Paul Tracy and Al Unser’s duel in Milwaukee now in the rear-view mirror, the 1995 Indycar championship of memory and indeed fact moves onto the twisty, bumpy, tree-lined, lake-surrounded parkland circuit at Belle Isle, Detroit. The not-yet-definitively F1-bound Jacques Villeneuve holds a one-win advantage over divers challengers including Robby Gordon, Scott Pruett and Bobby Rahal. Indycar in 1995, as the commentators regularly inform us, is Wide Open. But Jacques is one step ahead. For now.
The Belle Isle circuit is a relatively new one for 1995, having arrived on the calendar three years previously and garnered a reputation for cramped confines, incident and strange results. Over those three years we’ve seen a drizzle-inflected, pugilistic three-way battle for the lead, a chaotic last career win for Danny Sullivan in which Andrea Montermini somehow finished fourth, and a classic Paul Tracy victory where he outbraked himself and literally punted his teammate out of the lead, going on to win with the normal-for-a-racing-driver degree of shame, which is to say none. If there’s anything those three races had in common, it’s that the tight confines and strange combination of asphalts and concretes make for a mistake-heavy and passing-lite street circuit. But Indycar being Indycar, things tend to happen anyway.
How went qualifying?
Robby Gordon takes a second pole position of the year, with Milwaukee fast guys Unser, Fabi and Tracy starting immediately behind and to the side of him. Points leader Jacques Villeneuve lines up on the fifth row with five championship rivals starting ahead of him. Galles underdog Adrian Fernandez starts from a season-best seventh, and PacWest’s Danny Sullivan outqualifies his teammate Mo Gugelmin. Results below:
1. Robby Gordon 1:09.795, Walker R/F/G
2. Al Unser, Jr +0.183, Team Penske P/M/G
3. Teo Fabi +0.196, Forsythe R/F/G
4. Paul Tracy +0.324, Newman-Haas L/F/G
5. Scott Pruett +0.593, Patrick L/F/F
6. Michael Andretti +0.650, Newman-Haas L/F/G
7. Adrian Fernandez +0.658, Galles L/M/G
8. Bobby Rahal +0.842, Rahal-Hogan L/M/G
9. Jacques Villeneuve +0.884, Team Green R/F/G
10. Danny Sullivan +0.896, PacWest R/F/G
11. Mo Gugelmin +0.935, PacWest R/F/G
12. Stefan Johansson +0.988, Bettenhausen P/M/G
De Ferran 16th, Emerson Fittipaldi 17th, Ribeiro 19th. Christian Danner is back (hooray!), starting 23rd (boo). New guy Parker Johnstone starts his and Comptech Racing’s first Indycar race from 27th. Notable for his early-nineties domination of IMSA Camel GT’s class B, he at least knows what it’s like to start with a lot of cars in front of him. Although Johnstone’s Wikipedia page notes – before any details of his racing career – that he once played in the Berlin Philharmonic when it was conducted by Herbert von Karajan. One of the pundits could say that Parker’s traded Liebestod for heel-and-toe, but I’m not getting my hopes up. Or should that be down.
We’ll get the show started at 6pm BST on Sunday, 3 May. Video below!
