Germany 1997

Podium: © Rainer Nyberg

The 1997 championship was mainly dominated by Villeneuve and Schumacher. And Benetton? The team wich challenged Williams and Ferrari in earlier seasons? With the Oxfordshire based team it wasn’t going as they had hoped it would. The results were like a rollercoaster. One race there was a podium finish and the next race they struggled at positions between 7 and 15. Even fast drivers as Berger and Alesi didn’t seem to get the car to win races or get it more consistent. But then there was that hot summer sunday in July,…

Coming back from a nasty flu and the sudden death of his father, the ‘old’ Berger took the pole in a very close qualifying-session, just in front of the ‘young’ Fisichella. After a perfect start, Gerhard let the way initially only giving away the lead because of his two stop strategy. But after ‘pitted’ for the first time Berger was eating up the gap to Fisichella and Hakkinen. On lap 19 Berger overtook Mika Hakkinen which brought him back at the top spot. Around lap 35 Berger and Fisichella both had done there pitstops, and Fisico was leading, it was now one rush for the chequered flag. But Gerhard was flying and within a few laps he had caught the Jordan-Peugeot and outbraked Fisichella very firmly at the approach of the Ayrton Senna Curve.

Video Start of the 1997 German GP [3.1Mb MPEG] Berger's last win! [1.8Mb MPEG]

And the championship rivals? Schumacher drove a solid but quite boring race and finished 2th a few seconds over Hakkinen, because Giancarlo Fischella failed to finish during a flat tyre and a transmission problem. And Villeneuve struggled throughout the whole weekend and spun halfway in the race under the pressure of Jarno Trulli’s Prost. After pushing for the limit for 45 laps Berger finally won his tenth Grand Prix victory. In his last season Gerhard Berger dominated a F1 weekend, as he had never done before....!

In a season full of great races this race at Hockenheim wasn’t so special, but what it did showed was that how hard Formula One can be, there’s sometimes (allthough it’s very very rare) still place for a small miracle or at least a time in which the good-guys finally get honoured…. The funny and quite long Austrian Grandpa, was still one of the quickest!"