The 1995 European Grand Prix (formally the XL Grand Prix of Europe) was a Formula One motor race held on 1 October 1995 at the Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany. It was the fourteenth race of the 1995 Formula One World Championship and the first to be held there since 1985. Michael Schumacher for the Benetton team won the 67-lap race starting from third position. Jean Alesi finished second in a Ferrari, with David Coulthard, who started the Grand Prix from pole position, third in a Williams car. This was also the last F1 race for three drivers: Massimiliano Papis, Gabriele Tarquini, and Jean-Denis Délétraz.
Damon Hill, Coulthard's teammate, started the race in second, but dropped down to third behind Schumacher on the opening lap. Hill remained behind Schumacher for the majority of the race, before losing his front wing in a collision with Alesi and dropping back due to the resultant pit stop. He then spun off the track on lap 58 when running in fourth position, leading to his retirement from the race. Alesi looked set to win the race after starting the race with dry weather slick tyres on a damp track, but was held up in lapped traffic and overtaken by Schumacher two laps before the end of the race.
Schumacher's win retained his position at the top of the Drivers' Championship, 27 points ahead of Hill. With three races remaining, Schumacher only required a further three points to secure the championship. Benetton were now 20 points ahead of Williams in the Constructors' Championship following Schumacher's win.
Background The race marked the return to the Formula One calendar for the Nürburgring track after being off the calendar since the 1985 season, due to commercial disputes involving the circuit's promoters. Its return to the World Championship schedule was facilitated by a surge of interest in the sport throughout Germany as a result of Michael Schumacher's drivers' title in . The 1994 European Grand Prix the previous year had been held at the Circuito de Jerez in Spain, a late replacement for the cancelled Argentine Grand Prix. This would be the third time that Formula One would utilise the short GP-Strecke layout rather than the almost 23 kilometre Nordschleife layout which was used until 1976.
Heading into the European Grand Prix, the 14th race of the season, Benetton driver Schumacher was leading the Drivers' Championship with 72 points, ahead of Williams driver Damon Hill in second on 55. Behind them were Hill's teammate David Coulthard on 39, Schumacher's teammate Johnny Herbert on 38, and Ferrari driver Jean Alesi on 34 points. In the Constructors' Championship, Benetton were leading with 100 points, with Williams second on 88 and Ferrari third on 62.
There was one driver swap heading into the race: Gabriele Tarquini replaced Ukyo Katayama at Tyrrell, the latter driver choosing not to race on doctors' advice following a crash at the earlier in the year. Katayama had sustained a strained neck and bruising in the crash, in which his car had rolled several times following a start line collision with Luca Badoer's Minardi.
Prior to the race weekend, Coulthard announced that he was moving to the McLaren team for the 1996 season. He had first signed a contract with McLaren in October 1994 before his full-time Williams drive for 1995 was confirmed, and his one-year deal with the latter was not renegotiated due to his McLaren commitment. McLaren also confirmed that Mika Häkkinen and Jan Magnussen would continue in their existing roles as race and test driver for the team respectively, leaving Mark Blundell without a team for 1996. Coulthard's deal was officially confirmed on the day of the race itself. Meanwhile, Coulthard's prospective replacement, Jacques Villeneuve, had tested a Williams for the first time since being confirmed as Hill's teammate for 1996, running for two days at the Monza circuit. The Jordan team had also announced that it would keep its driver pairing of Rubens Barrichello and Eddie Irvine for 1996 in the week before the race. However, Ferrari then announced that it had bought out Irvine's contract, and that he would be partnering Schumacher at the team for 1996. Jordan subsequently announced that Martin Brundle would move from the Ligier team to partner Barrichello instead.
Some teams brought upgrades to the cars into the race – the Williams team used the upgraded "B" versions of the FW17 chassis for the second time, after its début at the previous race in Portugal. McLaren also brought upgrades to coincide with the home race of their engine supplier, Mercedes. The team opted to amalgamate the "B" and "C" versions of its troublesome MP4/10 chassis, with a rear end and gearbox from the former. In addition, the Ferrari team brought a revised rear wing and sidepods for its 412T2 car, which both drivers agreed to be an improvement.
Practice and qualifying This was the first Formula One race to be held at the Nürburgring since the 1985 German Grand Prix, so an additional familiarisation session was held prior to the usual practice and qualifying sessions. In this session, Schumacher set a benchmark time of 1:20.418, ahead of Hill in second, Coulthard, Häkkinen, Heinz-Harald Frentzen (Sauber), Gerhard Berger (Ferrari) and the rest of the field. The drivers, were uninspired by the circuit: Schumacher described it as "dull" and "easy to learn, with no real challenges" and Coulthard predicted a processional race without much overtaking.
Two practice sessions were held before the race: on Friday morning and on Saturday morning. Both sessions lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes with weather conditions dry in the first session, but wet for the second session. Hill set the fastest time in the first session, posting a lap of 1:19.343, three-hundredths of a second quicker than teammate Coulthard in second place. The Benettons were third and fifth fastest; Schumacher ahead of Herbert, with Ferrari driver Gerhard Berger fourth, over a second behind Hill. Häkkinen rounded out the top six in his McLaren. The wet conditions for the second practice session meant that lap times were slower as there was less grip on the track. In the second session, Hill was again fastest with a time of 1:34.906. Coulthard was second, with Frentzen third in the Sauber, two seconds slower than Hill. The Ferraris were fourth and fifth, Berger in front of Alesi. Schumacher and Herbert were sixth and seventh respectively, with Barrichello eighth. Olivier Panis in the Ligier and Mika Salo in the Tyrrell rounded out the top ten, both three and a half seconds off the fastest lap time. Amongst the slower runners, Andrea Montermini suffered a worrying moment when his Pacific car shed its left-rear wheel, but he was able to return to his pit garage.
The was split into two one-hour sessions; the first of which was held on Friday afternoon and the second on Saturday afternoon. The fastest time from either session counted towards the drivers' final grid positions. Both sessions were interrupted by rain, which led to little action on the track. Coulthard took his third consecutive pole position in his Williams, with a time of 1:18.738. He was joined on the by teammate Hill, who was two-tenths of a second behind. Schumacher was third in the Benetton, four-tenths of a second slower than Coulthard, despite lapping fastest in the second part of qualifying. The time he set in the second part of qualifying was still slower than Coulthard and Hill's time set in the first part and he was third quickest overall. Behind the leading three, Berger was fourth with teammate Alesi in sixth. Eddie Irvine in the Jordan finished in fifth position. Herbert and Frentzen were on the fourth row on the grid, in seventh and eighth. Despite bringing car upgrades to the event, Häkkinen and Blundell could only qualify their McLarens ninth and tenth respectively. Tarquini qualified in nineteenth, four places behind teammate Salo, but admitted to feeling out-of-practice by Formula One standards. Several drivers went off the track during qualifying in the difficult conditions, including Panis and Montermini. Panis' crash was caused by a stuck throttle; the resultant damage to the car forced him to switch to the team's spare monocoque. The conditions during the first session were generally faster, with seventeen of the 24 drivers setting their fastest qualifying times in this period.
Media attention focussed on Coulthard outperforming Hill in qualifying for the fourth time in a row. As Hill was mathematically the only possible contender to challenge Schumacher for the championship, there was a question from the media as to whether Williams should use to give Hill pole position. In response, Coulthard said that he was "rather tired of questions about team orders", adding that "everyone wants to see is a motor race" and it wasn't fair of Williams to ask him to slow down if he was faster than Hill.
Following the session, Barrichello and Footwork driver Massimiliano Papis revealed that they expected to fail routine drugs tests they had just taken, as both had been taking decongestants, for nasal problems and a cold respectively, which contained the banned substance ephedrine. On Saturday, the team principals also met to discuss future changes to the sport: it was agreed that qualifying would be reduced to a single hour-long session for the 1996 season, and a reduction from seventeen to sixteen Grands Prix was confirmed.
Qualifying classification Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Time Q2 Time Gap 1 6 David Coulthard Williams-Renault 1:18.738 1:19.913 — 2 5 Damon Hill Williams-Renault 1:18.972 1:19.607 +0.234 3 1 Michael Schumacher Benetton-Renault 1:19.470 1:19.150 +0.412 4 28 Gerhard Berger Ferrari 1:19.821 1:21.083 +1.083 5 15 Eddie Irvine Jordan-Peugeot 1:20.488 1:21.426 +1.750 6 27 Jean Alesi Ferrari 1:20.521 1:20.510 +1.772 7 2 Johnny Herbert Benetton-Renault 1:20.653 1:21.236 +1.915 8 30 Heinz-Harald Frentzen Sauber-Ford 1:20.762 1:20.749 +2.011 9 8 Mika Häkkinen McLaren-Mercedes 1:20.866 1:20.968 +2.128 10 7 Mark Blundell McLaren-Mercedes 1:20.909 1:21.583 +2.171 11 14 Rubens Barrichello Jordan-Peugeot 1:21.350 1:21.211 +2.473 12 25 Martin Brundle Ligier-Mugen-Honda 1:21.541 1:22.062 +2.803 13 29 Jean-Christophe Boullion Sauber-Ford 1:22.059 1:34.210 +3.321 14 26 Olivier Panis Ligier-Mugen-Honda 1:22.062 1:22.565 +3.324 15 4 Mika Salo Tyrrell-Yamaha 1:23.058 1:23.079 +4.320 16 23 Pedro Lamy Minardi-Ford 1:23.328 1:24.087 +4.590 17 9 Massimiliano Papis Footwork-Hart 1:23.689 1:24.134 +4.951 18 24 Luca Badoer Minardi-Ford 1:23.760 1:26.406 +5.022 19 3 Gabriele Tarquini Tyrrell-Yamaha 1:24.286 1:24.352 +5.548 20 17 Andrea Montermini Pacific-Ford 1:24.696 1:26.102 +5.958 21 10 Taki Inoue Footwork-Hart 1:26.667 1:24.900 +6.162 22 21 Pedro Diniz Forti-Ford 1:25.647 1:25.157 +6.419 23 22 Roberto Moreno Forti-Ford 1:26.784 1:26.098 +7.360 24 16 Jean-Denis Délétraz Pacific-Ford 1:27.853 1:29.677 +9.115
Race The track surface for the start of the race was damp, but dried up as the race progressed. The drivers were scheduled to go onto the track at 09:30 CET (GMT +1) for a 30-minute warm-up session; however, the session was delayed until 10:05 CET due to fog and heavy rain. Several drivers went off the track during the session due to the wet weather conditions. Both Williams cars maintained their good performance from qualifying; Coulthard had the fastest time of 1:38.378 whilst Hill was third in the other Williams. Berger split them in the Ferrari for second position. Schumacher completed the top four, six-tenths of a second behind Coulthard. Approximately 90,000 spectators attended the circuit on race day.