't happen in practice.

which will leave Brundle potentially three or four laps to see if he can find

a way around the Williams. It's a tall order because the Renault engine in the

Williams undoubtedly has the edge over the Honda in the Ligier. Good though the

Honda is.

And you're watching Michael Schumacher, who is now one minute and 18 seconds

ahead of Rubens Barrichello.

Schumacher's lapping in one minute 21, so he's going to be right up behind

Barrichello, who's in sixth place, to lap him very shortly.

There was a rescue vehicle moving there.

That's a tear-off, incidentally, that you saw fluttering across the corner,

one of the visor tear-off strips that the drivers remove when they get dirty.

It's a sort of manual windscreen wiper, if you like. But Michael Schumacher is

getting closer and closer to Rubens Barrichello and the two Ferraris and the

McLaren Mercedes in front of him. Coming through to complete the lap now.

P1, that's his board and it tells him that he's 23 bat seconds ahead of

Damon Hill on lap 63 out of 72 and seemingly on his way to a certain

second successive.

Victory in the French Grand Prix. He won last year.

Hill was second last year, as he is this year.

Gerhard Berger was third this year, but he's down in 12th position now as a

result of his terrible stop.

And Olivier Polanyi shows through. Damon Hill, Eddie Irvine, who has now been

lapped again.

And immediately ahead of Schumacher there is Gerhard Berger, of course, as

Schumacher's coming up to lap. Ahead of Berger is Rubens Barrichello.

And ahead of Barrichello is Marc Vlandell. And Michael Schumacher, I'm

sure we shall now see, will drive in a very controlled fashion. He won't be

taking any chances at all. He's 24 seconds ahead with just 10 laps to go.

So he can lap nearly two seconds a lap slower than Damon Hill and have no

threat from Hill behind. And the important thing is for Schumacher to be

easy on the car, not to take anything more out of it than he needs, and to

make sure that he doesn't fall foul of any cars that he's about to lap that

haven't seen him. And it's all too easy to do.

And, of course, a much bigger problem because you're being pressurized from

behind. So I think we're going to see some steady, precise, disciplined

driving now from Chumalapet to the end.

You saw Mikasalo in the Tyrol Yamaha.

Sadly, disappointed again because Uko Katayama has long since disappeared.

Salo is down in 15th place.

And Martin Brundle is now right up behind David Coulthard. There's a lot of

traffic there.

And Brundle is just 1.2 seconds behind.

And ahead of Coulthard there is Frenson. It's the salver of Frenson.

And this is the kind of opportunity.

Cutting through the traffic is such an important part.

And there we go. There goes Coulthard past Frenson's salver. And look out for

the Blue Ligier.

There, Blue Ligier marking Brungle. And we didn't quite... Yes, there it is

there. Brungle now has got to find a way past Frenson.

And then let's just hope that Frenson lets him by because this is a battle

that we'd really love to see to the very end.

Yes, lap 64 now.

past the Minardi not past the Minardi there yes past it and past Prentzen

in the Sauber which you see just ahead of us but now there we're with Martin

Brundle in fourth position and you can see not the next car but the one ahead

of that is David Coulthard as we go through and it's Prentzen in the Sauber

Ford who is in tenth position who's about to be lapped by Martin Brundle and

once he's got past him Brundle will again be within sight of David Coulthard

on lap 64 out of 72 in the French Grand Prix. Now there is Coulthard. He's

coming up to the Adelaide hairpin. The slowest corner on the track.

Cranston is still ahead of Brundle. Brundle goes through.

And Martin Brundle is lapping just a whisker faster than David Coulthard. But

now he's got a clear track having got past Heinz-Harold Cranston.

Schumacher's leading on lap 65. We're back again with Martin Brundle.

Through the Imola turns, from right to left at 120 miles an hour, slow down, go

into the right-hander at Cateau d'Eau. And Brundle's going to be rearing that

Ligier's neck now to try and close up on David Coulthard. He's got nothing to

lose. The prospect of a Rostrum finish, third place for Martin Brundle, will be

absolutely superb.

