The 1994 season is for several reasons one many will not forget. Besides the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger, there were a lot of bizarre crashes and incidents during the season. It felt like that season went spiral and out of control. The FIA came with ad-hoc solutions to slow down the cars and on the track itself, the drivers seemed to get mental as well. During the British and German Grand Prix, five drivers were suspended for one race!
As said, the 1994 season was an insane and interesting year. The beginning of the professionalization of the sport I think. The feeling has never left me that everything went out of control in 1994. While I am a Schumi fan, the action he did on Hill at Adelaide was far from correct; he would do a similar thing in Monaco 2006 during the qualifying session. As well, the many crashes that happened during the season and all the controversy makes it a strange season. Ibrar Malik wrote a complete book about it. While his website is not online anymore, he published all his blogs also on UnracedF1.
The first ban was given to Eddie Irvine during the Grand Prix at Brazil where he collided with Jos Verstappen, resulting in a massive crash for Verstappen. Originally, Irvine was given a one-race ban. However, this was set to three races after an appeal.
Schumacher deserves a chapter on its own during the season. While I have always been a massive fan of Michael Schumacher, the actions he did in 1994 are questionable to say at least. During the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, where he finished second, he saw his podium finish disappearing as the six points he scored. During the warm-up lap, he overtook Damon Hill twice. According to the rules, this is not done. That same race the team ignored the time penalty given to Schumacher and for ignoring the black flag; he was suspended for two races. Due to an appeal from Benetton Schumacher was allowed to continue racing.
Then there was also the action from Schumacher on Damon Hill during the Australian Grand Prix at Adelaide. Where he “launched” the Williams from Hill and let both drivers crash. Both drivers retired in lap 35, therefore Schumacher became the World Champion in 1994.
During the German Grand Prix Mika Häkkinen received a one-race ban after his crash at the start of the race. At the first corner, Mika and David tangled into each other, which resulted in Mika crashing his McLaren in the wall just in front of a number of other F1 cars. Somehow, the clerk did not show the red flag. At first, also Andrea de Cesaris, Michele Alboreto and Alessandro Zanardi received even a three race ban after all three left the circuit while they were still under investigation. The same penalty was also given to Rubens and Mika at Silverstone. Eventually, these penalties were not implemented there for the drivers were not suspended. During the German Grand Prix, eleven drivers retired.
