Australian GP - Melbourne 12 March 2000

Race Report

The start of the Australian GP saw the two McLaren, Ferrari and Jordan lined up respectively on the first, second and third rows. Alesi, who has freshly moved to Prost, had to take his car back to the garage after already lining up on the grid, get into the spare car and start from the pits. Frentzen had a great start and managed to put himself in front of Barrichello and behind M. Schumacher. Hakkinen and Coulthard had the first and second position. Trulli in the second Jordan was sixth behind Barrichello. Before the end of the first lap Gené had to go back to the pits while Herbert went out after being shunted by Diniz and had to retire on lap one of the first GP of the reason. Soon the leading group, Hakkinen, Coulthard and M. Schumacher, had left the rest of the pack behind. Barrichello was stuck behind Frentzen and could not go chasing the leading group. Alesi tried to overtake a Sauber but did not have enough space, had to brake and went into a spin but managed not to lose the engine or hit any other car and rejoined the race, having lost a few positions. Irvine went out to the side after hitting a wall and losing a wheel in an attempt to avoid De La Rosa who had been pushed in front of him. The safety car came out allowing the pack to compact. On lap 10 the safety car went back into the pits and the race restarted. M. Schumacher started putting pressure on Coulthard, who went into the pits with engine problems, giving second position to the German. Coulthard had new wheels put on, but smoke started coming out of his left side. The mechanics kept him in for 43.9 seconds, then sent him out but his brand new Mercedes engine went up in smoke almost immediately and the Scot had to stop by the side and retire. M. Schumacher took advantage of Coulthard's retirement to put in the fastest lap, while Barrichello started pushing on Frentzen. Coulthard's retirement put Villeneuve, who had failed to score one single point last season, into sixth position. On lap 19 drama struck McLaren as Hakkinen suffered a blown engine, just like his team mate Coulthard, and had to retire leaving M. Schumacher in the lead, Frentzen in second position some 17 seconds behind the leader, Barrichello in third, Trulli in fourth, Villeneuve in fifth and Salo in sixth. Both McLaren had gone out with the same type of engine misfiring failure. One lap later Diniz went into the pits with problems, leaving only 15 cars out on the track. On lap 24 M. Schumacher came up behind Diniz who had rejoined the race after a spell in the pits and lapped him. On lap 27 Alesi suffered problems to his Prost, stopped by the side and retired with smoke coming out from the back of his car. In the meantime M. Schumacher was lapping car after car, having already a 20 seconds advantage over Frentzen. On lap 30 M. Schumacher came into the pits for his first and only pit stop (12.2 seconds) and rejoined just in front of Trulli, leaving Frentzen in the lead and Barrichello in second position. The Ferrari mechanics had to scramble into the side pods to remove some of the grass that had gone in since the greens had been mowed just before the race. On lap 32 Salo pitted from sixth position. On lap 33 Barrichello had his pit stop (9.0 seconds) and rejoined behind Jenson Button. On lap 36 Trulli had to go off to the side with white smoke pouring out of his car. He jumped out of the car as flames came out of the back. Frentzen went for his pit stop and suffered problems when the nozzle became stuck (23.4 seconds). Frentzen's problems at the pits put him in sixth position and M. Schumacher easily in the lead, Villeneuve in second, R. Schumacher in third, Button in fourth and Barrichello in fifth. Villeneuve went for his pit stop at the same time as Button (11.0 seconds). On the following lap the other Williams driver, R. Schumacher, had his pit stop (14.0 seconds). On lap 39, after the round of pit stops, the two Ferrari of M. Schumacher and Barrichello were in the first two places, then R. Schumacher, Villeneuve, Fisichella and Button on his first ever F1 GP. On lap 41 Frentzen went into the pits and retired with gearbox problems. M. Schumacher slowed down considerably while Barrichello put in the fastest lap. By lap 44 Barrichello had caught up with M. Schumacher to made space for his team mate to overtake him. This manoeuvre was not due to problems with M. Schumacher's Ferrari, but to the fact that Barrichello had had a bad first pit stop and had not put in enough fuel. Barrichello in fact stopped for fuel immediately after passing his team mate (7.9 seconds) and rejoined in second position. On the same lap Button suffered from a blown engine while in the points and had to park his Williams by the side of the track and retired. Salo made a move on Zonta and overtook him for sixth position. With M. Schumacher ad Barrichello safely in the first two positions, the rest of the pack was very compact with just over two seconds between Villeneuve in fourth position and Wurz in eighth. M. Schumacher went on to win the Australian GP in front of his team mate Barrichello and his younger brother Ralf. Villeneuve was fourth taking his first points in a BAR ahead of Fisichella and Salo. So the 2000 season started with Ferrari storming away to take maximum points while McLaren faded in the background marred by reliability problems. Villeneuve did better in this first 2000 GP than he did in the whole of last season. Newcomer Jenson Button drove well against much more experienced drivers until he had to retire not through fault of his own. Jordan, who were easily the third team last year looked strong again until they were hit by reliability problems. After the race Salo was stripped of his sixth position on the ground that his front wing did not meet FIA regulation (article 3.11). Salo's disqualification meant that BAR had two drivers in the points, as Zonta moved to sixth place. Arrows were disappointed of the result as both their cars suffered from the same front suspension problem. The new season is now truly on its way and is expected to be Ferrari's year. But then, every year is always expected to be Ferrari's year. Next appointment is in Brazil in two weeks time.