And I must say, since Brundle's come to the Ligier team, he's really helped the

development of the car, and that's a very important role for a driver. It's

not just about going quickly.

And the line-up that they had at the start of the season, of Aguri Suzuki and

Olivier Panis, certainly did not help the package of the team in terms of the

performance of the car.

And having some good feedback from an experienced driver like Brundle really

has paid dividends.

Paid dividends in terms of the car's performance, but also, as we can see

now, in terms of the driving. Now, we shouldn't worry too much about that.

What we've got to look to see is how that gap of 1.7 seconds compares at the

end of this lap. Because we know that Brundle was held up by having to follow

the Sauber.

On the other hand, Poulthard really should be able to pull out some time

because he should have a car advantage.

And if Brundle can manage to close this gap, it really is a great tribute to his

driving. Indeed it is. Martin Brundle in his 134th Grand Prix, knowing that he's

only going to get half a season's driving with the Léger-Mouguin team on

account of the fact that he has to tear the car with Aguri Suzuki for financial

reasons. He's really going for it. His highest finish this year, his ninth

position in Spain, and this tremendously experienced Englishman who's won the Le

Mans 24-hour race, who's been the world sports car champion with Jaguar,

has driven for Formula One team after Formula One team. He's driven for

Tyrrell, for Zaxby, for Williams, just one race in 1988, for Brabham, for

Benetton, for McLaren last year.

And this is his second year, 93 and 95, with the Ligier team.

And he's putting all that experience to the test now as Coulthard in third

position was 1.7 seconds ahead of Martin Brundle. There is the Scotsman

in the background is Martin Brundle.

He's gone through.

Schumacher, meantime, is on his 66th lap out of 72.

A commanding 24 seconds ahead of Damon Hill. It looks like the first two places

are fixed, but the third and fourth are by no means fixed.

Alessi is fifth, 8.7 seconds behind Brundle. Barry Callow is about the same

time behind.

Alessi in sixth position. Hakkinen is a lap down in seventh place. Parnis is a

lap down in eighth position.

Only six-tenths of a second behind Hakkinen.

Eddie Irvine is ninth. Frensman is tenth.

Mark Blundell is eleventh place and has been lapped twice. And in twelfth

position, just behind Blundell, is Gerhard Berger. Only two other drivers

are running.

Luca Badoa, who is thirteenth. Gianni Morbidelli, who is fourteenth. We're on

lap sixty-seven now.

And we're back again with Jean Alessi in that fifth place in the Ferrari, all on

his own on the track.

And Martin Brunval, his last lap time was within one-tenth of a second of that

of David Coulthard, but the quicker one was Coulthard, who's got the message,

who knows that the pressure is on, he'll be it, and into, that's Alessi, going

inside the Minardi, and again giving the fist, and nearly losing the Ferrari.

One has to say that if Jean Alessi spent less time waving his fist and more time

driving the car, then he would have lost less time still, because we can see

there, Luca Badaa in the Minardi squeezes him, Alessi's fist comes out,

he looks at him, and he's so busy showing his aggression that he doesn't

quite lose control of his Ferrari.

Even Alessi couldn't quite do that. He's so adept at controlling a Ferrari at all

sorts of angles, but I'm afraid the Latin temperament coming out there, and

I'm sure frustration too.

And there we can see above, the 1.1, that's the gap now at the split time

between Martin Brundle and David Coulthard. The figure in brackets is the

split time the previous lap. So we can see that Coulthard is under real

pressure here. Now, part of the reason that Brundle is up with Coulthard is

because David Coulthard had a long pit stop. His first stop was about 10

seconds, 12 seconds longer than it should have been for reasons we don't

know. And that would have put him back.

But he should have been able to pull out, and to have David Coulthard now

under pressure is a very interesting situation indeed, the first time it's

happened by Ligier all year. Yeah, and Coulthard's got right in front of him,

Pedro Diniz in the slow 40. If Pedro Diniz doesn't see Coulthard and move

over and let the Scotsman through, it'll allow Martin Brundle a close-up. We're

with Brundle now.

