Schumacher wins well deserved in Spain bringing ...
Published on 02 June 1996 by Verstappen Info Page
Schumacher wins well deserved in Spain bringing home the first victory for Ferrari in a long, long time. A big disappointment for all Jos fans: Jos was driving around on a very good fifth position towards the end of the race when a spin made an unfortunate end to his race. Later on Jos commented that he was so soaking wet at that point that his visor was continuously fogging up as he was driving in the spray of Frentzen's car for a large part of the race.
The very wet race (sunny summer in Spain?) started out bad for Lamy, Rosset and Coulthard who all went out in the first lap due to a crash of Lamy. Hill and Schumacher both had a bad start, Villeneuve and Alesi both had a very good start. Salo had to start from the pitlane in his T-car when the race was already started. For this he got a black flag and he was summoned out of the race. The second lap was terminal for Fisichella, Panis and Irvine.
After two laps Villeneuve was leading, followed by Alesi, Hill, Berger, Schumacher and Barrichello. Jos was 11th at that moment. In the third lap though Jos had already passed Diniz, Herbert and Brundle so he was lying 8th at that point. Hill had his first spin causing Schumacher to pass him. Schumacher in the mean time was driving like lightning. He had fastest laps in round 5 and 6, he passed Alesi in round 8 and Villeneuve in round 10. After that he drove away in not time from Villeneuve who until then had clearly held him up. From then on Schumacher led the race towards the end, helped by a clever 2 pit stop strategy instead of 1 as all the others had (at least planned to have).
In the mean time Hill was having bad moment after bad moment. He spun again in lap 8 and got off the track damaging his car beyond repair in lap 10. Jos was driving around superbly. His lap times were faster most of the time than those of for example Villeneuve and Alesi. From lap 15 on Jos was driving closely behind Frentzen. The gap was ranging from 7 to 0.5 seconds all of the time. In lap 15 all Jos' fans held their breath as Jos had a 360 degrees spin from which he luckily recovered, very well recorded by a topcam which was fitted on his car for the first time this season. His position hadn't even changed.
From then on Brundle and Herbert got off the track due to spins in laps 17 and 20 respectively. In lap 22 Schumacher had his first pit stop and in lap 33 Frentzen and Verstappen both had pit stops at the same time. Frentzen got out quickly but the Arrows team had troubles with one the wheel wrenches. Jos lost a couple of seconds due to this problem but in lap 42 he was again closely behind Frentzen (0.569 seconds). Up to that point only 9 cars were in the race (Schumacher, Alesi, Villeneuve, Barrichello, Berger, Frentzen, Verstappen, Hakkinen and Diniz). In lap 46 Barrichello had a second pit stop and got out of the car (later on he again drove some distance but had to give up besides the track). In the same lap Berger spun causing Jos to shift up to fifth position. He could have held this position if he hadn't spun in lap 48 due to a completely fogged visor.
The race was stopped after 64 laps instead of the planned 65 due to the fact that the two hour time limit was reached. Schumacher won well deserved, followed by Alesi and Villeneuve. See Spanish Grand Prix results for the Grand Prix results.
