Hungarian GP: Race
Times
P. No Driver Team - Car Time/Laps
1. 1 Hakkinen McLaren Mercedes 1h45:33.869 173.965 km/h
2. 3 Schumacher,M Ferrari + 0:07.916 173.748 km/h
3. 2 Coulthard McLaren Mercedes + 0:08.454 173.734 km/h
4. 4 Barrichello Ferrari + 0:44.157 172.762 km/h
5. 9 Schumacher,R Williams BMW + 0:50.437 172.591 km/h
6. 5 Frentzen Jordan Mugen-Honda + 1:08.099 171.848 km/h
7. 6 Trulli Jordan Mugen-Honda 1 lap
8. 7 Irvine Jaguar 1 lap
9. 10 Button Williams BMW 1 lap
10. 17 Salo Sauber Petronas 1 lap
11. 12 Wurz Benetton Playlife 1 lap
12. 22 Villeneuve BAR Honda 2 laps
13. 19 Verstappen Arrows Supertec 2 laps
14. 23 Zonta BAR Honda 2 laps
15. 20 Gene Minardi Fondmetal 3 laps
16. 18 de la Rosa Arrows Supertec 4 laps
17. 21 Mazzacane Minardi Fondmetal 9 laps
18. 8 Herbert Jaguar 10 laps
19. 16 Diniz Sauber Petronas 15 laps
20. 11 Fisichella Benetton Playlife 46 laps
21. 15 Heidfeld Prost Peugeot 55 laps
22. 14 Alesi Prost Peugeot 66 laps
FIA Press Release
As the grid is forming up Gaston Mazzacane suffers from a gearbox problem and has to switch to the spare and start from the pit lane. Johnny Herbert also switches to his spare because of a leak in his race car but he then switches back to the race car.
Lap 1: At the start Mika Hakkinen makes the best start while David Coulthard, on the dusty side of the track, is slower away. Hakkinen dives ahead of Michael Schumacher, squeezing through on the inside to take the lead. Behind them Ralf Schumacher goes through the first corner side-by-side but Coulthard holds on to emerge ahead on the run down to the second corner. Rubens Barrichello holds on to fifth ahead of Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Giancarlo Fisichella. At the chicane Jacques Villeneuve and Pedro de la Rosa collide. Both cars are damaged and have to pit for repairs.
Lap 8: Hakkinen has built a lead of three seconds while Schumacher and Coulthard follow. These three have pulled away from Ralf Schumacher, Barrichello and Frentzen. Seventh-placed Fisichella spins and Jenson Button goes wide in an apparently unrelated moment. This enables Eddie Irvine to move to seventh place in his Jaguar. Fisichella rejoins in 14th place.
Lap 9: Jean Alesi pits from 13th place and drops to the tail of the field with steering problems. He retires after two more stops to try to cure the problem. At the tail of the field the recovering Villeneuve passes de la Rosa for last place.
Lap 12: Fisichella goes off again, bouncing over a gravel trap and losing 13th position to Johnny Herbert.
Lap 15: Fisichella pits to try to solve brake problems. He rejoins in 19th place.
Lap 19: Hakkinen's lead is seven seconds. Down at the back Villeneuve overtakes Fisichella to take 19th place.
Lap 20: Villeneuve overtakes Ricardo Zonta to grab 18th position.
Lap 22: Nick Heidfeld pits from 15th place. The car stalls as he tries to rejoin and the German retires at the exit of the pit lane.
Lap 24: Irvine pits, dropping from seventh place to 11th. At the back Jos Verstappen also pits.
Lap 27: Hakkinen is nearly 10 seconds ahead when Michael Schumacher pits, the Ferrari driver having built up a lead of around eight seconds over a struggling Coulthard. Michael rejoins in fifth just behind Barrichello.
Lap 28: Third-placed Ralf Schumacher pits and drops to seventh position as his stop is three seconds longer than normal.
