Background Two new teams came into Formula One in 1997:
Stewart and
Lola. This was Lola's first F1 race weekend involvement in F1 since the
1993 Portuguese Grand Prix where they had been car supplier for the defunct
BMS Scuderia Italia team and the first time they had entered their own team.
Footwork reverted to their old name of
Arrows and acquired
Yamaha engines, while
Ligier were bought by
Alain Prost and changed their name to
Prost Grand Prix.
Tyrrell acquired
Ford engines. The change that dominated the drivers line up was
Damon Hill's surprise sacking from
Williams having just won the World Championship. He joined
Tom Walkinshaw and the newly purchased Arrows team. In the week up to the race, there were rumours, which proved to be unfounded, of Hill having left Arrows due to the poor performance of the car.
Pedro Diniz brought significant sponsorship backing, and was hired as Hill's teammate. Williams retained
Jacques Villeneuve and replaced Hill with
Heinz-Harald Frentzen. Villeneuve was the
bookmaker's favourite heading into the new season. He said that being the favourite put "extra pressure, but it's good pressure [on me]".
Ferrari retained
Michael Schumacher and
Eddie Irvine,
Benetton kept
Jean Alesi and
Gerhard Berger and McLaren retained
Mika Häkkinen and
David Coulthard. The
Jordan team had two new drivers in
Giancarlo Fisichella, previously at
Minardi, and
Ralf Schumacher, brother of Michael. The new
Prost Grand Prix team kept
Olivier Panis and signed Japanese rookie driver
Shinji Nakano.
Sauber kept
Johnny Herbert and the loss of Frentzen saw
Peter Sauber sign Ferrari
test driver Nicola Larini. Tyrrell retained
Mika Salo for a third year and added
Jos Verstappen to the team from Arrows.
Minardi with
V8 Hart engines signed
Ukyo Katayama and
Italian driver
Jarno Trulli.
Heinz-Harald Frentzen and
Olivier Panis were both making their 50th race entry, and
Johnny Herbert was making his 100th race entry. The new
Stewart Grand Prix team had signed
Rubens Barrichello and
Danish driver
Jan Magnussen.
Lola recruited ex-
Footwork Arrows driver
Ricardo Rosset and former Benetton test driver
Vincenzo Sospiri. Bridgestone also made their first official appearance in Formula 1, breaking Goodyear's reign as a sole tyre supplier which began in 1992. They provided tyres for Minardi, Arrows, Prost, Stewart and Lola. Previously, the company had produced
Formula One tyres at the 1976 and 1977 Japanese Grand Prix for Japanese entrants such as Kazuyoshi Hoshino's Heros Racing and Kojima. The British television coverage switched to
ITV for the 1997 season and beyond, after 18 years of regular coverage for the BBC. Former driver
Martin Brundle joined
Murray Walker in the commentary box. In the build-up to the weekend, Michael Schumacher said that the circuit "wasn't particularly special", resulting in some criticism from locals. There were also protests in the lead-up to the race, with protestors pouring diesel on to the track the week before the race. A strike also meant that there was no tram shuttle service running, with spectators forced to catch buses to the track.
Jeff Kennett, the
Premier of Victoria, labelling them "bloody minded" and that they will have to "incur the wrath of the community".
Practice and qualifying Canadian
Jacques Villeneuve took his fourth career
pole position with a lap of 1:29.369, while
Heinz-Harald Frentzen could only manage a 1:31.121 to fill the remaining spot on the front row. Villeneuve had gone even faster in the second practice session recording a lap of 1:28.594 and is recognized as an extraordinarily fast lap beating his pole time under almost identical conditions by 0.775. Only six drivers managed to qualify within 3 seconds of the pole position time. The session was red flagged with just over two minutes remaining after a collision between
Gerhard Berger and
Nicola Larini on the straight between turns 10 and 11. This resulted in many of the cars effectively having to complete a one-lap sprint to post a lap time before the end of the session. Damon Hill struggled during the session, only just qualifying inside of the 107% limit due to an oil leak which hampered the lap times. Both of the
Lola cars failed to make the qualifying limit and were over ten seconds slower than Villeneuve in their first and only F1 qualifying session, as the team had to withdraw from the
next race due to a lack of funds. Pedro Diniz was also outside of the 107% time, but he was permitted to race as he had set a time in practice within the 107% time.
Race On the parade lap, Damon Hill's throttle jammed, leaving him stranded on the track and causing him to retire from the race. At the first corner,
Eddie Irvine misjudged his braking, hitting both Villeneuve and
Herbert - all three retired from the race. Williams adopted a two-stop strategy, while most other teams were going for one-stop races.
Jos Verstappen spun off on lap two while attempting to overtake Ukyo Katayama. Frentzen quickly built up a lead: 2.7secs on the first lap, 3.7s on the second, 5.3s on the third and 7.2s on the fourth. Both of the Jordan cars soon retired from the race, Ralf Schumacher suffering a gearbox problem and Fisichella spinning off the track while passing Barrichello. By lap 12, however, Frentzen eased off, and for the next six laps the gap between first and second stayed at 17-18s. Frentzen pitted on lap 18 and rejoined third.
Jean Alesi retired from the race after running out of fuel, to the fury of his
Benetton team, who had been trying to call him into the pits for 5 laps, an incident met with amusement from the ITV commentators. In the laps that followed Frentzen was able to close up on Coulthard and Schumacher. He lost time in traffic, struggling with his brakes. Coulthard and Schumacher pitted in mid-race and so Frentzen moved ahead again and ran very quickly for a few laps before he began to fade again. On lap 40 he came in for his second stop. The gap to Coulthard was only 23secs, and with the time in the pitlane being around 22-24secs it was unclear whether he could emerge ahead. In the end, his pit stop was delayed for several seconds by a right rear tire problem, allowing Coulthard and Schumacher to move ahead. At the front
David Coulthard continued to keep away from these incidents to lead the race, followed by
Michael Schumacher and Frentzen. Frentzen closed up on Coulthard and Schumacher who were by then running together but Schumacher had to make an unscheduled fuel stop towards the end of the race, promoting Frentzen to second. Large quantities of dust had been coming from Frentzen's brakes for some time and with three laps to go a brake disc failed, sending him into the gravel trap at the end of the start/finish straight. Coulthard went on to take his second career win. It was
McLaren's first win since
Ayrton Senna won the
1993 Australian Grand Prix. It was also their first win with
Mercedes as an engine supplier, and Mercedes' first victory as an engine manufacturer since the
1955 Italian Grand Prix. ==Classification==