Your classic grand prix - race 19

The 1993 Portuguese Grand Prix is our chosen race for the final edition of our classic Formula 1 series this year.

That means we will broadcast the full 'Grand Prix' highlights programme shown on BBC Two at the time, as well as the shorter highlights edit that we have cut for all our choices.

That 'Grand Prix' programme is embedded below, with the shorter highlights clips linked underneath. There are also short and long versions of last year's inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

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Watch short highlights of the 1979 US Grand Prix East
Watch short highlights of the 1988 Portuguese Grand Prix
Watch short highlights of the 1991 Mexican Grand Prix
Watch short highlights of the 1993 Portuguese Grand Prix
Watch short highlights of the 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
Watch long highlights of the 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

The classic races will be available on the BBC red button in the UK on satellite and cable from 2200 GMT on Wednesday 10 November until 1300 GMT on Friday 12 November. On Freeview, they will be available between first and second practice on Friday (approximately 1040-1240 GMT).

The 1993 Portuguese Grand Prix is a fascinating race, not only for the action on the track, but also for the fact that it has something of a fin de si�cle feeling about it.

It was an event that, in hindsight, seems to encapsulate the passing of the torch from one generation to the next.

It was the race at which the great Alain Prost clinched his fourth, and final, world championship title, and at which he announced his retirement, not willing to go toe-to-toe again with Ayrton Senna, who had signed to drive in 1994 for Williams, where Prost drove in 1993.

The Frenchman won the title by finishing second to an emerging star called Michael Schumacher. The German's Benetton was slower than Prost's Williams but Schumacher defended his lead with all the lack of compromise for which he was to become notorious in future years.

Meanwhile, McLaren gave a debut to another promising talent, a certain Mika Hakkinen.

The Finn would go on to win two world titles in 1998 and 1999, becoming the man to push Schumacher hardest until the emergence of Fernando Alonso, but was, at this stage of his career, McLaren's test driver.

Hakkinen had driven for struggling Lotus in 1991-2, but moved to McLaren in a downgraded role in 1993 on the promise of being given a chance to race at some stage.

That chance came in Portugal, after team boss Ron Dennis had grown frustrated by the continuing struggles of Michael Andretti.

Hakkinen wowed F1 by outqualifying Senna on his debut. The great Brazilian was very far from amused.

Senna wasted no time in dispensing with Hakkinen in the race, but the Finn had made his point - this was a special talent awaiting the chance to blossom.

So, it is a superb race, laden with symbolism.

As I explained in my blog on Tuesday, though, all the choices this time were great in their own way.

There was a victory by the incomparable Gilles Villeneuve at Watkins Glen in 1979, his final win in a year that established him as the finest driver in the world, following a battle with Alan Jones of Williams, whose race ended when he accelerated away from a tyre stop too soon and he lost a wheel.

And in Portugal in 1988, there is one of the defining episodes in the bitter battle between Prost and Senna, when Senna pushed Prost so close to the pit wall in trying to defend the lead that those holding signalling boards had to move them out of the way.

Finally, there is a fight between team-mates in a great car, with Riccardo Patrese getting the better of Williams team-mate Nigel Mansell in the 1991 Mexican Grand Prix despite the Italian suffering from a stomach upset.

I hope you enjoy them.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2010/11/your_classic_grand_prix_-_race_6.html

Paul Belmondo Tom Belso JeanPierre Beltoise Olivier Beretta Allen Berg