So, down to the right-hander at the Lise.

Now, Coulthard...

You can see how close it is.

And it's Roberto Moreno in the background. My apologies to Pedro Diniz.

But the 40s are a lot, lot slower.

Now, we're on lap 68.

Michael Schumacher is still 24 seconds ahead of Hill, who is still 37 seconds

ahead of this battle. But this is the one that matters. Third.

Coulthard, there he is, fourth.

Martin Brundle, two British drivers, three British drivers in the top four

places. Hill, second. Coulthard, third. Brundle, fourth.

Alessi, fifth. And Barrichello, sixth.

And Brundle, clearly, closer than ever. In fact, 9 tenths of a second on the

stopwatch at the start line.

And we haven't got any more opportunity for a back marker, certainly, unless

somebody comes out of the pitch to play a part in this, because ahead of

Coulthard is Mika Salo, and he's 25 seconds ahead.

So it's going to be down to pure driving between Coulthard and between Brundle to

see if Brundle can work his way up behind Coulthard. He's then going to

need to position himself close behind to try and get in that slipstream down

towards the Adelaide hairpin.

That's where he's going to have a chance of going by if anywhere. One does wonder

whether or not David Coulthard has some kind of a problem. I'm sure he does.

Whether that's the handling kind of problem that most drivers have at the

end of a race. We'll find very, very few ever say that their car was perfect.

Particularly if they haven't won. There's always normally some way which

they would have liked to have improved it. I'm sure there are going to be a lot

of ways that David Coulthard would have liked to have improved his Williams

here. But we've now got just another four laps for Brundle to close that. And

it's a great shame, in fact, that we had those jump start penalties for Rubens

Barrichello and Olivier Parnis. Because Parnis and Barrichello. Barrichello in

sixth now, Parnis in eighth. Would have been right amongst it. We would have had

a great four-car battle for third place.

Lap 17.

Schumacher leaves, 24 seconds ahead of Hill, second, Coulthard third, Brundle

fourth, a lacy fifth, Barrichello sixth, we're with Martin Brundle who is on his

70th lap, so there's lap 70, 71, 72, for him hopefully from his point of view to

catch Coulthard, but even if he gets under the rear wing of David Coulthard's

Williams Renault, it will only be because he pressures Coulthard into

making a mistake that will enable him to get past.

And he's going to have all his time cut out to catch the Williams Renault, let

alone get past it. You can see that it's still damp out there, but they're all on

slick tyres.

And there is no adhesion problem as the leader is on his 70th lap now.

He's only got two laps to go at the end of this one. It's going to be another

crushing win by Michael Schumacher, Benetton and

Renault. Now, this is the last corner.

Of that lap. And Michael Schumacher is well ahead of both those two. As

Coulthard and Brun will go through the last corner of the lap. Almost together.

And Schumacher is right up behind the 40.

Goes through on the inside.

And is now.

On his 71st lap.

Got this one and the next one to go between Michael Schumacher and his

fourth victory of the year in seven races.

Well, Michael Schumacher may have not got pole position, but he really has

proved that when it comes to racing, there is no equal for Michael Schumacher

and the Benetton car at the moment. His form has been quite superb here. He's

made no mistakes.

He's bided his time following Damon Hill when Hill got away first and then

carried on, piled on the pressure when Hill peeled off to pull out a lead that

he's just extended ever since.

Behind that, we're going to have a frustrated Williams team once again, I

fear, and I think this race is going to be something of a watershed for the

team, because to be so far behind, 28 seconds, really is pretty poor indeed.

Damon Hill second, David Poulthard in third, Poulthard losing 10 seconds in

that first pit stop, and he's about 8 seconds behind Damon Hill, so to an

extent, Poulthard has actually driven faster here than Damon Hill. But Martin

Brundle is the Brit who's going to be an absolutely...

superb form. He's driven superbly, he's made great use of the Ligier's increased

competitiveness here at their home circuit, and he's done just what they

would have loved to have happened. They would have loved to have had Olivier

Parnes up there too, but of course the jump start of Parnes took pay to that.

