Michael Schumacher won the Canadian Grand Prix in the rain today as he and teammate Rubens Barrichello gave Ferrari their second 1-2 finish of the year.
It was not raining at the start of the race but it was a black day for David Coulthard who stalled his McLaren on the grid just before the start of the warm-up lap. His mechanics got him restarted but he was on the front row in second place and the first and third place Ferraris of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello had already moved off before his crew got off the grid and he was able to start.
Schumacher and Coulthard pulled away well at the start and Jacques Villeneuve made another of his charging starts in the BAR moving from sixth to third by the first corner. With Villeneuve holding the rest of the field behind him the leading pair started to leave all the rest behind.
On lap 13 David Coulthard was given a 10 second stop and go penalty for his delayed start on the warm-up lap which dropped him from second to tenth place and handed second place to Villeneuve. This was actually a fairly lenient penalty for Coulthard as, had his mechanics not got his car re-fired, he would probably have had to start from the pit lane and would have been in last place.
On lap 26 Barrichello managed to get past Villeneuve and nine laps later so did Hakkinen.
On lap 43 Barrichello and both of the McLarens pitted — Schumacher having already done so — and no sooner had they returned to the track than the rain started. Two laps later they all had to return to the pits for rain tires. Barrichello actually pitted a lap too soon, catching the Ferrari pit crew unawares, and he had to wait while they fetched his tyres. He later said that this was preferable to the amount of time he would have lost if he had tried to complete another lap on slicks.
Whether by luck or judgment Benetton had left their pit stops late and both Giancarlo Fisichella and Alexander Wurz came in for their stops as the rain started and were thus able to go straight onto wet tyres. They were the only drivers who were able to complete the race with only a single stop. Fisichella finished third behind the two Ferraris.
Hakkinen was fourth in front of Jos Verstappen who scored his first points of the year for Arrows after a late charge in which he passed several drivers in the wet. Jarno Trulli took sixth place for Jordan.
Coulthard finally finished in seventh, one place out of the points which allowed Hakkinen to close the gap slightly in their title chase but Michael Schumacher extended his lead even further with a maximum point finish.
Villeneuve tried a desperate move on the inside of Ralf Schumacher’s Williams which ended both of their races with five laps to go. Luckily the incident did not seem to injure Ralf’s leg any more as he is still recovering from a cut he received in Monaco two weeks ago.
Jaguar had a terrible day — Eddie Irvine stalled on the grid and as eventually started in the pits by which time he was already two laps behind the leaders, a couple of spins later did not help him. Johnny Herbert was the first car to retire, with mechanical problems.
It was also another miserable weekend for the Prost team — both of their cars retired early, Nick Heidfeld had to climb out of his car as it smoldered in the pit lane after the engine blew up.
Canadian GP results.
Posted: Sunday, June 18th, 2000
On a course where overtaking is nearly impossible and the norm is to only make a single pit stop this year’s Formula One parade of Monaco looked to be a foregone conclusion when Michael Schumacher, starting his Ferrari from the pole, swept into the lead while Jarno Trulli’s Jordan held up the rest of the field for more than half of the race. This year, however, there were surprises in store and the race turned out to be one of the most eventful in recent years.
The race did not get off to a very auspicious start as Alexander Wurz’s Benetton stalled on the grid and the start was postponed. After a second warm-up lap the grid reformed without Wurz, who had to start from the pit lane, and the race was on.
Almost immediately after the start Jenson Button clipped the back of Pedro de la Rosa’s Arrows going around the Loews Hairpin which spun him around. Button’s Williams then came to a stop against the side of the Arrows completely blocking the corner. Loews is such a slow-speed corner that there was hardly any damage to either of the cars but the bottleneck caused the cars behind them to stop and they switched off their engines to prevent overheating which was a major concern this weekend. With no onboard starters they had no way to restart and so the cars were removed from the track by a crane while their drivers had to run back to the pits in their full driver’s suits and helmets. Even before this happened the race had been red-flagged because of a fault with the timing and scoring system and so they were allowed to restart in their spare cars. This was lucky for Wurz who was allowed to restart from the grid but not for de la Rosa who did not have a spare ready and was therefore out of the race before it had officially started.
On the next restart everyone got away cleanly and Schumacher raced away from the pack. In second place Trulli’s Jordan held up David Coulthard’s McLaren with an identical Jordan-McLaren pairing of Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Mika Hakkinen behind them.
After 37 laps Trulli’s Jordan pulled out with gearbox problems and Coulthard inherited second place. Eighteen laps later Schumacher’s Ferrari suffered its first mechanical failure of the year when a faulty exhaust caused the left rear suspension to overheat and collapse. Coulthard was now in the lead and that is where he stayed.
Heinz-Harald Frentzen was running in second place when he hit the barrier at the Saint Devote corner on the 71st lap. This barrier also ended the race for Alexander Wurz (Benetton), Gaston Mazzacane (Minardi), Pedro Diniz (Sauber), Ralf Schumacher (Williams) and Ricardo Zonta (BAR). Ralf Schumacher was taken away on a stretcher and needed stitches for a gash in his leg.
With Frentzen out of the running Rubens Barrichello finished second for Ferrari with Giancarlo Fisichella rounding out the podium for Benetton.
It was a good weekend for Jaguar, Eddie Irvine scored their first points of the year in fourth place and Johnny Herbert was the last car running in ninth place after making an extra pit stop to change a deflating tyre.
Mika Salo finished fifth in his Sauber having held off the attack of his fellow Finn Mika Hakkinen who scored a single point towards retaining his title in sixth place. Hakkinen would certainly have finished higher in the field but a loose wire in his McLaren was interfering with his feet and he had to make an extra stop to have it removed.
Monaco GP results.
Posted: Sunday, June 4th, 2000
