Canadian GP 1992

Canadian GP, 1992

The adventures of Andrea Moda Formula kept everyone amused once again with the team not having any engines because of legal actions and flight delays. The result was that the team borrowed one Judd from Brabham and Roberto Moreno completed a total of four laps before his car broke down. Perry McCarthy did not even get to run. Fondmetal finally finished the first of the new GR02 chassis which Gabriele Tarquini used.

Nigel Mansell, the winner of five of the six races to that point, seemed to be a man under stress in Canada and rumours suggested that this was because the Williams team was deep in negotiation with Alain Prost, who was sitting out the year, having been dumped late in 1991 by Ferrari.

This explained the fact that for the first time in quite a while Ayrton Senna was in pole position again. The McLaren-Honda driver was just ahead of Riccardo Patrese's Williams, while Mansell was third. Gerhard Berger was fourth in the second McLaren while Michael Schumacher was fifth in his Benetton. Then came Johnny Herbert in the promising Lotus 107, Martin Brundle's Benetton, the Ferraris of Jean Alesi and Ivan Capelli and Mika Hakkinen in the second Lotus. Ukyo Katayama was a promising 11th in his Venturi Larrousse

At the start Senna held the lead but Mansell got ahead of Patrese and the Italian was left at the head of a train consisting of Berger, Schumacher, Brundle, Herbert, Hakkinen, Alesi, Karl Wendlinger (March-Ilmor) and Capelli. The order would not change for 14 laps. Further back the Venturi-Larrousse challenge was wiped out when Bertrand Gachot ran into the back of his team mate Katayama. Gachot would later be black-flagged and ordered back to the pits for a push-start after a second accident.

On lap 15 Mansell made a bid for the lead at the final chicane. He was travelling too fast and overshot the corner, bouncing over the kerb and landing on its front wing in the sandtrap. Mansell then spun in front of Senna. Patrese hesitated while trying to go around his errant team mate and he lost a place to Berger and so McLaren was suddenly running 1-2 at the front. Mansell had done nothing to help his cause with the men at Williams-Renault. Having made a complete mess of his race, Mansell then compounded his idiocy by abusing McLaren boss Ron Dennis and then turned his anger on the press who turned up to ask him questions. The stewards would not listen.

While Mansell was going through this theatrical performance in the paddock, Capelli smashed his Ferrari up badly when something broke on the car.

On lap 38 Senna slowed with a gearbox problem. He was out. Berger was left in the lead with Patrese second under pressure from Schumacher and Martin Brundle. Martin then overtook Michael while they were in traffic. Patrese and Brundle then both retired with broken gearboxes and so Schumacher inherited second with Alesi third, Wendlinger fourth in the March, Katayama's Venturi-Larrousse fifth and Andrea de Cesaris (Tyrrell) sixth. Before the end of the race Katayama went out with engine failure which allowed Erik Comas to take sixth place, the point he scored moving Ligier ahead of Larrousse in the battle to stay out of pre-qualifying.

The system of pre-qualifying was developed in response to the increasing number of teams competing in Formula 1. It was decided that 30 cars were the maximum safe limit to compete for 26 grid places. The cars which had to pre-qualify were decided at the beginning and the midpoint of each season. The 26 cars which had achieved the best results in the previous two-half seasons automatically entered official qualifying for the race. All the other cars had to pre-qualify for the 4 remaining slots available for official qualifying. Those that failed to pre-qualify just went home.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
Gerhard Berger McLaren-Honda  69 1h37m08.299s  
19 Michael Schumacher Benetton-Cosworth  69 1h37m20.700s  
27 Jean Alesi Ferrari  69 1h38m15.626s  
16 Karl Wendlinger March-Ilmor  68  12 
Andrea de Cesaris Tyrrell-Ilmor  68  14 
26 Erik Comas Ligier-Renault  68  22 
Michele Alboreto Footwork-Mugen Honda  68  16 
22 Pierluigi Martini Dallara-Ferrari  68  15 
21 JJ Lehto Dallara-Ferrari  68  23 
10 25 Thierry Boutsen Ligier-Renault  67  21 
11 24 Gianni Morbidelli Minardi-Lamborghini  67  13 
12 Olivier Grouillard Tyrrell-Ilmor  67  26 
13r 23 Christian Fittipaldi Minardi-Lamborghini  65 Gearbox Oil Fire 25 
14 17 Paul Belmondo March-Ilmor  64  20 
30 Ukyo Katayama Venturi Larrousse-Lamborghini  61 Engine 11 
20 Martin Brundle Benetton-Cosworth  45 Transmission 
Riccardo Patrese Williams-Renault  43 Gearbox 
Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda  37 Electrics 
32 Stefano Modena Jordan-Yamaha  36 Tranmission 17 
11 Mika Hakkinen Lotus-Cosworth  35 Gearbox 10 
12 Johnny Herbert Lotus-Cosworth  34 Clutch 
28 Ivan Capelli Ferrari  18 Accident 
Nigel Mansell Williams-Renault  14 Accident 
33 Mauricio Gugelmin Jordan-Yamaha  14 Transmission 24 
dq 29 Bertrand Gachot Venturi Larrousse-Lamborghini  14 Push Start After Accident 19 
15 Gabriele Tarquini Fondmetal-Cosworth  Gearbox 18 
nq 10 Aguri Suzuki Footwork-Mugen Honda    27 
nq Eric van de Poele Brabham-Judd    28 
nq 14 Andrea Chiesa Fondmetal-Cosworth    29 
nq Damon Hill Brabham-Judd    30 
npq 34 Roberto Moreno Andrea Moda-Judd    31