Story
09.03.1997
Australia
Melbourne
Mobil 1 secures its first win with McLaren Mercedes at the 1997 Australian Grand Prix, a race in which the team keeps its head while others are losing theirs.
After a winless streak stretching back some 50 races, everything clicks into place for McLaren Mercedes at the 1997 season-opening race in Australia. Polesitter Jacques Villeneueve of Williams is taken out at the first corner by Ferrari’s Eddie Irvine, before race leader, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, suffers a disastrous pit stop, leaving David Coulthard to take the chequered flag.
Frentzen’s Williams suffers brake problems early on in the race, which become critical after the German’s second pit stop. Delayed by a difficult right rear tyre in the pits, Frentzen has to push hard to catch up with leader Coulthard, which contributes to his faulty brake disc exploding.
Coulthard, starting fourth on the grid, only has to hold off Michael Schumacher to bring his car home in first place, but when the Ferrari driver is called into the pits for a quick splash-and-dash fuel stop, Coulthard is in the clear.
McLaren Mercedes’ one-stop strategy ultimately pays off, as team-mate Mika Hakkinen also makes it onto the podium in third. Coulthard’s tears of joy at the end of the race are a fitting testimony to the amount of hard work put in by McLaren Mercedes and its partners, and the relief that the team’s winless streak is finally over.
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