1991 United States Grand Prix

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United States  1991 United States Grand Prix
Race details
Race 1 of 16 in the 1991 Formula One season
Phoenix Grand Prix Route - 1991.svg
Date March 10, 1991
Official name XXVIII Iceberg United States Grand Prix
Location Phoenix street circuit
Phoenix, Arizona
Course Temporary Road Course
Course length 3.721 km (2.312 mi)
Distance 81 laps, 301.401 km (187.282 mi)
Weather Overcast
25 °C (77 °F)[1]
Pole position
Driver McLaren-Honda
Time 1:21.434
Fastest lap
Driver France Jean Alesi Ferrari
Time 1:26.758 on lap 49
Podium
First McLaren-Honda
Second Ferrari
Third Benetton-Ford
Lap leaders

The 1991 United States Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on March 10, 1991 in Phoenix, Arizona.


Summary

The start of the race, with Ayrton Senna leading the field.

The race was the first of the 1991 Formula One season. In the two previous years, the championship had been decided when Senna and Prost tangled at Suzuka. In 1989, their collision as team-mates secured Prost's third World Championship; in 1990, with Prost driving for Ferrari and still in title contention, it handed Senna his second crown. Controversy regarding the nature of the 1990 incident had created great anticipation for the rematch.

Prior to arriving in Phoenix, the 1991 McLaren chassis had had only had one brief test session, and the two race cars were completed about 4 am Friday, six hours before the first practice session. Working to prepare the new car, Ayrton Senna claimed he had never gotten totally comfortable with the increasing complexity of the sport since helping Lotus introduce the first active suspension car in 1987, and he still found it hard to embrace the huge role of computers in achieving a proper setup. "Friday, to understand and interpret things properly, I worked with the engineers into the evening," Senna said. "It has been a long time since I did that. The engineers and I talked our way around the circuit, then we compared this with what the computer predicted. It was great because the computer confirmed almost everything, and it also showed where there was room for improvement."

Alain Prost on the first lap in the Ferrari.
Ayrton Senna took a comfortable win in his McLaren MP4/6.

The Ferraris of Alain Prost and Jean Alesi were expected to be the strongest team, but their V-12s and 7-speed semi-automatic gearboxes were not well suited to the tight turns and short straights of the street circuit. As it turned out, they were not the only ones plagued by gearbox problems throughout the race.

On Sunday, Prost began his second season at Ferrari alongside Senna on the front row. At the start, he fell in behind the Brazilian, with Nigel Mansell slipping ahead of Riccardo Patrese. Alesi and Gerhard Berger followed, then Nelson Piquet, Roberto Moreno, Stefano Modena and Emanuele Pirro. A lap later, Alesi, in his first race for Ferrari, swept past Patrese, but by then Senna was pulling away. After ten laps, he had a lead of ten seconds over Prost.

Behind Senna, Patrese was involved in two successive three-way battles. First, after getting back by Alesi for fourth on lap 16, Patrese closed on Mansell who was immediately behind Prost. By lap 22, Patrese was close enough to attack his Williams team-mate but overshot onto the escape road, as Mansell swerved to avoid him. Upon rejoining, Patrese quickly latched onto Alesi and Berger, as the new three-car train now covered fourth through sixth places. Patrese had gotten past Berger when, suddenly, two of the top six runners retired on consecutive laps. On lap 35, Mansell pulled over when the Williams's new semi-automatic gearbox failed, and on the next time around, Berger's race ended as well.

Patrese passed Alesi for the second time, and Alesi pitted for new Goodyear tires on lap 43. He rejoined in seventh. Three laps later, Prost was being hounded by Patrese, and he also pitted, ceding second spot to the Williams. When the Ferrari crew had problems changing his right rear tire, the Frenchman dropped to seventh behind Modena's Tyrrell-Honda.

On lap 48, Senna pitted without giving up the lead. Like Mansell, Patrese was having problems with the gearbox in his Williams, and when it selected neutral midway through Turn Seven, it caused him to spin out of second place. The car stopped on the outside of the track, perpendicular to the racing line. Piquet and Mika Häkkinen (making his F1 debut) barely managed to avoid him as they passed, but before Patrese could get out of the car, Moreno, in the second Benetton, went straight across the bow of the Williams, removing the nose of Patrese's car and the right front wheel of the Benetton. Neither driver was injured. Patrese and Moreno's cars remained on the course throughout the race, and Bertrand Gachot, driving the first race for the new Jordan team and challenging Satoru Nakajima, spun later after swerving to avoid them.

