Estoril testing notes 96-02-13

February 13, 1996 - Damon Hill slid off the rain-soaked Estoril track today during testing when the brakes on his Wil- liams-Renault failed. The car skidded off and into trackside gravel but Hill wasn't injured. The off-track excursion came a day after the Williams-Renault team unveiled the FW18, the car Frank Williams hopes will take Hill to his first F1 World Driving Championship. After going off the track, Hill completed a total of 30 laps with a best time of 1:36.53 on the 4.360-kilometre, Lisbon-area track. Constant showers cut the session short for the three teams - Williams, McLaren and Benetton - now testing at the circuit. Alain Prost, the four-times world driving champion and now McLaren-Mercedes technical adviser only managed four laps in the morning. Driving the new MP4/11 unveiled last Sunday, his top time was 1:42:18 Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger, the Benetton-Renault drivers lapped briefly in the morning without posting times.

MC --- þ 1st 1.11 #8604 þ Indian Snow: Apache here and Apache there.