1998 Formula One World Championship (Alt)

This is a fictional account of an alternative version of the 1998 F1 season. For the real 1998 season, see the 1998 Formula One World Championship

The **1998 FIA Formula One World Championship** was the 52nd season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1998 Formula One World Championship for Drivers and the 1998 Formula One World Championship for Constructors, which were contested concurrently over a sixteen-race series that commenced on 8 March and ended on 1 November. Finland's Mika Häkkinen won his first Drivers' Championship, and McLaren-Mercedes won the Constructors' Championship, the first for the McLaren team since 1991.

The season saw a large shuffling of the pecking order, with McLaren-Mercedes emerging as the fastest constructor. Häkkinen won four of the first six races to establish a clear lead in the Drivers' Championship, but a strong mid-season resurgence from Michael Schumacher and Ferrari, including five wins, put the German driver level on points with Häkkinen with two races remaining. Häkkinen then won the Luxembourg Grand Prix from Schumacher to take a four-point lead into the season finale in Japan. There, Schumacher took pole position only to stall on the grid and then suffer a puncture, leaving Häkkinen to win the race and the championship. Even so, Häkkinen would have won on countback through more second places had Schumacher won the race assuming the Finn had finished second. Häkkinen's teammate David Coulthard finished third overall with Schumacher's teammate Eddie Irvine fourth, while McLaren's final margin over Ferrari in the Constructors' Championship was 23 points.

With the factory withdrawal of Renault and the departure of designer Adrian Newey to McLaren, the Williams team and Ayrton Senna were unable to defend their respective championships. Williams ultimately suffered their first winless season since 1988, though they still finished third in the Constructors' Championship. The Benetton team also failed to win a race in 1998, despite young Italian Giancarlo Fisichella showing promise. Jordan, led by former champion Damon Hill, failed to score a point in the first half of the season, but a strong resurgence in the second half - including Hill taking the team's first F1 victory in wet conditions in Belgium with teammate Ralf Schumacher second - enabled them to finish fourth in the Constructors' Championship. 1998 was also the final season for the former champion Tyrrell team, following its sale by Ken Tyrrell to British American Tobacco.

## Teams and drivers

The following teams and drivers competed in the 1998 FIA Formula One World Championship.

**B** = Bridgestone, **G** = Goodyear

† All engines were 3.0 litre, V10 configuration.

## Off-season changes

**Williams: Renault -> Mecachrome, Benetton: Renault -> Playlife.** At the end of 1997, Renault withdrew as a direct engine supplier from Formula One. As a result, the two teams running Renault engines were forced to source alternative suppliers. Williams opted to run engines supplied by Mecachrome, who were working with Renault to develop the most recent iteration of their RS9 engine rebadged with the Mecachrome name. Benetton sourced a similar rebadged Renault engine from Playlife. Neither Williams nor Benetton were competitive to the same level as in previous seasons. Renault themselves would invest in Benetton for 2000, before buying the team outright in 2002. They would not supply engines to other competing teams again until 2007. The Prost and Jordan teams swapped their engine suppliers from 1997: Prost now used Peugeot, whilst Jordan used Mugen-Honda.

The 1998 season brought about two significant technical changes to reduce cornering speeds and aid overtaking. The first was the reduction of the cars' track, from 2,000 mm (6 ft 7 in) to 1,800 mm (5 ft 11 in), making them much narrower than in 1997; a previous reduction in track occurred in 1993, when the cars were reduced from 2,150 mm (7 ft 1 in) to 2,000 mm (6 ft 7 in). The second change was the introduction of grooved tyres to replace slicks (the last time Formula One featured grooved dry tyres was in 1970): the front tyres had three grooves, with four on the rear tyres. Grooved tyres would remain in Formula One until the reintroduction of slicks in 2009. For 1998, both McLaren and Benetton switched from Goodyear to Bridgestone tyres, as the Japanese manufacturer expanded to work with six of the eleven teams in their second year competing in the sport. This would result in the two teams who became principal championship protagonists working with different tyre manufacturers. The two top teams from 1997, Williams and Ferrari, opted to retain Goodyear tyres.

The "I"-shaped cameras mounted on top of the engine covers, seen on selected cars from 1995 to 1997, were made mandatory for each car in 1998, and changed to a more aerodynamic "T"-shaped camera; this design has remained largely unchanged since.

### Mid-season technical changes

"X wings", a pair of tall aerodynamic appendages mounted at the front of each sidepod and first seen on the Tyrrell 025 in 1997, were banned before the Spanish Grand Prix. The teams that used them in 1998 were Ferrari, Jordan, Prost, Sauber, and Tyrrell.

### Driver changes

Gerhard Berger retired at the end of 1997 after fourteen years in F1, leaving a vacant seat at Benetton. The team also opted not to renew Jean Alesi's contract, so the Frenchman signed a two-year deal to join Johnny Herbert at Sauber. As their replacements, Benetton signed Giancarlo Fisichella from Jordan, and Alexander Wurz, who had substituted for Berger for three races (including one podium finish) in 1997 when his fellow Austrian was ill.

Jordan replaced Fisichella by signing 1996 World Champion Damon Hill from Arrows to partner Ralf Schumacher. To fill his seat, Arrows secured the services of Tyrrell's Mika Salo alongside Pedro Diniz. Tyrrell also parted ways with Jos Verstappen in the off-season, despite Ken Tyrrell wanting him to stay. However, new owners British American Tobacco preferred to hire German Heinz-Harald Frentzen. They promoted test driver Toranosuke Takagi to fill the second seat. Verstappen returned to F1 midway through 1998 with Stewart, while Lola's other driver, Vincenzo Sospiri, instead found a home in the IndyCar Series.

Prost retained Olivier Panis, but dropped second driver Shinji Nakano and replaced him with Jarno Trulli. Trulli had started 1997 with Minardi but then substituted for Panis when he broke his leg at the Canadian Grand Prix. Meanwhile, Nakano joined Trulli's old team, Minardi, to replace his retiring countryman Ukyo Katayama. He was partnered by rookie Esteban Tuero, who was promoted from a testing role as he was preferred to the outgoing Tarso Marques. Marques would eventually return to F1 in 2001, also with Minardi.

Williams (Ayrton Senna and Jacques Villeneuve), Ferrari (Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine), McLaren (David Coulthard and Mika Häkkinen) and Stewart (Rubens Barrichello and Jan Magnussen) all retained their 1997 driver line-ups.

#### Mid-season driver changes

The only mid-season change was at Stewart. Jan Magnussen was dropped after the Canadian Grand Prix following a series of underwhelming performances (including crashing into and eliminating his teammate Rubens Barrichello on lap 1 at Imola) and replaced by Jos Verstappen, who had been out of a drive since leaving Tyrrell at the end of 1997.

## Results and standings

### Scoring system

Points were awarded to the top six finishers in each race as follows: