F1 - Gerhard Berger - Flat out at Imola, 1995

[Seiryuto]

the 412T2 was a beautiful car

[jonesyfan1980]

Great stuff! I was lucky enough to see and more importantly hear the 412T2 at Silverstone that year. You could hear it from the other side of the circuit and it sounded like nothing else. Wonderful!

Hmm, the '95 Ferrari was a bit of alright wasn't it? It wasn't just Schumi's arrival which brought Ferrari back to winning. John Barnard was already there and Jean & Gerhard drove the wheels off that thing.

[AlejjSi]

@jonesyfan1980 Well, Barnard was a bit of a problem and finally he was sacked at the beginning of 1997. He had his design center in britain and refused to work at Marranello. So most of the work on the 412T1 called the 412t1b was done by Gustav Brunner, so the car was faster towards the end of the season, when Berger dominated in Germany, than Alesi was on pole in Italy and Berger at estoril. He also could have won Australia if not for his own error.

[AlejjSi]

@jonesyfan1980 The 412t2 was good and the team lead in the championschip but not developed through the year, so it lacked performance in the last few races as both Berger and Alesi were to leave and particullary the relation between Alesi and Todt was really bad...

[mrfadec]

very quick Berger! just +0.008 of a second behind the pole sitter and with an inferior although gorgeous looking(the nicest ever) car!

[monkeydust1984]

@mrfadec The ferrari was a faster car than the Benetton that year, it was less reliable though.

[mrfadec]

@monkeydust1984 I do not agree with you... the Benetton was the faster car... It was Berger and Alesi who made the Ferrari 412T2 go that fast with there immense speed.esp Berger

[monkeydust1984]

@mrfadec Well a good barometer is both Berger and Alesi drove the 1995 Benetton in testing for 1996, Berger was miles off the pace of his Ferrari times in Portugal and Alesi could not drive the car for more than a lap without having massive accidents. Schumacher was doing lap records in this Ferrari in testing and was full of praise for its handling and huge engine power.

A good measure of the 1995 Benetton was Johnny Herbert. He got 2 lucky victories and qualified on average in 8th place.

[mrfadec]

@monkeydust1984 berger and alesi struggled to drive a car that was suited to schumacher's taste.thats the reason why! this applied especially to berger. in fact berger hated driving the benetton B196 and was the opposite to how he liked a car to handle. this obviously affected his times. the b 197 was better as benetton learned how to build a car around their drivers. in 1995 at ferrari berger was extremely fast as ferrari built the car around his driving style out qualifying alesi 12-5

[monkeydust1984]

@mrfadec Well I guess they must have lost that immense speed the following season when they were qualyfying the Benetton in 7th and 8th place.