Meanwhile, Ferrari has been represented by a Lacey here, and a Lacey has done

the job that he's done so often, running around, charging hard in fifth place,

but sadly at the moment, despite the form that was showed by a Lacey in

Canada, the Ferrari are well off the pace of the Williams.

29 seconds ahead of Damon Hill. Michael Schumacher is on his last lap, coming up

to the Adelaide hairpin. He won in Brazil after Damon Hill's suspension

collapsed, but he won. He won in Spain. He won commandingly in Monaco. He was

leading commandingly in Canada until he had that electrical problem, which

caused him to come in, change the steering wheel to renew the electrical

contact. rejoin in seventh place and with a succession of searing laps the

only man in montreal to lap in under one minute 30 and he did it several times

clawed his way up to fifth position and in san marino

grand prix he crashed but now it's going to be his fourth win from seven races to

increase the World Championship lead for Michael Schumacher over Damon Hill by

another 4 points to 11 points when they both start at the British Grand Prix in

Silverstone in two weeks' time. This is the last corner of the race.

And Michael Schumacher, Benetton and Renault win the French Grand Prix for

the second successive year. He pushes the Benetton towards his pit crew to pay

homage to everything they've done for him.

Flavio Briatore smiles.

Damon Hill will be coming through, but he's 31 seconds behind Michael

Schumacher as a...

Delighted Benetton pit crew congratulate each other on their driver's achievement

to which they made such a substantial contribution.

Damon Hill has still yet to come through. Yes, he's completed the race.

31.3 seconds behind the race winner Michael Schumacher. But who is going to

be third? We still wait for Coulthard and Brundle to come through.

In third and fourth places, as you see Michael Schumacher on his run-down lap.

But there's an enormous gap between Coulthard and Brundle and Schumacher. It

was 64 seconds when this race lap began. And there they go.

And David Coulthard just finishes in third position. And it's four

tenths of a second only ahead of Martin Brundle in the Ligier Mugen for

his best finish of the year.

And Martin Brundle's fourth place matches that of Olivier Parnis.

for Ligier that's Andrea Murray who

is David Coulbard's girlfriend obviously very happy because David Coulbard in his

first French Grand Prix after four retirements from six races finishes and

he not only finishes but finishes on the podium in third position second places

and third place for

Williams Renault drivers, but the very bad news for the Williams team at

Didcot. is that the Schumacher-Benetton-Renault combination

using the same RS7B evolution of the V10 Renault engine as their

rival team has shown a very clean pair of heels to the Williams team.

They've been working very hard, but they're going to have to do, they would

be the first to admit, a lot more work to close the gap to Benetton and

Schumacher. Yes, I think Schumacher is the instrumental factor here. The

Williams chassis and Benetton chassis, I'm sure, are fairly equal.

The Renault engines, I'm sure, are identical.

But the biggest difference, I suspect, between the teams is the drivers.

And Michael Schumacher has been so scintillatingly quick in everything he's

driven throughout his career.

all the way through Formula 3, through sports cars, in the Jordan team in his

first Formula 1 race, and of course with Benetton, there's been no one to come

near him. And I think this is one of those rare times when one driver does

shine, head and shoulders above the other. We saw it with Senna in the year

of the great Ayrton Senna, and now I think we're seeing it with Michael

Schumacher. And in the press conference, I'm sure that he's going to be in

jubilant form. I'm sure we're going to see some rather gloomy, despondent faces

and stories from both Damon Hill and David Coulthard. Interesting too, in

fact, that...

