Benetton Formula, a Formula One constructor which became Renault F1 in 2002
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Benetton retained Alessandro Nannini and replaced Thierry Boutsen with British rookie Johnny Herbert who was eventually replaced by McLaren test driver Emanuele Pirro (Herbert had not fully healed from his 1988 Formula 3000 crash at Brands Hatch and needed more recovery time).
Elsewhere Tom Walkinshaw had bought a 35% stake in the Benetton team, but the driver line-ups were unchanged from the previous race.
Opel Team BSR driver Nick Heidfeld won the championship title after a title battle with Benetton RTL Junior's Timo Scheider.
The next round was in Italy, the first race after the September 11 attacks and before the race Michael Schumacher wanted all the drivers to go slowly at the first corner, due to 9/11 and a horrific accident in ChampCar the day before in which former F1 driver Alex Zanardi suffered serious injuries but this plan did not work out because Jacques Villeneuve and Benetton boss Flavio Briatore did not accept it.
Despite his friendship and good past working relationship with Prost at McLaren, Barnard opted to leave the Maranello based team and join Benetton, seeking a new challenge, and relishing working again for a team based in England where he wouldn't be subject to the Italian press, where failures with his ideas (such as the numerous failures during testing of the semi-automatic gearbox throughout 1988), often made headlines despite being minor in nature.