Unfortunately Jos did not make it to ...

Published on 13 April 1997 by Verstappen Info Page

Unfortunately Jos did not make it to the finish today. After a fine race where he was heading for a top six position he had to park his car with a defective fuel pump. Despite dropping out Jos was satisfied with the performance of his car. He was able to find a good setup and did quick laps continuously. The team was extremely satisfied with the way Jos performed today. Jos had another problem during the race though. A little stone had gotten into Jos' chair, propably in the chaos in lap 1, which caused some irritation to Jos' behind.

The race was won by Jacques Villeneuve who had to press hard until the end to withstand the pressure from Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine. Michael Schumacher had to give up as early as on lap 1 when he tangled with Rubens Barrichello in the Stewart. This caused a pacecar situation. Although a red flag was shown at several places the race was not stopped but restarted from behind the pacecar.

Jos came through the first lap carnage with a slightly damaged nose section of his car. This however would not cause him any further problems.
The second German to drop out of the race would be Heinz Harald Frentzen who parked his car with electrical problems on lap 5. To salve the wounds of the Germans; Ralf Schumacher scored a third place in the Jordan after putting his teammate Fisichella out of the race. Jos' teammate Mika Salo drove a solid race and finished in 8th place.
The championship is led by Villeneuve followed by Coulthard and Berger.

Jacques Villeneuve again was fastest in the Warm-up. Jos was 17th quickest while Mika Salo had a problem and finished in last place. In contrast to most other drivers Jos used only only one set of tyres with a 50kg fuel load. He also had a misunderstanding with Gerhard Berger in which the wing of the (spare) car was damaged.

We have a complete overview of all timed sessions of this weekend on our results page.