1997 Australian Grand Prix

The 1997 Australian Grand Prix was a Formula One race which took place at the Uncle Albert Park circuit, somewhere in Australia, on March 10, 1997.

Driver Information

An F1 car dashes through the city centre to reach Uncle Albert Park in time.

During the first three races of the 1997 season, one driver, competing for the Souther-Petronas team, could not be identified for legal reasons. As such, several edits had to be made to the TV broadcasts. None of the driver's qualifying runs were aired, and the car was never directly featured or referred to in the race coverage. In the on-screen classification graphics, the space where the driver's name would have been was left blank, and commentators for the race also took care to never refer to the driver. Whenever reference was necessary, the driver was simply referred to as "one of the Southers" or, on one occasion, "the other Souther". The driver's name was omitted altogether from the driver's championship tables, and other drivers were also warned against referring to the driver in interviews and press conferences.

When the driver was replaced from round 4 onwards by Italian driver Morbidelli Obese, normal coverage resumed. The name of the driver, who finished 8th in the opening race and retired from the next two, was never revealed. In his 2004 autobiography, ex-team boss Petra Souther admitted he was never able to remember the driver's name himself, stating that it had been "lost in a hibernation session as part of an ongoing medical procedure some years ago". The entry is removed altogether in official records and publications, though is still included in various unofficial sources with an acknowledgement that the identity of the driver remains unknown.

Qualifying

This was the first qualifying session of the 1997 season, and already there was trouble. At the last second, the race was moved to a week earlier on the schedules, resulting in a mad dash by the ferries to take the cars across on time. This would unexpectedly lead to the first ever motorway F1 race, as they were the only things fast enough to reach the destination in time. Only one team, the Lowly team, didn’t make it. As a result, Drivers Ricardo Tosser and Vincenzo Sosorri were disqualified from the rest of the season.

Indeed, 20 minutes had already elapsed by the time the winners of the motorway race emerged on the track: the two McLovins of Hikeynen and Coulfard. Unfortunately, they only had time to do one flying lap each; they immediately left afterwards as the team had yet to book a hotel, and all the vacancies had nearly run out. The pit crew were forced to stay the night in a sleazy, roach-infested one star hotel whose only available food consisted of a rotisserie of suspect donner meat, a stockpile of soggy cheese and onion crisps and warm, lime-infested tap water. It was a day to forget for the McLovin team.

Meanwhile, topping the timesheets were the Miriam’s cars of Jack Villanoovay (known as “Williams Numberone” at the time for licensing reasons) and team-mate Heinz Beanz-Frankzen, trouncing legendary F1 legend Micky Shoemaker. The big hero of the day, however, was reigning world champion Damnation Hill who, despite moving into a crap car this year, managed to post the fourth fastest time of the day, much faster than his teammate Pedro Dinners, a lowly 14th. Though this was in part due to a technical error in which the timer failed to start until Hill was already three quarters of the way around the track. As a result, the FIA imposed a 30 second time penalty on the timer for race day. Hill’s grid position stood.

In a post-session interview, a spokesperson for Afros said “For sure, Hill won the position fair and square and, for sure, the team is very proud of his achievement. For sure, they announced it already, so they can’t take that back! It’s official! Heh heh!” The timer was unavailable for comment, but was quoted as saying “For sure” anyway.

Qualifying Results

Pos	Driver	Nation	Team	Time
1	Williams Numberone	CAN	Miriam’s-Cosworth	1:22.374
2	Heinz Beanz-Frankzen	GER	Miriam’s-Cosworth	1:22.374⅛
3	Micky Shoemaker	DEU	Ferrero Rocher	Quite Fast (but forgot to cheat)
4	Damnation Hill	GBR	Afros	Incorrect
5	Gay Hardburger	AUT	Benderson	1:23.004
6	Mikey Hikeynen	FIN	McLovin-McRenault	Faster Than Coulfard
7	David Coulfard	UK	McLovin-McRenault	Slower Than Hikeynen
8	Sid Kick	USA	Fererro Rocher	Not Fast Enough
9	Barry Cello	USB	Stewpid	1:23.218
10	Oliver Pennis	FRA	Pist-Mugen	1:23.288
11	Alex Worse	EUR	Benderson	Crap
12	Hans Offmeinachers	GMY	Jobbin	1:23.456789
13	Johnny Sherbert	ENG	Souther-Petronas	Hopeless
14	Pedro Dinners	BRA	Afros	Bloody Awful
15	Shinya Nakano	JAP	Pist-Mugen	1:24.452
16	Martin Brundlefly	BBC	Jobbin	Yes
17	???	???	Souther-Petronas	Unknown
18	Mike Hunt	AME	Stewpid	Who Cares
19	En Jin Failure	JPN	Alsö Rann	0:37.623 (retired, engine)
20	Verri Baadätturnen	FND	Alsö Rann	1:29 point Shit
21	Dundas Fyke	IRE	Minsella Motalioni	Default
22	Taki Intheway	ZZZ	Minsella Motalioni	Last Again

Race

On the day of the race, there was clear frustration on the face of Micky Shoemaker. Amidst the furious rush to reach the circuit in time to record a lap, Shoemaker felt that he did not have enough time to cheat his way to the front. Nevertheless, there was great anticipation as the cars lined up on the grid for the first race of the season. As the lights went out to signal the start of race, not a single car moved for 30 seconds (in light of the timer’s time penalty the previous day). When they eventually got going, however, it was Numberone and Shoemaker who immediately stormed into a commanding lead, with Hikeynen not far behind. The obligatory first corner crash, this time caused by Damnation Hill’s terrible start, took Coulfard, Cello, Pennis, Worse, Sherbert and Hunt out of the race. Hill managed to carry on, but was black-flagged a lap later for sticking two fingers up to the race stewards, something every F1 driver has dreamed of doing.