Lap 29: Barrichello pits and emerges ahead of Ralf Schumacher.
Lap 31: Hakkinen stops and Coulthard goes into the lead for one lap. Michael Schumacher is third ahead of Frentzen. Fifth-placed Jenson Button also stops. He re-emerges in eighth position ahead of Irvine again.
Lap 32: Coulthard and Frentzen both pit. Hakkinen goes back into the lead with Michael Schumacher second. Coulthard rejoins third ahead of Barrichello, Ralf Schumacher, Frentzen and Button.
Lap 34: Villeneuve overtakes Zonta again, having dropped behind him during the pit stops. At the tail of the field Fisichella retires.
Lap 39: Hakkinen's lead grows to 17 seconds, while Coulthard finds his second set of tyres to be more competitive and closes up on Michael Schumacher. He is badly held up by Marc Gene, who later gets a 10-second stop-go penalty for ignoring blue flags. Barrichello is a lonely fourth ahead of Ralf Schumacher and Frentzen. Further back it emerges that Jarno Trulli is on a one-stop strategy.
Lap 43: Trulli pits and drops from ninth to 12th.
Lap 47: Barrichello pits for the second time, signalling the start of the stops for the frontrunners.
Lap 50: The Schumacher Brothers both pit.
Lap 51: Coulthard pits and emerges just behind Michael Schumacher.
Lap 53: Hakkinen stops and emerges in the lead. He is over 20 seconds ahead of Schumacher who is under pressure from Coulthard. Barrichello was fourth with Frentzen fifth and Ralf Schumacher sixth.
Lap 56: Frentzen stops and drops behind Ralf Schumacher again. Further back Button begins to suffer from throttle problems and comes under pressure from Trulli who has risen to seventh place thanks to his one-stop strategy.
Lap 59: The order is the same but the battle for 13th place results in Johnny Herbert spinning under pressure from Villeneuve.
Lap 67: Herbert does the same again, under pressure from Jos Verstappen.
Lap 70: Mazzacane retires with a smoky engine failure.
Lap 74: Trulli catches Button and overtakes him for seventh place.
Lap 75: Irvine passes Button to move to eighth.
Lap 77: Hakkinen wins his 17th Grand Prix victory and takes the lead in the World Championship.
Formula-1.co.uk Report
It is not often that Michael Schumacher looks ordinary. Today though Mika Hakkinen made the Ferrari driver look just that. Starting from third on the grid, the Finn made a superb getaway to take both his team-mate and Schumacher into turn one. After that, Hakkinen showed pace not seen all weekend to win the race in commanding style.
"The start is very difficult to get," said Hakkinen. "You have to get the perfect traction on tires. It comes with practice and technique. I had a fantastic start and overtook Michael, even though it was close we came around the corner in one piece. I think that is the way it should be."
In one swoop Mika had just one the day. It wasn't a classic race by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a superb drive by Hakkinen as he won his third Grand Prix of the season and the 17th win of his career. "It was a combination of fantastic teamwork, together with engineers and modifications to chassis," the hot and tired looking Finn said in the post race press conference.
As Hakkinen slowly disappeared into the distance, Michael Schumacher switched tactics and concentrated on keeping his second place from David Coulthard. Continually conserving his Bridgestone rubber, Schumacher hung on to the position throughout the two pitstops and duly crossed the line with Coulthard finishing in a frustrated third. "It was just like Monaco. All I could do was hope that he made a mistake or got caught out by traffic," said Coulthard.
While Schumacher wasn't too unhappy with second place from Hakkinen, he does see Mika Hakkinen take the championship the lead for the first time this season. "We were just not fast enough to win today," admitted Schumacher. "If he hadn’t overtaken me it at the start he would have done it in pit stops because he was the fastest man out there. But I’m not too unhappy to be second because it was a tight battle with David just to keep my position and I could easily have been third."
