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GP - Race:
Ralf Schumacher wins his third race of the season ahead of Rubens Barrichello and Jacques Villeneuve. Giancarlo Fisichella, Jenson Button and Jean Alesi make the top 6. Panis, Bernoldi, Verstappen and Alonso are the only other finishers. 3rd win for Ralf, Williams only 10 points
behind McLaren! Lap 45: Final Lap! Lap 44: Ralf leads Rubens by 50 seconds heading into the final lap! Lap 43: Not quite!, Verstappen is trying to pass Bernoldi for 8th! Lap 43: 3 more laps. Apart from Alesi and Button, it appears that everyone just wants to finish this race where they are! Lap 42: Jean Alesi is under a second behind Button in 5th! Lap 41: Top 10 - R Schumacher, Barrichello, Villeneuve, Fisichella, Button, Alesi, Panis, Bernoldi, Verstappen and Alonso. Retirements: Heidfeld, de la Rosa, Zonta, Hakkinen, Raikkonen, Irvine, M Schumacher, Burti, Montoya, Coulthard, Marques and Trulli. Lap 40: Ralf gets a pit board sign saying "Oil Pump" Lap 39: The gap between Ralf and Rubens has settled to around 49 seconds. Villeneuve is 3rd 72 seconds behind. Lap 38: McLaren, Sauber, Jordan and Jaguar have failed to finish both of their cars! Lap 37: We have 4 Michelin runners in the top 6 with Ralf Schumacher in the lead. Excellent result for Michelin. Lap 36: Ralf Schumacher increasing the gap to Barrichello marginally while Jarno Trulli retires from 8th! Lap 35: The only 2 drivers close to each other are Villeneuve in 3rd and Fisichella in 4th with 3 seconds separating them. Lap 34: Ralf Schumacher now has a 47.7 seconds lead over Barrichello. He should take it easy! Lap 33: Barrichello pits. Fuel hose problem for him too!. 19.5 seconds and retains second place. Lap 32: Olivier Panis makes his 2nd pit stop. 8.4 seconds. His 2 stop strategy was not the right one. He rejoins in 7th place. Lap 31: A number of teams can score some points today as 4 of the top 6 cars are out of the race! Lap 31: Only 11 cars remaining. Ralf leads Barrichello by 11 seconds! Villeneuve is in 3rd over a minute behind Ralf! Lap 30: Top 10 - R Schumacher, Barrichello, Villeneuve, Fisichella, Panis, Alesi, Trulli, Button, Bernoldi and Verstappen. Retirements: Heidfeld, de la Rosa, Zonta, Hakkinen, Raikkonen, Irvine, M Schumacher, Burti, Montoya, Coulthard and Marques. Lap 29: Marques retires in the pits! Lap 29: Coulthard's championship chances were given a boost when Michael retired, now they are almost up in smoke! Lap 28: Coulthard pits and retires!! Engine failure! Lap 28: Top 10 - R Schumacher, Barrichello, Coulthard, Fisichella, Alesi, Villeneuve, Trulli, Panis, Button and Bernoldi. Retirements: Heidfeld, de la Rosa, Zonta, Hakkinen, Raikkonen, Irvine, M Schumacher, Burti and Montoya. Lap 27: Montoya retires with engine failure!! Lap 26: Luciano Burti goes off and retires. Button pits from 6th! Lap 26: Top 10 - R Schumacher, Barrichello, Montoya, Coulthard, Villeneuve, Button, Fisichella, Alesi, Trulli and Panis. Retirements: Heidfeld, de la Rosa, Zonta, Hakkinen, Raikkonen, Irvine and M Schumacher. Lap 25: Michael Schumacher retires. Ralf Schumacher pits. His pit stop is OK! Lap 25: Michael Schumacher slows and looks like he has a problem. Lap 24: Michael Schumacher pits (10.7 second stop) and rejoins behind Montoya! Lap 23: Montoya will probably lose the race because of this. Ralf takes the lead and Montoya rejoins in 4th! Lap 23: Montoya pits. Slow stop - fuel hose problem - 29 seconds! Lap 22: Williams crew out for one of their drivers! Lap 22: Both Montoya and Ralf have not stopped yet. They must be both on a single stop. Michael Schumacher in 3rd is 27 seconds behind! Lap 21: Barrichello gets through and passes Coulthard on the outside! Lap 21: Barrichello attempts to pass Coulthard but fails this time. Lap 20: The Benettons are running in 8th and 9th. Impressive! - Panis pits. Lap 20: Barrichello in 5th is under a second behind Coulthard. Montoya starts to lap the backmarkers and Burti in 11th spins but recovers! Lap 20: Top 10 - Montoya, R Schumacher, Barrichello, M Schumacher, Coulthard, Panis, Villeneuve, Button, Fisichella and Alesi. Retirements: Heidfeld, de la Rosa, Zonta, Hakkinen, Raikkonen and Irvine. Lap 19: This is only the second time this season that both Saubers retire. BAR are looking good at the moment! Lap 18: Kimi Raikkonen pits and Irvine pits again!. Both have problems and retire! Lap 17: Barrichello pits. 2 stops for Barrichello. He rejoins behind Coulthard in 5th place Lap 16: Top 10 - Montoya, R Schumacher, Barrichello, M Schumacher, Coulthard, Raikkonen, Panis, Villeneuve, Button and Fisichella. Retirements: Heidfeld, de la Rosa, Zonta and Hakkinen. Lap 15: Mika Hakkinen is slow. He