NewsOnF1 - 2001 Canadian GP

Ralf Schumacher wins the Canadian Grand Prix in stunning form over 20 seconds ahead of the Ferrari of his brother Michael and 40 seconds ahead of McLaren's Mika Hakkinen. Kimi Raikkonen in the Sauber finished 4th ahead of Jean Alesi in the Prost and Pedro de la Rosa in the Jaguar.

The superb skill of Ralf, the power and the efficiency of the BMW engine and the durability and grip of the harder compound Michelin tyres resulted in the stunning win.
Ralf started from second on the grid and retained his place at the start behind his brother Michael. David Coulthard kept his 3rd place however Rubens Barrichello starting from 5th managed to get ahead of Jarno Trulli.

Michael Schumacher started to build a gap to Ralf Schumacher in the first few laps while David Coulthard was clearly off the pace from the start and was losing around a second per lap to the front runners. On lap 3, Barrichello who appeared to be on a lighter fuel load passed Coulthard for 3rd.
Once the Michelin tyres on Ralf's car reached their optimum temperature, he started catching Michael Schumacher while Rubens Barrichello caught up with Ralf but made a mistake exiting a corner and spun rejoining in 14th place.

Ralf Schumacher continued his pressure on his brother closing the gap to under a second. Barrichello made up a few positions and was right behind Juan Pablo Montoya who on lap 19 hit the wall and retires. Barrichello trying to avoid him loses it and hit the wall too on the other side of the track forcing the safety car to come out.
The safety car forced field to close up allowing David Coulthard who was over 14 seconds behind the leader to close the gap but as soon as the safety car went back to the pits, the Schumacher brothers opened the gap back again with Michael also building a gap to his brother for the first few laps but Ralf catching him once his tyres were back at their optimum temperature.

Behind the leader, cars were dropping out with Fisichella retiring early after hitting the back of his team-mate's car, Irvine and Heidfeld retiring after Irvine tried to pass Heidfeld, Alonso and Button retiring with mechanical problems.

At the front Ralf Schumacher continued to put the pressure on his brother and made numerous attempts to pass him with no avail. David Coulthard was certainly struggling with his car in 3rd while Mika Hakkinen having cleared the cars ahead of his as they made their pit stops started to make a charge and caught David Coulthard just before Coulthard made his pit stop.

More cars retire with Bernoldi, Villeneuve and Panis all with mechanical problems

Michael Schumacher makes his pit stop on lap 46 and as expected Ralf stays out on the track and starts pushing as hard as he can putting one fastest lap after the other. When Ralf Schumacher finally pits on lap 52, he rejoins in the lead 4 seconds clear of Michael Schumacher. Michael fails to make an impression on Ralf as Ralf starts building his lead by over a second a lap. David Coulthard running in 4th retires with a massive engine failure, his first retirement of the season.

With Coulthard out of the race Trulli moved into 4th with Raikkonen in 5th and Alesi in 6th. Trulli started to have brake problems and was forced to retire (although he was classified as a finisher 6 laps down). This allowed Jos Verstappen to move up to 6th but he also retired as a result of fading brakes and spun and hit the wall handing 6th position to Jaguar's Pedro de la Rosa.

Ralf Schumacher went on to win the race 20 seconds clear of his brother while Mika Hakkinen finishes on the podium for the first time this year. The sensational Kimi Raikkonen finishes in 4th place ahead of Jean Alesi who was so happy that he was doing doughnuts on the parade lap, something that we don't see in Formula 1. Pedro de la Rosa finally finished a race and it was in the points in 6th place. Ricardo Zonta managed to finish in 7th place ahead of Luciano Burti and Tarso Marques.

McLaren were very ordinary here and it appears that David Coulthard had a problem with his front suspension resulting in his slow pace before retiring. If they continue this trend they won't have a chance of catching Ferrari. Even Ferrari will look at this Williams win as a big defeat as Michael wasn't even close to Ralf. The consolation for Ferrari is that McLaren are struggling even more and the chances of Williams catching them is slim although still possible.

6 different Constructors in the points, that is a great result!

Ralf Schumacher now has 22 points while his brother Michael Schumacher has 58 points and is 18 points ahead of David Coulthard who failed to score any points here. Rubens Barrichello is 3rd in the championship with 24 points.

Ferrari lead McLaren by 34 points (76 to 48) while Williams are third with 28 points.

In terms of achievements (or the lack of), this was Ralf's 2nd career win, Michael Schumacher's 7th appearance on the podium this season, Hakkinen's first appearance on the podium this season. Kimi Raikkonen equalled his best this season finishing 4th for the 2nd time.
Jean Alesi is now the only driver to have finished all the races so far this season, Pedro de la Rosa finally finished a race this season after 3 retirements and Juan Pablo Montoya has only managed to finish 1 race out of 8 so far.

Click here of the Drivers' Championship table for this season

Next stop is the European GP on the 24th of June.

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