F1 Championships: Runners-Up of the 1990s Quiz

Answer: Alain Prost

In 1990, F1 rivals Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost (who were both previous champions) went into the penultimate race of the season at Japan's Suzuka circuit separated by nine points, with nine points also available for the winner. Senna was the championship leader and qualified for the race on pole position. However, outraged by a decision to put the pole position grid slot on the 'wrong' side of the grid that gave second-placed Prost the racing line for the start of the grand prix, Senna deliberately crashed into Prost's Ferrari at the first corner and took both Prost and himself out of the race.

Senna's actions secured him his second F1 world title and relegated Prost to the runners-up position. Although the gap between them remained at nine points, with nine still available at the season-ending Australian Grand Prix, the scoring system in place meant that each driver could only count their 11 best results towards their final total. Since Prost's total already included 11 points-scoring finishes, even a win at the final race couldn't bring him level on points as he would have had to drop another of his results in the process.

Answer: Nigel Mansell

British driver Nigel Mansell had twice come close to clinching a F1 world drivers' championship title with the Williams team in the mid-1980s but then left the team to compete for Ferrari (with even less success). He returned to Williams at the start of the 1991 season and won a total of five grands prix on his way to a final points tally of 72. Sadly for him, Ayrton Senna and McLaren accumulated a total of seven victories and beat Mansell by a margin of 24 points. It wasn't exactly a close result and the championship was decided at the penultimate race in Japan when Mansell spun out of the grand prix while desperately trying to force Senna into making a mistake.

Other factors that contributed to Mansell's failure to secure the title were the three straight retirements he suffered in the first three races of the season (thanks to two gearbox failures and a first-lap crash), as well as disqualification from the Portuguese Grand Prix after a wheel fell off his car in the pit lane.

Answer: Riccardo Patrese

Riccardo Patrese made his F1 debut for the Shadow team at the 1977 Monaco Grand Prix, while his last race was the 1993 Australian Grand Prix. In that time he recorded a total of six grand prix victories and 31 other podium finishes. He finished third in the world championship in 1989 and 1991 and bettered that by one position in 1992 when the Williams team produced a dominant car for him and his team-mate, Nigel Mansell. In 1992 he stood on the second step of the podium six times, but on all six of those occasions he had finished behind his team-mate. He only won one race, the Japanese Grand Prix, when his team-mate's car suffered an engine failure.

Overall, the five seasons he spent with Williams between 1988 and 1992 were by far the most successful of his career, although he had achieved a couple of wins with the Brabham team in the early 1980s.

Answer: Ayrton Senna

The 1993 season proved to be a continuation of the previous year in terms of the domination of the Williams team. However, on this occasion McLaren's Ayrton Senna was able to outscore Williams' less experienced driver Damon Hill to claim the runner-up spot, while his arch-enemy Alain Prost drove away with the title. Prost had taken pole position at 13 of the first 15 races of the season and Hill had claimed the two that Prost missed out on. Senna claimed pole at the season-ending Australian Grand Prix with an inspired lap that was nearly half-a-second faster than Prost's to not only scupper Williams' attempt to take pole at every race of the season, but also put an end to their run of 24 straight pole positions.

Senna took all five of McLaren's victories in 1993, while his main team-mate, Michael Andretti, managed a single third place finish and scored only seven points in total. Senna's race victory in Australia also proved to be the last win of his illustrious career, as he was killed at the third race of the following season.

Answer: Damon Hill

The controversial collision in question took place on lap 35 of the Australian Grand Prix. Championship leader Michael Schumacher hit one of the walls lining the edges of the Adelaide Street Circuit, which gave his nearest challenger, Damon Hill, an opportunity to overtake him at the next corner. If Hill had been successful then he would have been on course to win the world championship title himself, but Schumacher turned in on him and the two cars collided. Schumacher was forced to retire his Benetton on the spot, while Hill was able to nurse his Williams back to the pits.

However, the damage proved irreparable and Hill's retirement meant that Schumacher was crowned champion. Despite many people in the sport laying the blame for the accident on Schumacher, it was officially judged to be a racing incident.

However, the incident led to Schumacher becoming pretty unpopular with British F1 fans.

Answer: Damon Hill

In 1995 the Benetton team fielded the defending world champion Michael Schumacher of Germany and Britain's Johnny Herbert, while Williams had an all-British line-up consisting of the 'defending' runner-up Damon Hill and David Coulthard. While the final result proved to be the same as the previous season when Damon Hill finished as runner-up to Michael Schumacher, it was not as close a competition and Schumacher retained his title by 102 points to 69. Coulthard finished third with 49 points and Herbert fourth with 45. All four drivers won at least one race and the only non-Benetton or Williams driver to stand on the top step of the podium was Ferrari's Jean Alesi at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Hill's second championship challenge was effectively ruined by a total of seven race retirements caused by a mix of problems with mechanical reliability and driver errors.

Answer: Jacques Villeneuve

Jacques Villeneuve joined the Williams F1 team at the start of the 1996 season as the reigning CART champion and an Indy 500 winner, so he wasn't your typical F1 rookie driver. He took pole position for his debut race at the Australian Grand Prix before finishing in second place, behind his team-mate Damon Hill. His first F1 win followed three races later when the Nürburgring hosted the European Grand Prix. Hill and Villeneuve closely contested the 1996 world championship, which was finally decided in Hill's favour at the last race of the season in Japan. Villeneuve at least had the consolation of the knowledge that he would be able to try again for Williams the following year; Hill - despite his championship victory - was dropped by the team and forced to drive for the back-of-the-grid Arrows outfit in 1997.

Although Jacques Villeneuve was a F1 rookie in 1997, the Villeneuve name had historic importance in the sport. Jacques' father, Gilles Villeneuve, showed amazing natural driving talent to win six grands prix for Ferrari between 1978 and his death in qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix.

Answer: Heinz-Harald Frentzen

The 1997 world championship was decided at the last race of the season, the European Grand Prix held at Jerez in Spain. The two protagonists were Ferrari's Michael Schumacher and Williams' Jacques Villeneuve, who came into the race separated by a single point (in Schumacher's favour). Schumacher led for most of the race, but on lap 48 Villeneuve closed in and moved to overtake him. Schumacher, in what was later judged to be a deliberate attempt to take Villeneuve out, turned in on the Williams and hit the side of the car with his right-front wheel. Unfortunately for Schumacher, his car was disabled by the accident while Villeneuve was able to continue to finish in third place and claim the title. Schumacher's actions were later punished by disqualification from the world championship standings.

As a result, the runners-up spot was inherited by Heinz-Harald Frentzen, who finished the season with almost half the number of points scored by his team-mate Villeneuve. He had managed only one victory in the whole year - the San Marino Grand Prix, which was also his maiden win - while Villeneuve had racked up a total of seven.

Answer: Michael Schumacher

The start of the 1998 season was dominated by the McLaren team, whose two drivers, Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard, lapped the entire field at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. However, Ferrari and their double world champion Michael Schumacher made a comeback mid-season to record six wins and mount a championship challenge to Hakkinen. However, Hakkinen led the world championship from start to finish and finally secured his first world championship title by winning the last two races of the season. Schumacher also secured his first 'runner-up' title after having been disqualified from the position the previous year.

Michael Schumacher's F1 career carried on until 2012 (although he initially retired in 2006 before making a comeback in 2010) and in total he secured seven world championship titles and 91 race victories.

Answer: Eddie Irvine

The Ferrari team's driver line-up in 1999 was Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine, with Irvine being very much the team's 'number two'. Although the team secured the constructors' title for the first time since 1983, they were unable to claim the drivers' championship, which instead went to McLaren's Mika Hakkinen. One key factor in this loss was the accident suffered by Michael Schumacher when his brakes failed shortly after the start of the British Grand Prix. His Ferrari careered off the track into the safety barriers and Schumacher, who had been sitting in second position in the championship battle, suffered a broken leg. Eddie Irvine was promoted to lead Ferrari driver in Schumacher's absence, won three races and was the championship leader going into the final grand prix of the season in Japan. However, he was only able to finish third in that race, while Hakkinen claimed victory to take the title.

Irvine left the Ferrari team for Jaguar at the end of the season and spent three further years in F1, but with little success. The four wins he claimed during his ten years in the sport all came in 1999.