Bring Back V10s: The most embarrassing way to lose an F1 race?

Bring Back V10s revisits one of the strangest Formula 1 races of the 1990s this week: the 1995 Australian Grand Prix.

The latter part of that season had been fairly relentless misery for Damon Hill, but Adelaide’s final F1 race gave him a pretty spectacular high to go into the winter on – as he won by an astounding two laps.

The size of that margin was down to a bizarre level of attrition around him, headlined by Hill’s Williams team-mate David Coulthard crashing in the pitlane entry while leading.

Was that one of the daftest ways to lose a race in F1 history? Or was Coulthard the innocent victim of ‘idle strategy’ gremlins?

And was Hill’s victory a truly great drive or an inherited win flattered by collapsing opposition?

Host Glenn Freeman brings in loyal 1990s Hill superfan Ben Anderson and fickle brief 1995 Coulthard superfan Matt Beer to debate those topics and everything else that happened in Adelaide, including a ludicrous Jean Alesi and Michael Schumacher collision and a British Formula 3 champion’s F1 career that never happened.

Though there was much about that Adelaide weekend that bordered on shambolic comedy, it began on a much more serious and frightening note – with an accident that very nearly claimed the life of Mika Hakkinen. The cause and implications of that crash, and what it meant for Hakkinen’s career, are also discussed at length.

ASK US ANYTHING! (about 1989-2005 F1) – Submit your questions for our end-of-series episode using the hashtag #BringBackV10s on Twitter, or you can email [email protected]

Bring Back V10s is available through all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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