Welcome to another week of TheJudge13 #F1 Bar Exam.

This week’s question(s): Can you name the driver, car and race at which the photo was taken.

The answer(s) I was looking for were: The driver in the photo is Ricardo Rosset driving the Tyrrell Ford 026 F1 at the 1998 British GP held at Silverstone.

1998 was Tyrrell’s last year in Formula One.  Even before the first race Ken Tyrrell had sold the team to British American Tobacco.  New team manager, Craig Pollock, chose Brazilian driver Ricardo Rosset to be Tora Takagi’s teammate.  Tyrrell had wanted to hire Jos Verstappen instead and he quit the team when Rosset was hired.

Ricardo Rosset was a Brazilian driver who was heir to a successful female underwear and bikini business which gave him plenty of money to fund his Formula 1 undertaking.  However, he’d had significant success prior to F1 in International Formula 3000 qualifying on pole and winning his first race (becoming the first ever to win on his F3000 debut) and eventually finishing second in the championship.

Even though he looked like he had real talent it was his money that was his major attraction in Formula One.  In his first season in 1996, driving for Arrows, he was consistently out-paced by his teammate Jos Verstappen. The cash-strapped team did very little testing and put no further money or development into the car.

In 1997 Rosset got a drive for Lola who was woefully under-prepared for the season.  Their cars had never even seen a wind-tunnel and they only competed at the first race in Melbourne (where they were 12 seconds behind pole and failed to qualify under the 107% rule) before quitting for the rest of the season.

He managed to get back into Formula 1 in 1998 driving for Tyrrell (although the team had already been sold and would become BAR the following year) as his superior sponsorship money was essential in balancing the team’s budget.  They scored no points over the 1998 season and their best finish was a 8^th by Rosset in Canada. This was Rosset’s last season in Formula One. He failed to qualify under the 107% rule five times that season, the only driver to do so.

Prior to Tarso Marque’s DNQ at the British GP in 2001 he was the last driver to DNQ because of the 107% qualifying rule.

Murray Walker and Martin Brundle, on discussing Rosset’s place in F1:

Murray –  “A lot of people here are really debating whether Ricardo Rosset is Formula One material.”

Brundle – “Well, it’s a fairly short debate, Murray.”

After Formula One Rosset returned to racing in the 2009 Brazilian GT3 Championship, partnering Brazilian Walter Salles.  At the end of the season they had won four times and were second in the overall standings.

BAR team manager Craig Pollock worked as a teacher and was director of sport at the College Beausoleil in Switzerland where he became friends with a young Jacque Villeneuve who had been sent to the school following the death of his father.   In 1993 Villeneuve asked Pollock to become his manager.  Villeneuve got a F1 drive with Williams in 1996.

In 1998 Craig Pollock persuaded British American Tobacco boss Tom Moser to bankroll a F1 team and he bought Tyrrell Racing for 26 million dollars.  In 1999 Tyrell became BAR and they signed up Villeneuve for their debut season.  Their world champion driver only managed to finish four races for the season with a best place finish of 8^th – only marginally better than Rosset had managed the season before…

The picture is from the practice for the 1998 British Grand Prix which is infamous for Schumacher winning the race from pit lane after being given a stop-go penalty on lap 59 for overtaking Alexander Wurz before the start/finish line when the safety car came in.  When Schumacher stopped for his penalty at the end of the last lap he passed the finish line in the pit lane on the way to his pit box to win the race.

This penalty was controversial as it took 31 minutes after the incident for the penalty to be issued – according to the rules penalties must be issued within 25 minutes of the incident. There is also a rule that stop-go penalties cannot be issued in the last 12 laps of the race.  Ferrari was confused as to if it was a ten second stop-go penalty or if ten seconds would be added to Schumacher’s race time.

It did take some time for the decision to be made as to whether Schumacher or Hakkinen had won the race. The penalty was later rescinded because it was judged to be a steward error and Schumacher was allowed to keep the controversial win.  McLaren lodged a protest which was rejected but three race stewards had their licenses revoked!

Rosset had spun into the gravel on lap 30 for one of his many DNF’s that season.

Well done to Taflach, the13thduke, Johnny, Tony, Milestone11, Frans, Emil, Cassius42, Jim, Devon, Thomas888, Sid, Matt, Tim, Alan, Reinis and Philip.

This week’s question(s): Can you name the driver, team and race in the photo. Where did the driver finish in said race?

Please provide your answers in the field below: