Damon’s finest

The 1994 Japanese Formula One Grand Prix was held at the Suzuka Circuit. It was the fifteenth and penultimate race of the 1994 F1 season. In wet conditions, the 50-lap race was won by an outstanding Damon Hill, driving a Williams-Renault, after he started from second position.

Picture-above: Damon Hill mastered a soaking-wet Suzuka to record his finest Grand Prix win (great pic taken by Paul-Henri Cahier). Hill’s championship rival Michael Schumacher finished second in his Benetton-Ford, having started from pole position, with Jean Alesi third in his Ferrari.

When Morbidelli and Brundle crashed on lap 13 in heavy rain, the race was stopped. As the rain eased, it was decided to run the remainder of the race, with around one hour to the time limit, on aggregate corrected time. Schumacher had been leading by 6.8 seconds when the red flag was shown, but Hill had a bigger lead (10.1 seconds) at the checkered flag, and thus took the win by 3.3 seconds on aggregate.

The superb win (picture below) left Hill just one point behind Schumacher in the Drivers’ Championship with one race remaining at Adelaide. This also proved to be the last Grand Prix for Érik Comas, and it was also the last time in Formula 1 history when the race was split in two parts due to race stoppage and final classification has been set by aggregate time.