Michael Schumacher Wins 2001 Belgian GP, Breaks Record

Michael Schumacher won his 52nd Grand Prix — his eighth of this season — and pulled one clear of Alain Prost to become the most successful F1 driver of all time. Apart from attempting to win the last three races of the season this doesn’t leave very much more for Schumacher to achieve this year as he has already clinched his fourth Drivers’ World Championship and the Constructors’ Championship for Ferrari.

For a change there was no rain during this year’s race but just about everything else went wrong for some of the teams. Heinz-Harald Frentzen qualified in a superb fourth position in his second race for the Prost team but then stalled at the start of the race and was moved to the back of the grid for the restart. On the seventh lap Luciano Burti in the other Prost came together with Eddie Irvine (Jaguar) and his car minus front wing and downforce careered off the track and buried itself in a tyre barrier in what seemed to be a very serious accident. The race was red-flagged and after much work by the track workers — and Irvine — Burti’s car was pulled out of the tyres and luckily, despite first appearances to the contrary, he seemed to have nothing more serious than concussion and some bruises.

David Coulthard finished second and extends his lead to nine championship points over Rubens Barrichello who was fifth. McLaren team-mate Mika Hakkinen was fourth which helped pull McLaren 22 points ahead of Williams in the Constructors’ fight.

Giancarlo Fisichella was an unexpected third — his best result this year — just a couple of days after announcing that he would be leaving Benetton and returning to Jordan next year.

Jean Alesi finished sixth and scored a championship point in just his second drive for Jordan.

Juan Pablo Montoya had scored his second pole of the year for Williams but stalled on the grid during the second attempt at starting the race and eventually suffered an engine failure after a strong drive through the field from the back. To add to the misery for the Williams team his team-mate Ralf  Schumacher — who was originally second on the grid — also had to move to the back of the grid when his mechanics left his car up on jack stands when the field moved off for the third attempt at starting after the red flag for Burti’s accident.

Complete Belgian GP results.