Brazilian GP disqualifications

With last weekend's Brazilian GP fresh in our minds, this seems like a good time to ask a question that has been puzzling me for a few years. I know it doesn't quite qualify as nostalgia, and should really be asked 'in another place', but I suspect it may have happened before some of the posters there were born, certainly before most had ever heard of F1, and inevitably it would turn into a pro/anti Schumacher rantfest, as so many threads there seem to these days.

Some time around 2000 give or take a year, something like 5 out of the first 6 finishers at Interlagos were disqualified following post race scrutineering. I have a vague recollection of something like Johnny Herbert's Sauber being declared the provisional winner, though only for an hour or so. The decision, presumably by local stewards was quickly reversed, and seems to have gone largely unreported, it wasn't mentioned on either the TV race report or on the edited repeat. The problem apparently was 'excessive grounding' and presumably illegally low ground clearance on that bumpy main straight. The story appeared as a headline on Reuters, and it made it onto BBC TV Ceefax for a few hours, then mysteriously disappeared without trace. I searched in vain for any mention in the next day's papers, also the Autosport race report on the following Thursday, and although I'm too lazy to check again, I'm pretty sure that it escaped Autocourse as well. I've never found anyone who remembers the incident, and at times have even wondered if I imagined the whole thing, though I'm quite certain that I didn't. I did think about trying 'Ask Nigel', though as he's told us that he has a clause in his employment contract that lets him off ever having to set foot in Brazil, we can all be pretty certain that NR wasn't there. Is there a TNF member who can support my fading recollections, or add anything to the story?

kayemod,

http://www.autosport...cle.asp?id=8526
http://www.autosport...cle.asp?id=8531
http://www.autosport...cle.asp?id=8532

Interesting stuff. I vaguely recall hearing something that evening, but in truth i'd forgotten all about it until i went searching.

Thanks a lot for that 'the other Nigel', or at least I'm assuming that your surname isn't Roebuck, but the mystery deepens. I was sure my memory wasn't at fault, I even got the year right at 2000, but why no mention of any of this in the Autosport race report on the following Thursday, or at any point subsequently? At this point I feel I ought to say something fairly dramatic like, "I'll never believe a word I read in Autosport ever again", and the way that magazine has gone tabloid over the last few years, I probably wouldn't be alone. DC was the only one of the five who wasn't reinstated later that day, and his DQ was upheld a week or so later at an FAI appeal, but that's five of the first six in a Grand Prix disqualified, albeit only temporarily, and surely nothing like that has ever happened before. As far I can see, no mention of any kind in any race report, and now you've confirmed the year, I've just looked at Autocourse, and there's no mention there either, in fact I've never seen any mention of these events in print. Strange, very strange indeed.

At the 1995 Brazilian Grand Prix, both Micheal Schumacher and David Coulthard were disqualified for illegal fuel. They had finished first and second. Gerhard Berger was declared winner. Benetton and Williams appealed and won. Both MS and DC were given back their original finishing positions.

There was a precedent in 1982, when both Nelson Piquet and Keke Rosberg were disqualified at Rio.

Keke Rosberg also had the unfortunate experience of being disqualified in Brazil after finishing second, again, in 1983. He had stepped out of his car after it had caught fire during a botched pitstop. He was push-started back in the race.

Originally posted by FLB
At the 1995 Brazilian Grand Prix, both Micheal Schumacher and David Coulthard were disqualified for illegal fuel. They had finished first and second. Gerhard Berger was declared winner. Benetton and Williams appealed and won. Both MS and DC were given back their original finishing positions.

There was a precedent in 1982, when both Nelson Piquet and Keke Rosberg were disqualified at Rio.

Keke Rosberg also had the unfortunate experience of being disqualified in Brazil after finishing second, again, in 1983. He had stepped out of his car after it had caught fire during a botched pitstop. He was push-started back in the race.

Sure, but we all knew that, it was fully reported, both at the time and subsequently, it's always been on record and that's my point. Did you know about the 'five of the first six' 2000 Brazilian GP temporary disqualifications?

In 1983, Keke Rosberg was DQ'd from 2nd place in Brazil for (if I recall), a push start. It was the first GP of the season.

However, none of the other drivers were moved up in the results - Nelson Piquet won the race and since 2nd place was not awarded (and therefore the points), a Brazilian driver left the Brazilian GP with a nice points lead to start the year...

1993, or 1983....

Originally posted by scags
1993, or 1983....

1983

Thanks - has been corrected...

The story appeared as a headline on Reuters, and it made it onto BBC TV Ceefax for a few hours, then mysteriously disappeared

Perhaps we are merely talking semantics here? Was anyone (other than Coulthard) ever actually disqualified? All the reports I can recall reading about the race mention that there was a delay of several hours in publishing the results, at the end of which all the cars (except Coulthard's) were declared legal. (Or, in some reports, illegal, but with sufficient mitigating circumstances that their results should be allowed to stand).

I would suggest that the 5 cars in question were certainly 'under investigation', and that any provisional results issued at end of the race were decidedly unofficial. Maybe Ceefax and Reuters, (neither of whose reports I saw) jumped the gun in an attempt to be first with the news, and took 'under investigation' to mean disqualification?

Originally posted by roger_valentine
...the reports I can recall reading about the race mention that there was a delay of several hours in publishing the results, at the end of which all the cars (except Coulthard's) were declared legal. (Or, in some reports, illegal, but with sufficient mitigating circumstances that their results should be allowed to stand).

You're probably right about semantics, but Reuters and the BBC definitely said 'disqualification', and that was all I had to go on. Autocourse 2000 makes no mention of any of this other than Coulthard's FIA ratified exclusion, and I'm certain that there was no mention of the ground clearance problems with the other four cars in Autosport or elsewhere, I searched diligently at the time. Has anyone still got their copy of AS from March 30th 2000?

I thought I remembered this, and it seems I was right.

From F1 News magazine, 1st April 2000:

Joe Saward’s report -

After the champagne was finished and the crowds had drifted off, word came from the scrutineering bay that all was not well. Initially the FIA said that five of the top six cars had problems with their wooden floors having been worn away because of the bumpy Interlagos surface. The cars were later declared to be legal but Coulthard was thrown out because one of the front wing endplates was 7mm lower than it was legally allowed to be. McLaren said that the problem had been caused by structural damage caused by “the heavy amount of bottoming and vibration induced by the nature of the São Paulo circuit”. This argument was rejected by the FIA stewards but McLaren appealed the decision.


Derek Wright’s editorial adds, about the skid planks -

The officials waived the rule ... and put it down to track conditions.