With Patrese out, Senna led Piquet, who was having to hold off Alesi, by over a minute. Alesi squeezed up to second on lap 53, while four laps later Prost disposed of Modena. Then on lap 70, Prost went from fourth to second in one move at turn five. With Alesi and Piquet running second and third, Piquet's Benetton pulled alongside Alesi– who had set the race's fastest lap while Prost was in the pits– in Turn Four, but could not get by. Down the straight, however, Piquet passed Alesi for second place. Prost also went by his new teammate on the left, and then sliced back to the right, between Alesi and Piquet, beating Piquet to the apex of Turn Five and regaining second place. By now Senna led by 40 seconds.

Gearbox troubles dropped Alesi to fifth before he retired less than 10 laps from the finish, leaving third place to Piquet who, like the two Tyrrells following, had never pitted for tires. Martini was pressing Satoru Nakajima for fifth, only to have his engine let go after 75 laps. A similar problem removed Gachot from eighth on the same lap, promoting Aguri Suzuki to sixth. The race ended a lap short of the planned 82 as the two-hour limit was reached, Senna taking the win having led every lap.

After the race, Senna assessed his new car's performance: "I had small problems with the gearbox, and the car balance was not optimum, so it was very difficult to drive. I'm looking forward to running a proper circuit with proper conditions and see what the car can do."

Classification

The race was the Jordan team's first in F1. Bertrand Gachot was classified tenth after a late-race engine failure prevented him from finishing.

Pre Qualifying

Pos No Driver Constructor Time Gap
1 21 Italy Emanuele Pirro Dallara-Judd 1:28.288
2 22 Finland JJ Lehto Dallara-Judd 1:28.792 +0.504
3 34 Italy Nicola Larini Lambo-Lamborghini 1:30.244 +1.956
4 32 Belgium Bertrand Gachot Jordan-Ford 1:30.304 +2.016
5 33 Italy Andrea de Cesaris Jordan-Ford 1:30.937 +2.649
6 31 Portugal Pedro Chaves Coloni-Ford 1:31.113 +2.825
7 14 France Olivier Grouillard Fondmetal-Ford 1:32.126 +3.838
8 35 Belgium Eric van de Poele Lambo-Lamborghini 1:37.046 +8.758

Qualifying

Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Q2 Gap
1 1 Brazil Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 1:23.530 1:21.434
2 27 France Alain Prost Ferrari 1:24.507 1.22.555 +1.121
3 6 Italy Riccardo Patrese Williams-Renault 1:24.726 1.22.833 +1.399
4 5 United Kingdom Nigel Mansell Williams-Renault 1:25.277 1.23.218 +1.784
5 20 Brazil Nelson Piquet Benetton-Ford 1:25.026 1:23.384 +1.950
6 28 France Jean Alesi Ferrari 1:23.519 1.23.805 +2.085
7 2 Austria Gerhard Berger McLaren-Honda 1:25.914 1.23.742 +2.308
8 19 Brazil Roberto Moreno Benetton-Ford 1:25.170 1.23.881 +2.447
9 21 Italy Emanuele Pirro Dallara-Judd 1:24.876 1.24.792 +3.358
10 22 Finland JJ Lehto Dallara-Judd 1:26.765 1.24.891 +3.457
11 4 Italy Stefano Modena Tyrrell-Honda 1:25.065 1.25.557 +3.631
12 7 United Kingdom Martin Brundle Brabham-Yamaha 1:27.184 1.25.385 +3.951
13 11 Finland Mika Häkkinen Lotus-Judd 1:27.976 1.25.448 +4.014
14 32 Belgium Bertrand Gachot Jordan-Ford 1:27.568 1.25.701 +4.267
15 23 Italy Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Ferrari 1:25.815 1.25.715 +4.281
16 3 Japan Satoru Nakajima Tyrrell-Honda 1:26.058 1.25.752 +4.318
17 34 Italy Nicola Larini Lambo-Lamborghini 1:27.761 1.25.791 +4.357
18 16 Italy Ivan Capelli Leyton House-Ilmor 1:54.845 1.26.121 +4.687
19 29 France Éric Bernard Lola-Ford 1:27.446 1.26.425 +4.991
20 25 Belgium Thierry Boutsen Ligier-Lamborghini 1:27.984 1.26.500 +5.066
21 30 Japan Aguri Suzuki Lola-Ford 1:26.987 1.26.548 +5.114
22 17 Italy Gabriele Tarquini AGS-Ford 1:27.164 1.26.851 +5.417
23 15 Brazil Maurício Gugelmin Leyton House-Ilmor 1:26.865 1.26.875 +5.431
24 8 United Kingdom Mark Blundell Brabham-Yamaha 1:30.061 1.26.915 +5.481
25 9 Italy Michele Alboreto Footwork-Porsche 1:29.067 1.27.015 +5.581
26 24 Italy Gianni Morbidelli Minardi-Ferrari 1:27.625 1.27.042 +5.608
27 10 Italy Alex Caffi Footwork-Porsche 1:29.388 1.27.519 +6.085
28 18 Sweden Stefan Johansson AGS-Ford 1:29.857 1.27.753 +6.319
29 26 France Érik Comas Ligier-Lamborghini 1:28.904 1.27.159 +6.725
30 12 United Kingdom Julian Bailey Lotus-Judd 1:30.758 1.28.570 +7.136

