1991 United States Grand Prix
The Grand Prix of USA 1991 was held on 10 March in Phoenix and was the first race of the Formula 1 season 1991.
- 3.1 qualifying
- 3.2 race
- 4.1 Drivers' Championship
- 4.2 Constructors' Championship
Reports
Background
For the third time the Grand Prix of the United States was held on the street circuit in Phoenix for the second time in a row as the season opener. Compared to the previous two years the route was changed in its eastern portion and thereby shortened by a few meters.
The Teams McLaren, Benetton, Footwork, Leyton House, Minardi and Larrousse retained their respective driver pairings of the previous year. Changes were, however, partly in the field of engines. Thus, a twelve-cylinder engine was used instead of the V10 aggregate of the previous year at McLaren - Honda from now on. Arrows moved into its new V12 engines from Porsche, Ferrari and Minardi received support from Leyton House was equipped by Ilmor.
Jean Alesi moved from Tyrrell to Scuderia Ferrari, where he replaced Nigel Mansell, who contrary to his 1990 expressed during the Grand Prix of Great Britain Announcement has not ended his career, however, but returned to Williams, where he replaced Thierry Boutsen, who moved to Ligier and there teammate of debutants Érik Comas was. Alesis place in the Team Tyrrell which both the new main sponsors Brown and Epson and Honda could show as a new engine supplier, Stefano Modena took, the former cockpit was occupied at the financially stricken Brabham team with the returning to F1 Martin Brundle. His teammate was the newcomer Mark Blundell. For the Team Lotus debutant Mika Hakkinen went to the start and Julian Bailey, who returned to Formula 1 after a two year break.
The former Osella team was continued with the label Fondmetal. Olivier Grouillard was retained as a regular driver. Completely new in the message list were the sponsored by 7Up Team Jordan Grand Prix with Bertrand Gachot and Andrea de Cesaris as well as the drivers of Lamborghini Compatible with Nicola Larini Modena team and the freshman Eric van de Poele. Due to financial difficulties in AGS, efforts were made to merge the team with Larrousse, but this was not implemented. For AGS started Gabriele Tarquini and Stefan Johansson. Coloni went with the debutants Pedro Chaves at the start, BMS Scuderia Italia with Emanuele Pirro and JJ Lehto.
Most teams started with newly developed car in the new season. Few competed with only modified cars from last year.
Training
Since 34 vehicles were registered for the race weekend, as well as with most Grand Prix the previous two years had to be carried out on Friday morning, a pre-qualification. The four slowest pilots were identified, which were excluded from the remainder of the weekend. In addition to the new Team Jordan Modena and the driver of BMS, Coloni and Fondmetal had to attend.
The reigning world champion Ayrton Senna qualified on pole position in front of Vice World Champion Alain Prost, and the two Williams FW14 by Riccardo Patrese and Nigel Mansell. This was followed by Nelson Piquet before Jean Alesi, Gerhard Berger and Roberto Moreno.
Race
Senna reached an unchallenged start - to-finish victory. Prost followed him up to the 45th round in second place, but then fell as a result of pit stops back to seventh place. By the 70th round he came back up to second place forward and defended this against Piquet, who completed the race on Pirelli tires without intermediate exchange. Using a similar strategy, the two Tyrrell pilots Stefano Modena and Satoru Nakajima reached the positions four and five to Aguri Suzuki, who won the last point of the day. Unlike last year, Lola was included in the World Constructors' Championship, and was therefore assigned a point, although it is still concerned about a customer's vehicle for the team Larrousse.
According to the rule that a race could only take a maximum of two hours took the checkered flag after 81 of 82 scheduled rounds.
Message list
Classifications
Qualifying
Race
WM stands after the race
The first six of the race were 10, 6, 4, 3, 2 and 1 point (s).