The 1997 Argentine Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Autódromo Oscar Alfredo Gálvez in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 13 April 1997. It was the third race of the 1997 Formula One World Championship, and the 600th World Championship Grand Prix.
The 72-lap race was won from pole position by Jacques Villeneuve, driving a Williams-Renault. Eddie Irvine finished second in a Ferrari, while Ralf Schumacher, in only his third F1 race, finished third in a Jordan-Peugeot.
Summary
Pre-race Most of the talk before the grand prix was about Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Eddie Irvine and their poor starts to the season. Despite going out of business, Lola Team Principal Eric Broadley was confident that the team could be up and running again by the San Marino Grand Prix, albeit with a new main sponsor. The Tyrrell team also caused a stir after arriving at the grand prix with four new wings on the car, two on the nose cone, the other two alongside the drivers head. They resembled x-wings and this was soon used as their nickname. The practice session bought no surprises with the two Williams cars first and second.
Qualifying As with the practice session, both Williams were once again on the front row, with Jacques Villeneuve on pole. The first real surprise of the weekend was the performance of Olivier Panis in the Prost, who managed to qualify third on the grid. Another strong performance was the fifth place of Rubens Barrichello in the Stewart. As expected, both McLarens qualified low down the field, complaining of poor handling on the bumpy surface. The slowest qualifier Pedro Diniz's lap time would have still been comfortably fast enough to have put him on pole for the previous year's race.
Race As the red lights went out, Jacques Villeneuve cleanly navigated the first corner and began to pull away from the other front runners. Michael Schumacher (who was unsighted by oil from Frentzen's car) almost collided with Panis, but the Frenchman moved off line to drop a few places rather than to collide with the Ferrari. Going into the first corner, Michael Schumacher was alongside his teammate Irvine and Rubens Barrichello. However, Michael then understeered and crashed into the back of Barrichello's car causing the Brazilian to spin and getting himself to retire. Barrichello would eventually change his front nose and get going again. But in the melee, Coulthard crashed into the back of Ralf Schumacher's Jordan, ripping of his front wheel and putting him out of the race. The track was unpassable with the back of the field taking to the grass to get round the incident, so the Safety Car was called out.
The biggest improvement was made by Pedro Diniz, who climbed eleven places from last to 11th spot on the first lap. At the restart after 4 laps, Villeneuve once again pulled away from Frentzen and Panis, but Frentzen's race ended on lap 6 with throttle problems. The chance of victory for Prost ended on lap 18, also with throttle problems. Both Arrows drivers showed a strong run on the first third of the race, with Damon Hill chasing Jean Alesi for the sixth place and Pedro Diniz in 8th holding Jos Verstappen, Gerhard Berger and Mika Häkkinen. When Damon Hill and Jean Alesi tangled braking into Turn 1, Diniz was able to slip by both.
On lap 24 the two Jordans collided with Giancarlo Fisichella retiring from the race. Hill, who was up to 4th at one point, retired with engine failure on lap 33, meanwhile his teammate suffered with a long pit stop, which costed him more than fifty seconds, dropped back and retired with engine failure too. Although in the final few laps Irvine closed the gap to Villeneuve, the Canadian held tight and went on to win his sixth career grand prix. Irvine finished second, the highest finish of his career at that point, with Ralf Schumacher scoring his first podium in third.
Post-race
On the podium the organisers flew the Irish tricolour for Irvine, instead of the Union Jack that was usually flown for Northern Irish drivers. Although Irvine identifies himself as Irish despite holding a British passport, his parents' house in County Down was targeted by loyalists as they felt they had been betrayed by the Ferrari driver. Irvine subsequently asked for a white flag with a shamrock to be used if he secured another podium finish; however, the FIA insisted that the Union Jack be used in future.
Classification
Qualifying
Pos No Driver Constructor Time Gap 1 3 Jacques Villeneuve Williams-Renault 1:24.473 2 4 Heinz-Harald Frentzen Williams-Renault 1:25.271 +0.798 3 14 Olivier Panis Prost-Mugen-Honda 1:25.491 +1.018 4 5 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:25.773 +1.300 5 22 Rubens Barrichello Stewart-Ford 1:25.942 +1.469 6 11 Ralf Schumacher Jordan-Peugeot 1:26.218 +1.745 7 6 Eddie Irvine Ferrari 1:26.327 +1.854 8 16 Johnny Herbert Sauber-Petronas 1:26.564 +2.091 9 12 Giancarlo Fisichella Jordan-Peugeot 1:26.619 +2.149 10 10 David Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes 1:26.799 +2.326 11 7 Jean Alesi Benetton-Renault 1:27.076 +2.603 12 8 Gerhard Berger Benetton-Renault 1:27.259 +2.786 13 1 Damon Hill Arrows-Yamaha 1:27.281 +2.808 14 17 Nicola Larini Sauber-Petronas 1:27.690 +3.217 15 23 Jan Magnussen Stewart-Ford 1:28.035 +3.562 16 18 Jos Verstappen Tyrrell-Ford 1:28.094 +3.621 17 9 Mika Häkkinen McLaren-Mercedes 1:28.135 +3.662 18 21 Jarno Trulli Minardi-Hart 1:28.160 +3.687 19 19 Mika Salo Tyrrell-Ford 1:28.224 +3.751 20 15 Shinji Nakano Prost-Mugen-Honda 1:28.366 +3.893 21 20 Ukyo Katayama Minardi-Hart 1:28.413 +3.940 22 2 Pedro Diniz Arrows-Yamaha 1:28.969 +4.496107% time : 1:30.386
Race Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 3 Jacques Villeneuve Williams-Renault 72 1:52:01.715 1 10 2 6 Eddie Irvine Ferrari 72 +0.979 7 6 3 11 Ralf Schumacher Jordan-Peugeot 72 +12.089 6 4 4 16 Johnny Herbert Sauber-Petronas 72 +29.919 8 3 5 9 Mika Häkkinen McLaren-Mercedes 72 +30.351 17 2 6 8 Gerhard Berger Benetton-Renault 72 +31.393 12 1 7 7 Jean Alesi Benetton-Renault 72 +46.359 11 8 19 Mika Salo Tyrrell-Ford 71 +1 lap 19 9 21 Jarno Trulli Minardi-Hart 71 +1 lap 18 10 23 Jan Magnussen Stewart-Ford 66 Engine 15 17 Nicola Larini Sauber-Petronas 63 Spun off 14 2 Pedro Diniz Arrows-Yamaha 50 Engine 22 15 Shinji Nakano Prost-Mugen-Honda 49 Engine 20 18 Jos Verstappen Tyrrell-Ford 43 Engine 16 20 Ukyo Katayama Minardi-Hart 37 Spun off 21 1 Damon Hill Arrows-Yamaha 33 Engine 13 12 Giancarlo Fisichella Jordan-Peugeot 24 Collision 9 22 Rubens Barrichello Stewart-Ford 24 Hydraulics 5 14 Olivier Panis Prost-Mugen-Honda 18 Electrical 3 4 Heinz-Harald Frentzen Williams-Renault 5 Clutch 2 5 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 0 Collision 4 10 David Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes 0 Collision 10
Championship standings after the race
Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Jacques Villeneuve 20 2 David Coulthard 10 3 Gerhard Berger 10 4 Mika Häkkinen 9 5 Michael Schumacher 8Source:
Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Williams-Renault 20 2 McLaren-Mercedes 19 3 Ferrari 14 4 Benetton-Renault 11 5 Prost-Mugen-Honda 6Source: First podium: Ralf Schumacher
References
Race Details: