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REPORT

This was Michael Schumacher's championship winning 1994 Benetton F1 car - chassis no. B194-001: the first chassis built that year and primarily used for testing.  Not in it's usual livery: its current paint scheme is broadly based on the 1995 Mild Seven livery with sponsors logos associated with the car's current owner. It still looked fantastic though.

The car ran its original 3.5 litre Ford HP engine producing just under 750bhp.

Driving any original F1 car is a challenge and this was made all the more demanding by the installation of a manual shift system (to reduce complexity and improve reliability) as distinct from the original hydraulic paddle-shift system with automatic ‘blipping’ on down-changes. Nevertheless there was a big reduction in lap times from the first untimed practice on the Saturday morning to the last session, the race itself, on Sunday afternoon.

Peter did some work on his neck prior to the weekend, but still struggled to keep his neck upright, particularly on the fast, 140mph downhill, double apex, Pouhon corner and the 175mph left hander at Blanchimont as his speed built up. An F1 car will reach 100mph and back to a standstill in about 4 seconds. The car can produce up to 5G under braking and 4G on cornering.

Peter started the weekend on late 2 minute laps, and ended up with a 2:11.30 which was the fourth fastest lap time in the race itself. The best onboard video we have from the third session shows a laptime of around 2.16. Unfortunately no in-car video was recorded in the final session owing to excess vibration.

 Serverware Group would like to thank the many customers who made the journey out to Spa to support the team over the weekend. Your enthusiasm was much appreciated.

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