Martin Brundle and the Ligier team were the only team to run a three-stop

strategy. They ran Olivier Panis with just two stops. And that really seems to

have worked well because Brundle's result in chasing Coulthard so hard was

due, I'm sure, to a whole combination of factors. Good Ligier chassis. There is

Brundle. He's obviously quite thrilled with his day's work. He would have

dearly loved to have been on that podium. But I think he did everything he

possibly could to try and earn his place there. And if anything stood in his way,

it was the mistake that he made in qualifying when he went off the road in

that crucial... Second qualifying session that could have given him the

grid spot. Up there, fifth, sixth, seventh. That could have made the

difference between him being just another second or two ahead. And that

could have put him third in this race.

Into the park, Fairmay. Now go the leading cars into the park, Fairmay, for

the technical examination to make sure that none of the rules have been broken.

I'm sure they haven't. And Michael Schumacher.

Out of the car, looking as cool and relaxed as ever. He is an astonishingly

fit young man.

Damon Hill.

Schumacher walking away in the background.

And confirmation of the fact that the French Grand Prix was won.

His fourth win of the year. That is the Parc Fermé that we're looking down on

now by Michael Schumacher.

Over 31 seconds clear of Damon Hill. A very hard trying Damon Hill. We're

with... Martin Brundle going into the Parc Fermé now.

Coulthard second, Brundle fourth, Alessi fifth, and Rubens Barrichello, another

world championship point for the Jordan team.

I think one of the things that's going to make this race so disappointing for

Williams is that from the qualifying form, they thought they had the

advantage over Benetton there. Hill's qualifying time was three-tenths of a

second faster than the Benetton of Schumacher, and therefore there was

little real evidence to suggest that the Benetton was simply the superior car

here. I suspect that analysis of the lap times throughout the race would

illustrate the fact that Schumacher was probably not a lot quicker at his

fastest, but when it came to consistency of keeping the times right down nearest

the fastest times they could do,

losing time in traffic, not making the tiny mistakes and keeping the pressure

on the whole way that Schumacher was the more consistent. And that, I'm sure, has

made the difference. It's going to be hard work for Damon Hill and David

Coulthard to try and compete with that level of driver excellence, but that's

what they're going to have to do, at least for this Grand Prix. Patrick Head,

the technical director of Williams' team, was here.

He's here to supervise what's going on and oversee the situation.

And indeed, the results of that, I'm sure, were illustrated by the pole

position from Damon in the race. But let's see what stories the drivers... us

have to tell when we hear in the post-race interviews.

It means of course that Benetton will have gone back into leadership of the

Constructors World Championship.

They've now got 48 points compared with Ferrari's 43 points. The

majority of which have been scored by Michael Schumacher. He scored 46 of

those points. Johnny Herbert got 12 of them and we're seeing now the dominance

from the Benetton Renault team.

that McLaren had in the past, the German National Open.

for the win.

As you saw for yourselves, against the profile of race winner Michael

Schumacher, the rain starting to fall that might, just might, have changed the

situation in the French Grand Prix.

But it didn't, and Schumacher has done it again, conclusively to win,

forcefully to win.

and very comprehensively to win.

A slightly grim and tired-looking Damon Hill, knowing that they've still got a

great deal of work to do, and that in spite of all the work that the Williams

team have done, and which they thought might have done the trick when they were

fastest at the testing at Silverstone last week, does not seem to have done

so. Now, one must honestly say, as Jonathan has said, that the difference,

as David Coulthard holds up his trophy for third position, is that man.

Michael Schumacher.

He's the racing phenomenon of today because that was his 59th Grand Prix and

he has now won 14 of them. He's been on the podium for 30 of those 59

races. Over 50% of the races that he's driven in he has finished in 1st,

2nd or 3rd places and that is a quite incredible achievement.

And he's only 26 years old, he's really at the beginning of his Grand Prix

career, notwithstanding the fact that his first Grand Prix drive was for

Jordan in 1991.

Before he was recruited, under very controversial terms I must say, by the

Benetton team, who've certainly not regretted it, because he went on from

strength to strength in 1991, 1992, 1993, and then of course 1994.

when he became Germany's first world champion.

And he is now 11 points in the world championship ahead of Damon Hill as we

come up to the halfway point in the world championship series of 1995, the

British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Well, almost the halfway point, because if the

Italian Grand Prix does happen at...

and there's still some contention about whether it will.

There will be 17 races in the series instead of the conventional 16.

I suspect that won't make very much difference to Schumacher because it's

not just the fact that he's a supremely good, in fact, the supremely good driver

of the day in what seems to be the best car and engine combination with his

talent at the steering wheel.

But the fact that he's on such a commanding psychological plateau now,

his tail metaphorically is very, very high indeed.

He's supremely confident and I'm sure he feels that nothing can stop him.

And one of the interesting things from this race is how few mechanical failures

we've had and that we've had... Got 17 finishers here, and of all the front

-running cars, the Benetons, the Ferraris, Williams, Jordans, and

Ligiers, none of them have had a mechanical problem. They've all

finished, with the exception, of course, of Johnny Herbert, who was clouted from

behind by Jean Alessi in those very early stages.

So, reliability improving in Formula 1, I think. The team's getting used to

their cars, and they're now coming down to performance.

Michael Schumacher, your second win at Manicor.

How did you make it so convincing today?

I think we were just better prepared and just quicker in that race.

We didn't lose anything in any kind of area, not in the pit stop, not on the

circuit. Everything was perfect. Actually, I never had a car handling

that well on the circuit as it was today.

And that made the victory.

Were you concerned when it just started to rain?

I was a bit afraid, yeah, because it's easy.

can turn around things, and therefore it's unpredictable.

So I was looking for a dry race, but there was a time I was quite concerned

about it.

Damon Hill, three times pole position here, three times second place.

Not lucky. No, I can't seem to break the rut I've got in there.

Congratulations to Michael. I mean, he pushed me very hard in the opening

stages, and I knew that my only real hope would have been to...

I really stay ahead of him in the pit stops or hope that he was on a free

stop. But there was no way I could stay with his pace today. And I have to make

do with second place. And we'll have to go back and think again for Silverstone.

What do you think of the championship points position now?

Well, naturally, Michael's extended his lead and that's not good. But there's

still a long way to go. And I still believe that the championship is wide

open.

And Silverstone, home Grand Prix, you must be optimistic.

Well, I'd love to start winning again at Silverstone.

That would be a perfect place to start.

David Coulthard, you must be more relieved to finish after three

retirements in a row and a fairly good battle with Brundle.

Well, that's right. I didn't expect that I would be having such a battle with

Léger, but I had a big problem in the fast corners today, which made me very

slow there. And there's three main areas where you can lose a lot of time.

and at the end, Brando was quicker than me and pushing very hard.

And the place he was quick as well was through the last corner, so I thought

maybe he'd try and take a dive, and then fell off in the very last corner, making

sure he wasn't passing me.

But I guess to finish third on a day like today, it's good to start scoring

points again.

Michael, back to you.

Renault, 1, 2 and 3, and Benetton back at the Championship.

Fairly satisfactory.

Yes, certainly. I mean, we have done...

The first victory in Monte Carlo for Renault, we got the 100 pole, and then

we, with the first year together, we win in France their home race. I'm quite

proud about that.

Gentlemen, thank you very much. Thank you.

Top three in the French Grand Prix. Another dominant win for Michael

Schumacher. Another frustrating race for Williams. And Schumacher extends his

lead in the World Championship to 11 points over Damon Hill. And then a

further nine-point gap to Alessi in third. But Schumacher starting to pull

away with his fourth win in seven races.

Highlights tonight, a little earlier than usual. Grand Prix this evening, BBC

Two at 7.30.

And of course, in a fortnight's time, Grandstand live from Silverstone for the

British Grand Prix will be live also for Friday qualifying and Saturday

qualifying as well. And don't forget there's more motor racing to come this

afternoon. Highlights of last weekend's two races from the British Touring Car

Championship at Donington. First of those races will be at 3.30 just before

we go live to the Curragh for this afternoon's Irish Derby.

