1991: F1 caught short by the rain in Australia

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This day in 1991 saw the shortest race ever held in the Formula 1 world championship - just 24 and a half minutes in duration.

The Australian Grand Prix was the final event of the 16-race season. The drivers title had already been decided in Artyon Senna's favour, the McLaren driver holding a convincing advantage over Nigel Mansell as they headed to Adelaide. However McLaren and Williams were still in contention for the constructors championship.

Senna and his team mate Gerhard Berger locked out the front row of the grid on Saturday ahead of Mansell and his fellow Williams driver Ricardo Patrese. Missing from the grid was Alain Prost, who had been fired by Ferrari after the Japanese Grand Prix for criticising the Scuderia in public.

Practice and qualifying had taken place in dry, sunny and warm conditions. But race day proved dramatically different, with torrential rain falling during a touring car support event. The downpour didn't relent as the starting time arrived.

Problems for Patrese and Berger meant Mansell was up to second by lap 3, but there were so many yellow flags it was impossible for him to find a way past Senna for the lead. Benetton's Michael Schumacher, Ferrari's Jean Alesi, Ligier's Thierry Boutson, Modena's Nicola Larini and Minardi's Pierluigi Martini were among those to suffer race-ending spins and collisions in the first ten laps.

As conditions worsened, Mansell himself aquaplaned off into a wall on lap 16 having "instantly gone out of control", followed shortly after by Berger. Senna then appealed to the stewards from the cockpit to get the race stopped, and attempts to restart the event were unsuccessful in the face of serious protests from both Senna and Patrese.

The final race results were given as at the end of lap 14 instead of lap 15, which meant that Senna was declared the winner over Mansell and Berger. Mansell didn't appear on the podium as by this time he was en route to hospital.

"I've got a headache like there's no tomorrow, so I've probably had a little bit of a concussion," he said. "Everything was okay other than it was a complete joke. I mean, there was debris all over the place ... It was a wonder nobody was killed."

"I don’t think that was a race," agreed Senna in the post-race press conference. "It was just a matter of staying on the circuit. There was no point to try to go quick at all ... The event should never have been allowed to start."

As the race hadn't come close to completing three-quarters race distance, half points were awarded for the first time since the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix with McLaren winning their seventh team title - their last in partnership with engine partners Honda.

Aryton Senna and Ricardo Patrese earlier in the 1991 season. © F1-photo.com / Cahier Archive

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.