Race

Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points
1 1 Brazil Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 81 2:00.47.828 1 10
2 27 France Alain Prost Ferrari 81 + 16.322 2 6
3 20 Brazil Nelson Piquet Benetton-Ford 81 + 17.376 5 4
4 4 Italy Stefano Modena Tyrrell-Honda 81 + 25.409 11 3
5 3 Japan Satoru Nakajima Tyrrell-Honda 80 + 1 Lap 16 2
6 30 Japan Aguri Suzuki Lola-Ford 79 + 2 Laps 21 1
7 34 Italy Nicola Larini Lambo-Lamborghini 78 + 3 Laps 17  
8 17 Italy Gabriele Tarquini AGS-Ford 77 + 4 Laps 22  
9 23 Italy Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Ferrari 75 Engine 15  
10 32 Belgium Bertrand Gachot Jordan-Ford 75 Engine 14  
11 7 United Kingdom Martin Brundle Brabham-Yamaha 73 + 8 Laps 12  
12 28 France Jean Alesi Ferrari 72 Gearbox 6  
Ret 11 Finland Mika Häkkinen Lotus-Judd 59 Engine 13  
Ret 6 Italy Riccardo Patrese Williams-Renault 49 Gearbox 3  
Ret 19 Brazil Roberto Moreno Benetton-Ford 49 Collision 8  
Ret 9 Italy Michele Alboreto Footwork-Porsche 41 Engine 25  
Ret 16 Italy Ivan Capelli Leyton House-Ilmor 40 Gearbox 18  
Ret 25 Belgium Thierry Boutsen Ligier-Lamborghini 40 Engine 20  
Ret 2 Austria Gerhard Berger McLaren-Honda 36 Fuel Pump 7  
Ret 5 United Kingdom Nigel Mansell Williams-Renault 35 Gearbox 4  
Ret 15 Brazil Maurício Gugelmin Leyton House-Ilmor 34 Gearbox 23  
Ret 8 United Kingdom Mark Blundell Brabham-Yamaha 32 Spun Off 24  
Ret 21 Italy Emanuele Pirro Dallara-Judd 16 Gearbox 9  
Ret 24 Italy Gianni Morbidelli Minardi-Ferrari 15 Gearbox 26  
Ret 22 Finland JJ Lehto Dallara-Judd 12 Gearbox 10  
Ret 29 France Éric Bernard Lola-Ford 4 Engine 19  
DNQ 10 Italy Alex Caffi Footwork-Porsche    
DNQ 18 Sweden Stefan Johansson AGS-Ford    
DNQ 26 France Érik Comas Ligier-Lamborghini    
DNQ 12 United Kingdom Julian Bailey Lotus-Judd    
DNPQ 33 Italy Andrea de Cesaris Jordan-Ford    
DNPQ 31 Portugal Pedro Chaves Coloni-Ford    
DNPQ 14 France Olivier Grouillard Fondmetal-Ford    
DNPQ 35 Belgium Eric van de Poele Lambo-Lamborghini    
Source:[2]

Notes

Championship standings after the race

  • Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

References

  • Dennis Simanaitis (June, 1991). "3rd United States Grand Prix at Phoenix: More Power To Ya". Road & Track, 133–136.
  • "Formula One Phoenix Grand Prix" Video (1992), BMG Video, New York.
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External links


Previous race:
1990 Australian Grand Prix
FIA Formula One World Championship
1991 season
Next race:
1991 Brazilian Grand Prix
Previous race:
1990 United States Grand Prix
United States Grand Prix Next race:
2000 United States Grand Prix
  1. REDIRECT Template:F1GP 1990–1999

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