1994 The year in pictures

April

Gabriele Tarquini’s Alfa wins the opening round of the BTCC at a gridlocked Thruxton… Ian Duncan wins the Safari Rally for Toyota… Eddie Irvine is suspended for three GPs for his part in a multiple accident during the Brazilian GP… Francois Delecour sustains serious leg injuries in a road accident… Michael Schumacher wins again at TI… Roland Ratzenberger is killed at Imola, the Austrian’s Simtek crashing at high speed during qualifying for the San Marino GP…

May

Still reeling from the shock of Ratzenberger’s accident, motor racing is stupefied by the death of Ayrton Senna, who crashes while leading the San Marino GP… Michael Schumacher takes a bleak victory… Didier Auriol wins the Tour of Corsica… F1’s unhappy sequence continues at Monaco, where Karl Wendlinger slips into a coma following a practice crash… Benetton buys Ligier… And wins the Monaco GP, courtesy of Herr Schumacher… Al Unser Snr retires… Ford beats Alfa at last in the BTCC… Duncan Hamilton passes away… There’s no respite for F1 as Pedro Lamy is badly injured at Silverstone, while testing for Lotus. Williams promotes David Coulthard from its test team to replace Senna… Damon Hill further boosts Williams morale with victory in the Spanish GP, which had been threatened by the possibility of a drivers’ strike, until the erection of a temporary chicane… Al Unser Jnr wins the Indy 500… Alfa Romeo withdraws from the Oulton Park BTCC race after a scrutineering dispute…

June

Carlos Sainz wins the Acropolis Rally… The FIA announces new F1 rules; 3.0 engines return in 1995… Karl Wendlinger stirs from his coma… Michael Schumacher wins the Canadian GP… Francois Delecour is fit enough to test again for Ford… Silverstone is revised to satisfy the reformed Grand Prix Drivers Association… Williams announces that Nigel Mansell, in the throes of a disappointing IndyCar season, will race in the French GP…

July

Didier Auriol wins the Rally of Argentina… Michael Schumacher wins the French GP… Nigel Mansell starts from the front row, but fails to impress in the race… September’s Italian GP is suspended, on safety grounds… Damon Hill wins the British GP, a feat which had always eluded his father… Carlo Chiti dies… An FIA hearing excludes Schumacher from the results of the British GP, for having ignored the black flag during the race. The German is also suspended for two races… He is allowed to race in his home GP under appeal, but Gerhard Berger wins at Hockenheim, Ferrari’s first GP success since Jerez 1990… Further troubles for Benetton at Hockenheim: the FIA implies that the team could have used traction control earlier in the season; Jos Verstappen’s car is engulfed in flames during a refuelling stop. No one is seriously hurt, miraculously… Colin McRae’s WRC fortunes improve with victory on the Rally of New Zealand…

August

Niki Lauda suffers broken ribs, while jet skiing… Benetton is alleged to have interfered with its refuelling rig, causing the Hockenheim pit fire… Michael Schumacher wins the Hungarian and Belgian GPs, but is excluded from the latter when his skidblock is found to have worn away by more than the permitted maximum… Leading NASCAR driver Ernie Irvan is critically injured at Michigan, but later astonishes medics with the pace of his recovery… Benetton clinches Renault engines for 1995… Williams secures the contract to run Renault’s 1995 touring car programme… Jan Magnussen clinches the British F3 title… Schumacher’s appeal against his two-race ban fails… Carl Haas confirms that Nigel Mansell will not be held to his IndyCar contract in 1995… NART founder Luigi Chinetti dies… Tommi Makinen wins the 1000 Lakes Rally…

September

Touring car veteran Andy Rouse announces his impending retirement… Benetton is cleared of tampering with its refuelling equipment in Germany, but an appeal against its Belgian GP exclusion fails… McLaren is cleared of having run an automatic upchange system on its gearbox earlier in the year… Ukyo Katayama re-signs for Tyrrell… Damon Hill wins the Italian and Portuguese GPs; David Coulthard finishes on the podium for the first time in the latter, after a run of bad luck… Williams confirms that Nigel Mansell will take Coulthard’s place for the final three Grands Prix… At Monza., Karl Wendlinger attends a GP for the first time since his Monaco accident… By finishing second to Jacques Villeneuve at Elkhart Lake, Penske’s Al Unser Jnr secures the CART/PPG IndyCar title… Gabriele Tarquini clinches the BTCC title… Malcolm Wilson wraps up the British Rally Championship… Steve Robertson becomes the first Briton to win the Formula Indy Lights title… Damon Hill resigns for Williams… Cohn McRae wins the Rally of Australia… Paul Tracy tests for Benetton at Estoril…

October

One point separates F3000 finale at Magny-Cours; Jules Boullion wins the race, and the title… Mario Andretti retires from his final IndyCar race… As Team Lotus’s administrators fight to keep the team afloat, Johnny Herbert is sold to Ligier… Didier Auriol wins the Sanremo Rally… Returning from suspension, Michael Schumacher wins the European GP at Jerez… Paul Radisich retains the FIA Touring Car World Cup, at Donington Park… Karl Wendlinger tests a Sauber, and is initially declared fit to contest the final two Grands Prix, though the decision is later reversed… After one race with Ligier, Johnny Herbert is switched to Benetton who had fired him in mid-1989… Dale Earnhardt clinches his seventh NASCAR title at Rockingham, equalling Richard Petty’s record… Jason Watt wins the Formula Ford Festival… A mystery consortium acquires Team Lotus, guaranteeing its participation in the last two races of the season… McLaren and Mercedes-Benz team up for 1995, the Peugeot engine contract goes to Jordan… Pedro Lamy drives a DTM Mercedes, his first test since his appalling Silverstone accident…

November

Damon Hill wins the sodden Japanese GP, reducing Michael Schumacher’s World Championship to one point. The two then collide controversially in Adelaide, handing the title to Schumacher… Nigel Mansell consequently wins the final F1 race of the year… Sauber gets a works Ford engine deal for 1995… Colin McRae becomes the first Briton to win the RAC Rally since Roger Clark in 1976… Didier Auriol becomes France’s first World Rally Champion… Sascha Maaβen takes aggregate victory in the Macau F3 race… Jordan re-signs Rubens Barrichello and Eddie Irvine… An accident on the first lap in the final round of the All-Japan F3000 Championship means that Marco Apicella is champion, at Andrew Gilbert-Scott’s expense…

December

McLaren and Williams become embroiled in a legal fight for the services of David Coulthard in 1995… Lola defers its F1 return until 1996… The FIA announces that only one new F1 team (Forti) has entered for the 1995 World Championship… Alfa Romeo signs Derek Warwick for its BTCC programme… Michele Alboreto quits F1 for the DTM, with Alfa… Kenneth Hansen wins the British Rallycross GP at Brands Hatch… Ford considers reversing its decision to shut down its Boreham rally HQ… Team Lotus lays off its staff, hopefully temporarily.