Now, cricket coming up from Worcester in a moment. Reminder of the earlier news

of the England squad for the third test against the West Indies at Edgbaston,

announced earlier today. A call-up for the Lancashire duo Jason Galleon and

Mike Watkinson. Australian-born Galleon, he replaces Mark Ramprakash, while Phil

De Freitas makes way for 33-year-old Watkinson, his first international call

-up. And Mike Atherton was also reappointed England captain for the rest

of the series.

Now, this afternoon, the AXA Equity and Law Sunday League takes us to the

picturesque surroundings of Worcester, for Worcestershire against

Leicestershire, two sides in the higher reaches of the league table.

First of all, team news and prospects from Jack Bannister.

There is one of the most familiar backdrops in scenic English county

cricket, the cathedral at New Road, Worcester.

And that is the venue today for the AXA Equity and Law League match between

Worcestershire and Leicestershire.

Jonathan Agnew, a few minutes ago, he was out in the middle with the two

captains for the toss.

So, Worcester win the top and bat. Now, no Richard Illingworth in your team

today. Tom, why is that?

He's just had a little slight groin strain, so we thought it would be wise

to rest him today.

Bit for the test match, though? Oh, absolutely.

He'll be vying tomorrow.

OK, now, Nigel, Leicester are ravaged by injuries.

Ravaged is about the right word, isn't it? Yeah, James Whitaker went over on

his ankle yesterday and he could be out for a few weeks.

Big blow, really, when Hansi Kronje broke his finger at Northampton.

So, he's not playing either.

Adrian Pearson's been playing with a crap finger during the last few games,

although we're not playing him today in the sort of quick power sort of game

that we have on Sundays.

And Alan Mullally's been carrying a side strain, so all in all, we're battling.

All right, well, despite the injuries, good luck, gentlemen.

Cheers.

Well,

let's have a look at the two teams, and ravaged by various injuries to ankles

and groins and fingers.

Worcestershire. Not quite as badly affected as Leicestershire and riding

high in the championship race there. They've lost a couple of matches

recently but almost at full strength. Leicestershire also going nicely.

They've won five out of seven but a very unfamiliar looking side there with

several youngsters out to make a big point today.

That, as we've seen, was won by Worcestershire. They've chosen a bat and

the two umpires, both with considerable test match experience, John Hampshire,

former Yorkshire, and Ken Palmer from Somerset.

We'll go live in a few minutes' time to our commentary team that also includes

Geoffrey Boycott this afternoon.

But first of all, some of the early action from the Worcestershire innings.

Gordon Parkins now to Tim Curtis.

The first runs.

And out.

First runs of the match. Curtis took two, looked for a third and failed to

beat the throw.

Tim Curtis plays a reasonably orthodox shot through the offside.

John Dakin, the fielder, and Curtis just short.

So that's the last thing you want when you're in a bad run of form to get

yourself run out.

What a start for Leicestershire and Curtis.

So often in the past, particularly with Tom Moody.

They provide such big platforms with big opening partnerships.

And the first run of the match turned into two. No problem with that.

Now, shall I take a third or shan't I?

And a good pick and throw.

And there we are. Well short.

So, two for one in the second over.

Big appeal.

And he's given him. Graham Hick stood there.

Ken Palmer had no doubt. And now Worcestershire really are in trouble.

We're in the fourth over. Two wickets down, including that of Graham Hick. Out

and three runs on the board only.

Graham Hick has never particularly enjoyed batting at Worcester, although

it's his home wicket.

And that dismissal illustrates the uneven bounce that you get at Worcester.

That one just bounced a little bit higher than expected, having got a

couple of lower ones and a top edge.

Easily caught by Paul Nixon.

A two pace pitch this will be. It's got cracks on it. It's a little bit damp.

It's not a good wicket really for batting.

And that shows from Graham Hicks' shot there.

That must be close. It is. Out LBW.

Paying the penalty for shuffling right.