retires as smoke comes out of the back of his car! Lap 15: Montoya leads Ralf by 7.4 seconds. Trulli is now back in 17th place after his spin. Disaster weekend for Jordan! Lap 14: Barrichello is closing in on Ralf Schumacher. Irvine pits, he must be on a two stopper. Lap 13: Barrichello is closing in on Ralf Schumacher. Irvine pits, he must be on a two stopper. Lap 12: Trulli spins and lost a number of places! Lap 12: Panis passes Trulli. Villeneuve tries to get past Trulli too. Lap 12: Montoya leads Ralf by 6.7 seconds. Barrichello is 9.6 seconds behind with Michael Schumacher 15.3 seconds behind Montoya. Lap 11: It looks like Panis is on a different strategy as he has caught up with Trulli and made his first attempt to pass him! Lap 10: Panis passes Villeneuve and is catching Trulli. Montoya leads Ralf by 6.1 seconds. Lap 9: Top 10 - Montoya, R Schumacher, Barrichello, M Schumacher, Hakkinen, Coulthard, Raikkonen, Irvine, Trulli and Villeneuve. Retirements: Heidfeld, de la Rosa and Zonta. Lap 8: Ricardo Zonta retires. He was Frentzen's replacement! Lap 8: Jos Verstappen pits, probably as a result of Zonta hitting him. Lap 7: Michael Schumacher lets Barrichello through. He is obviously on a different strategy!. Montoya leads Ralf by 4.7 seconds. Lap 6: Ricardo Zonta in 12th touched the back of Verstappen and damaged his front wing. He will need to pit now! Lap 6: Jos Verstappen started from 20th and he is currently 11th! Lap 5: Montoya is now 3.4 seconds ahead of Ralf! Lap 5: Hakkinen and Coulthard are off the pace. They could be on a single stop while the others are on two ! Lap 4: Juan Pablo Montoya continues to clock fastest laps. He is now 2.9 seconds ahead of Ralf and 6.5 seconds ahead of Michael Schumacher. Lap 3: Top 10 - Montoya, R Schumacher, M Schumacher, Barrichello, Hakkinen, Coulthard, Raikkonen, Irvine, Trulli and Villeneuve. Lap 2: Rubens Barrichello passes Mika Hakkinen. Lap 2: Montoya leads Ralf by 2.1 seconds! Lap 1: Order: Montoya, R Schumacher, M Schumacher, Hakkinen, Barrichello and Coulthard. Lap 1: Barrichello manages to pass Coulthard for 5th. He appears to be on a lighter fuel load. 2nd Race start: Montoya leads from Ralf Schumacher with Hakkinen in 3rd. Michael Schumacher manages to stay ahead of Coulthard with Barrichello in 6th. Barrichello challenging Coulthard. Another accident as Pedro de la Rosa hits the back of Heidfeld. 2nd Formation lap underway - everyone gets away without problems ! Race restart - The Safety car is doing a lap to check that the circuit has been cleared from all the debris. 2nd Formation lap in 2 minutes. Race restarting at 2:26 local time - The Race will remain 45 laps as the race was stopped before completing 2 full laps. Lap 2: Race restarting at 2:26 local time - The Minardi's will also be able to start from their grid positions too. Lap 2: Red Flag - Race restarting at 2:26 local time. That is 10 minutes away. Lap 2: Red Flag - Luciano Burti was very fortunate not to get injured as his car rolled and landed upside down nearly hitting Bernoldi's car. Michael Schumacher actually started OK but then appeared to have lost power and Burti just hit him the back of his car at high speed. Lap 2: Red Flag - The race has been stopped due to a lot of debris on the track. Michael Schumacher gets into the spare car. He and Burti will be able to start again!. Lap 1: Rubens Barrichello managed to get in front of both McLaren's Lap 1: Burti appears to have hit the back of Michael Schumacher after Michael was slow off the start. Safety car on the track. Race Start: Montoya leads from Ralf Schumacher but Luciano Burti crashes and rolls his car. Michael Schumacher out of the race as he was hit from behind again! It looks like both the Minardi's will start from the pitlane! Formation lap underway - No problems. Oh no... Problems for Marques' car. The second Minardi to have problems in 15 minutes!. Lets hope they rectify the problem so that they can race. The top 10 on the grid are: Montoya, R Schumacher, Hakkinen, M Schumacher, Coulthard, Barrichello, Heidfeld, Raikkonen, de la Rosa and Trulli. The weather is slightly cooler than yesterday and there are a few clouds in the sky. This could benefit the Bridgestone runners more than the Michelin ones. We saw this morning that Coulthard and Michael closed the gap in terms of lap times to the 2 Williams drivers. Formation lap in 2 minutes. The pit lane has closed and all the drivers are on the track except for Alonso who's car caught fire while on the grid and had to get into the spare. He will start form the pit lane. He qualified 21st. Formation lap in 5 minutes. Formation lap at 2:00 PM local time under sunny skies. The temperature is 28 degrees |