1994 Japanese Grand Prix

Going into the race, Benetton driver Michael Schumacher led the Drivers' Championship with 86 points, five ahead of rival Damon Hill in the Williams on 81.[1] Schumacher felt he was "very confident" about the race,[2] and Hill similarly declared that he was "positive".[2]

There were several changes of driver for this race: Johnny Herbert moved from Ligier to Benetton after just one race for the French team, replacing Jos Verstappen. His place at Ligier was taken by Franck Lagorce. Eric Bernard lost his seat at Lotus to Mika Salo who had been racing in Japanese Formula 3000, and likewise Simtek hired Taki Inoue on a one-race deal, replacing Domenico Schiattarella. Finally JJ Lehto had returned to Sauber to replace Andrea de Cesaris after the Italian's sudden retirement from Formula One.

The race started in torrential rain, and as a result, several cars spun out of the race by aquaplaning, including Schumacher's team-mate Herbert on lap 4, Lagorce, the Minardis of Pierluigi Martini and Michele Alboreto, and all three Japanese drivers by the end of lap 3 (with both Ukyo Katayama and Hideki Noda being injured in separate crashes). Lehto also retired at the start with an engine failure. As did Gerhard Berger in the second Ferrari with battery problems by lap 11.

On lap 13, Gianni Morbidelli crashed his Footwork at one of the Esses at the first sector. Shortly afterwards, Martin Brundle spun his McLaren off the track and crashed at the same spot, and as he bounced off the tyre barriers, hit a track marshal who was moving Morbidelli's car off the gravel trap. The marshal suffered a broken leg, adding to the huge list of injuries of the 1994 season, and the race was immediately stopped, as both Brundle and Morbidelli were fortunately able to escape uninjured. Rubens Barrichello soon retired in the pits with transmission problems by lap 17, Blundell was also forced to retire from 10th position when his engine failed on lap 27, which ended an appalling weekend for Tyrrell.[3] This left 13 runners, and there were no further retirements for the remaining 23 laps.

As the rain eased, it was decided to run the remainder of the race, with around one hour to the time limit, on aggregate corrected time. Schumacher had been leading by 6.8 seconds when the red flag was shown, but Hill had a bigger lead (10.1 seconds) at the chequered flag, and thus took the win by 3.3 seconds on aggregate. This remains the last instance of aggregate race time being used in Formula One to determine the winner.[4]