By the ninth lap, Numberone and Shoemaker had built a comfortable gap from the rest of the field. They did this by throwing out the hotel pillows from the night before. Hikeynen grabbed some of them on the way past and was overjoyed that he finally had something different than the lump of metal the McLovin team had rested on the previous night. Not much happened after, apart from Dundas Fyke’s hilarious crash which also took out debuting backmarker Baadätturnen.

Brundlefly, hugely misjudging his speed through the second pit stop.

Following the first round of pit stops, Frankzen found himself in the lead briefly until he ran out of fuel, although the team described it as "an unknown lack of enginey-movey stuff" (served him right for not pitting). It was still Numberone 5 seconds ahead of Shoemaker, followed by Hardburger, Kick and a now relaxed Hikeynen. Then, on lap 28, the inevitable happened. Shoemaker, with a then illegal jet booster in place, ate into Numberone’s lead and flew past him on the Delboy straight, singeing him in the process. Despite a hard fought race, Numberone couldn’t get near him again.

Elsewhere, Pedro Dinners took an early second stop on lap 40 as he felt hungry. It was a relatively slow stop, which saw the pit crew take 25.6 seconds to order a pizza, partly due to a busy telephone line. Martin Brundlefly, unusually, came into the pits backwards after being shunted off there by the perennially slow Intheway, who had been lapped 12 times at this point. When second placed Numberone pitted, he had a jet booster hastily fitted to his car in a last ditch attempt to catch Shoemaker by the end of the race. This initially left him two laps down, but it paid dividends as he made up 20 seconds in a single lap, easily overtaking Pist’s Shinya Nakano (not to be confused with MotoGP rider Shinji Nakano).

On lap 54, En Jin Failure retired with, surprise surprise, an engine blow-out. The Alsö Rann team were very disappointed as he was on course for sixth place and a point. Alas, his unbroken streak of retirements was set to continue.

Shoemaker, overjoyed at his first win of the season.

Finally, four laps from the finish, Numberone had made it back up into second place, though by that time Shoemaker had made up roughly the same amount of time so it didn’t matter anyway. As the chequered flag dropped, it was a predictable win for Shoemaker, three laps ahead of the whole field, but a stunning comeback effort from Numberone to take a well deserved second place. Sid Kick rounded off the podium an even more distant third. Hikeynen, Hardburger and Brundlefly picked up the last of the points. Just as well, carelessly discarded on the road like that. If one of those things punctured a tyre, someone could have been hurt.

In a post race interview, an ash-covered Numberone told the press “I need a shower, bugger off.” Shoemaker was quoted as saying “For sure, I won again. So what? It happens all the time these days.” When asked about the jet booster feature on his Fererro Rocher, he answered “For sure, since only we are rich and powerful enough to run with the illegal I mean legal, yes, legal boosting device, we will win easy. No problem, another championship. Woo hoo.” Shoemaker was allegedly seen to backhand a sizeable wad of the local currency to an FIA official during this interview.

Determined to prove they weren’t corrupt, the FIA banned Miriam’s and all other teams from using jet booster devices on their cars, with the exception of Fererro Rocher. So began the road to another controversial year in Formula One racing.

Race Results

Pos	Driver	Nation	Team	Time	Points
1	Micky Shoemaker	DEU	Ferrero Rocher	1:13:13.013	10 (1295)
2	Williams Numberone	CAN	Miriam’s-Cosworth	+3 laps	6
3	Sid Kick	USA	Ferrero Rocher	+4 laps	4
4	Mikey Hikeynen	FIN	McLovin-McRenault	+4 laps	3
5	Gay Hardburger	AUT	Benderson	+4 laps	2
6	Martin Brundlefly	BBC	Jobbin	+4 laps	1
7	Hans Offmeinachers	GMY	Jobbin	+4 laps
8	???	???	Souther-Petronas	+4 laps
9	Pedro Dinners	BRA	Afros	+4 laps
10	Shinya Nakano	JAP	Pist-Mugen	+5 laps
11	Taki Intheway	ZZZ	Minsella Motalioni	Not Really Classifiable
	En Jin Failure	JPN	Alsö Rann	Not Classified
	Heinz Beanz-Frankzen	GER	Miriam’s-Cosworth	Not Classified
	Verri Baadätturnen	FND	Alsö Rann	Not Classified
	Dundas Fyke	IRE	Minsella Motalioni	Not Classified
	David Coulfard	UK	McLovin-McRenault	First Corner Crash
	Barry Cello	USB	Stewpid	First Corner Crash
	Oliver Pennis	FRA	Pist-Mugen	First Corner Crash
	Alex Worse	EUR	Benderson	First Corner Crash
	Johnny Sherbert	ENG	Souther-Petronas	First Corner Crash
	Mike Hunt	AME	Stewpid	First Corner Crash
	Damnation Hill	GBR	Afros	Disqualified