Rubens Barrichello finished the race in fourth position after a relatively low key race in the sister Ferrari. The early laps saw the German Grand Prix winner tail the BMW Williams of Ralf Schumacher, but a slow pitstop from the Williams team and a particularly fast one from Ferrari saw Barrichello take Schumacher's fourth position. The result will be a disappointment to the Brazilian as he slips away from the sharp end of the championship battle.
Ralf Schumacher finished the race in fifth position, six seconds behind Barrichello's Ferrari. It was a brilliant performance in a car that really has no right to be that close the the Italian machine. The result moves the German to within just two points of Giancarlo Fisichella who suffered an awful race today in Hungary. Schumacher's team-mate Jenson Button did a solid job, running just outside of the points for most of the race, only to be slowed by an engine problem in the closing stages and dropping to ninth place.
Heinz-Harald Frentzen took the final points paying position with a steady drive to sixth position. The German was the only top six finisher to opt for a one stop strategy, but clearly, Jordan Mugen Honda simply do not have the pace at the moment to mount any serious challenge. Jarno Trulli finished behind his team-mate, but was the first driver to be lapped by the flying McLaren Mercedes.
Eddie Irvine drove a very strong race to finish in eighth position. The Jaguar driver made a good start to his race, running in seventh position in the early stages. A poor pitstop dropped the former Ferrari driver back down the field once again. Still, Irvine can be pleased with his days work as his Jaguar clutch problem didn't actually raise it head - something of a surprise. In contrast, team-mate Johnny Herbert had an awful race, finally retiring with engine problems late in the race following two spins. At this point the CART bound driver was two whole laps down and running in 14th position.
Mika Salo didn't show the potential that he had demonstrated yesterday in qualifying and drove a low key race behind Pedro Diniz in the sister Sauber to his eventual 10th placed finish. Pedro Diniz had an accident free race, but retired from the event with a blown Ferrari engine.
Alain Prost's beleaguered team had another race to forget with Jean Alesi retiring the badly handing chassis with hydraulic problems after eleven laps. The retirement was the French-Sicilian's 9th failure to finish in 12 races and now holds the record for the worst reliability of the season. Team-mate Nick Heidfeld faired little better as he too pulled out with mechanical troubled before one quarter distance.
Benetton had hoped that the on-form Giancarlo Fisichella would be able to progress through the field and bring home some points. However a spin early in the race pushed the Italian back down the field. A second spin soon followed before a pitstop and retirement. Alexander Wurz actually finished the race, but Flavio Briatore will not be particularly thrilled with his 11th position.
The race was also a pointless exercise for BAR Honda and Arrows Supertec. Jacques Villeneuve suffered a poor qualifying hour yesterday and an even worse first lap today in Hungary. The 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix runner ruined his race by running into the back of Pedro de la Rosa and breaking his nose cone on the first lap. After the necessary pitstop, Villeneuve slowly picked his way through the field to finish in 12th place, two laps adrift.
Minardi proved that they really have not managed to raise their game this season despite a nimble chassis. Marc Gene incurred the wroth of officialdom by daring to hold up the race leader for more than a nanosecond and promptly got called to the pits for a stop-go penalty. Whilst returning to the pits, the unlucky Gene happened to baulk Coulthard, losing the Scot a second in his battle with Schumacher. Until this point the decision seemed harsh, but then Gene made it clear that no, he wasn't paying attention.
And so the processional Hungarian Grand Prix has drawn to a close. The powers that be are busy trying to convince the organisers of the German Grand Prix to alter their circuit to meet with modern requirements, while they should be asking the Hungarian organisers to make their circuit more like Hockenheim. As ever, it doesn't make sense.
What does make sense is the fact that Mika Hakkinen drove a storming race today in Hungary and he and his team take the lead in both the drivers' championship and the constructors' championship. "All the way through the season people talked a lot of things, who is winning, who is losing, who has more motivation. I just concentrated on my work," Hakkinen said. "Everything will be decided at the end of the year when you count all the points together...."
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