1999 F1 flashback Part 3: Canada and France

Before the 1999 Canadian Grand Prix, there wasn’t anything special about the wall on the outside of the final corner at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

However, after three world champions crashed into it in the race, it was forever immortalised as the Wall of Champions.

The first to make impact was 1996 world champion Damon Hill, who slid through the final corner and his right-rear suspension was broken.

Up until lap 30, Michael Schumacher was leading comfortably, having started the race from pole, and was probably thinking about when to take his pit stop. Then he made a mistake coming through the final chicane.

The car was unsettled as Schumacher went over the inside kerb, slamming into the wall.

Jacques Villeneuve also crashed into the Wall of Champions later in the race.

With Schumacher’s car being craned away, Mika Hakkinen comfortably took the race victory and with it the championship lead.

Giancarlo Fisichella had lost second to Heinz-Harald Frentzen but the latter’s crash a few laps from the end allowed the Italian to move up one step.

Eddie Irvine rounded out the podium, having brilliantly fought his way back through the field after making contact with David Coulthard on the third safety-car restart.

While the Canadian Grand Prix was held in baking sunshine, the French Grand Prix was wet. Very wet.

On lap 22, the raindrops started to bounce off the tarmac and visibility got poorer. Drivers began to lose control and spin off the circuit. The safety car had to be brought out.

It was half an hour before the green flag was waved again, with polesitter Rubens Barrichello in front. He had lost his lead briefly to Coulthard earlier on but the Scotsman retired with car troubles, putting paid to his dwindling championship hopes.

Hakkinen had started 14th but charged through the field, making diving moves up the inside of the Adelaide hairpin. He tried to do this on Barrichello but got a wheel on the inside kerb – a no-no in wet conditions – and spun.

The Finn did recover from this mistake to finish second position. He would have won if not for a brilliant strategic decision from Jordan to fuel Frentzen enough so that he did not have to pit again in the last few laps of the race, unlike his competitors.

That gave Jordan their second win in F1, their first having come when Hill won at Spa in 1998. They would win only twice more – at Monza in 1999 and Interlagos in 2003 – before the team was sold to the Midland Group in 2005.

1999 would prove to be Jordan’s most successful season, largely thanks to the efforts of Frentzen, who was a genuine championship contender that year until he retired from the European Grand Prix – more on that race at the Nurburgring later in this series.

Going into the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, Hakkinen had extended his championship lead to eight points over Schumacher, while Ferrari’s lead over McLaren in the constructors’ championship had been cut to six points.

The British Grand Prix would see Irvine and not Schumacher become Hakkinen’s main championship rival, as the German was rested with a broken leg.

Anything can happen in Formula One, and it usually does.