1996 Australian Grand Prix

The 1996 Australian Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on March 10, 1996 at Melbourne. It was the first time this race was held in Melbourne, taking over from Adelaide as the host of the Australian Grand Prix.

Race summary

It was an all-Williams front row with Damon Hill and debutante Jacques Villeneuve in the blue and white Rothmans cars dominating the race.

On the first lap, Martin Brundle in the gold Benson & Hedges Jordan had a spectacular barrel roll into a sand trap at turn 3 where the car actually broke in two, causing the race to be restarted. Brundle was unhurt. [http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns00510.html F1 News > Martin Brundle's Melbourne crash ] ]
David Coulthard's McLaren and Johnny Herbert's Sauber -- both cars Brundle ran into the back of and launched off -- were also damaged. Brundle and Coulthard started the restarted race in their backup cars from the pits; Herbert did not take the restart, the spare car being taken by Heinz-Harald Frentzen, whose car had stopped on the warmup lap with a technical problem.

Brundle later spun off after light contact with Pedro Diniz at the restart.

The race was marked by dominance from Jacques Villeneuve, who led most of the race but had his debutante run marred by an oil leak late in the race. Hill caught and passed Villeneuve, who caked Hill's car with oil leakage.

In the end, the podium was Hill-Villeneuve-Irvine.

Forti

Both Fortis did not make the race due to the new 107% rule for qualifying, which said any car that qualified 107% slower than the pole time would be excluded. Incidentally, the team had logged its best result of 7th one race ago at the season-ending 1995 Australian Grand Prix [ [http://f1rejects.com/teams/forti/index.html Forti - Team Summary ] ]

The measure was introduced to ensure teams were fast enough to race, and not just mobile chicanes. [ [http://atlasf1.autosport.com/97/san/gogos.html 107% Disapproval ] ]

Classification

Notes

* First Start: Giancarlo Fisichella, Ricardo Rosset, Jacques Villeneuve.
* First Pole Position: Jacques Villeneuve.
* Taki Inoue was scheduled to race for the Minardi team as a pay driver but when no money materialised prior to the race he was replaced by Fisichella. [ [http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns00507.html F1 News > Minardi to get Fisichella? ] ] Marlboro had expressed interest in Fisichella running early on. [ [http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns00435.html F1 News > Five drivers bidding for Minardi ] ]
*Hill took back to back Australian victories, the previous race being the last round of 1995, in Adelaide.

References

F1 race report
Name_of_race = Australian Grand Prix | Year_of_race = 1996
Previous_race_in_season = 1995 Australian Grand Prix
Next_race_in_season = 1996 Brazilian Grand Prix
Previous_year's_race = 1995 Australian Grand Prix
Next_year's_race = 1997 Australian Grand Prix
Previous_promotional_trophy_winner = 1995 Australian Grand Prix
Next_promotional_trophy_winner = 1997 Australian Grand Prix