I was googling for some info about Minardi, and I came across the book "Forza Minardi" in Google Books. As you can expect, it is a book about the history of the beloved Faenza team. Here you can read about the 1999 European GP: http://books.google.es/books?id=9WKmFIo ... &q&f=false
Notice when Badoer says: "I was fourth and, I have to say, with the wrong pit stop, otherwise it would have been an even better result."
That comment about a wrong pit stop surprised me, because I didn't remember it. I checked Badoer's biography in the main site and it isn't reported. At first I thought Luca was probably mixing things belonging to another race, but just in case, I decided to have a look at that day's pitstops from FORIX. I was stunned to find this:
Yes. Badoer was running 4th that day in spite of having lost almost half a minute (in relation to his teammate) during his pitstop. I still couldn't believe it, so I went to check the race order from the lap before his pitstop. In lap 34, Badoer had been running 7th, just 3.5 seconds behind Trulli (who eventually finished 2nd). After both of them pitted, in lap 35 (Jarno, who had previously made one pit stop, to switch to wet tyres; Luca, who was yet to pit and was running out of fuel, made his first and only stop and continued on dry tyres). The following lap, Badoer was already lapped, and we can't directly compare his and Trulli's gaps to the leader, but we have their respective total race times for that lap: Trulli's was 56'44.163 while Badoer's was 57'22.262 (I can take screenshots, it's just that I don't want to post too many of them). That is, Trulli's gap to Badoer increased from 3.5 to 38 seconds, which is coherent with their reported pitstops times (with a small increase probably due to the fact that the track was slippery and Trulli's wet tyres provided for better grip).
From that point on, Badoer, who was now running in 10th place, showed excellent pace on dry tyres over the slippery surface. Between laps 37 and 40, his gap to Häkkinen increased (!) from 6.6 to 23.2 seconds (!!!), to Panis from 15.6 to 25.3... He was also lapping faster than Gené in the sister car, also on dry tyres: a mere 4 seconds a lap (!!!), so that by lap 42 he was again ahead of his teammate. This unbelievable pace explains how he was able to make such a big jump forward in spite of his botched pitstop, the reasons of which we sadly don't know.
A few laps later, he manages to unlap himself (after a Ralf Schumacher pitstop) and he goes faster than the race leader, Fisichella, from lap 45 to 48, reducing his gap from 1'21.360 to 1'17.176, that is, well over a second per lap. The thing is, Fisichella was going quite faster than those behind him! Then, Badoer crosses the line for the final time at the end of lap 53, and the standings are:
And this means what you think it means. If not for the problem in the pitstop, Luca Badoer would probably had been running second at the time of his retirement. In fact, I would say that it's perfectly possible that the long pitstop time had an impact in the internals of his car and that, had he enjoyed a normal pitstop, the failure would have never happened and we would have had a Minardi in the podium.
And you thought Luca Badoer was unlucky...?
!
Sponsors, money, further development, championships??? Who knows? If anything, a better career for Badoer? We shall never know.
