Australian GP - Melbourne 7 March 1999

Race Report

The 1999 F1 season had a dramatic start at Melbourne. Minutes before the race was due to start the two McLaren, which were expected to overperform the other cars, were nowhere to be seen. After some frantic moments it was announced that Hakkinen had had a slight misfire from the engine and would start on the spare car. As the reigning World Champion rolled out of the pits on the spare car his left back tyre caught the air line, which wrapped around the wheel and brought down the gantry from the ceiling on Ron Dennis' head. There was more bad news for McLaren, as David Coulthard suffered from a clutch gremlin and had to have it fixed just before the start. After the formation lap, with the cars ready on the starting grid, steam started pouring out of Herbert's car, leading to an aborted start. Almost as soon as the start was cancelled the other Stewart, driven by Barrichello, suffered form exactly the same problem. The only Stewart spare car was set for Barrichello, so that Herbert was unable to start the race. As the new formation lap got under way Hakkinen's car had problems in starting, but the Flying Finn managed to get it going before all the other cars had passed the line, thus retaining pole position. Rival M. Schumacher stalled his car and had to start from the back of the grid. Takagi also stalled. The race finally got under way, with Barrichello starting from the pits on the spare car and M. Schumacher from the back of the grid, just like it had happened in Japan at the end of the 1998 season. Hakkinen immediately took the lead, followed by team mate Coulthard, who made it quite clear that he was not going to repeat last year's gesture of letting Hakkinen win , but that he was going to keep close and take his chance to fight for the lead. Irvine took third position. Alesi had to be pushed off the starting line, while Damon Hill was forced out of the race almost immediately by Trulli, who had tried to push past him despite not having the racing line. By lap three Irvine, who was leading the pack, was almost 10 seconds behind the McLaren drivers who kept well together (about 1 second gap) in the first two positions. M. Schumacher at the back of the field started pushing to make up positions and by lap six he had already gained 13th position. On lap 10 Zanardi stopped at the pits and rejoined the race, but very soon afterwards Coulthard slowly made his way to the pits and retired with hydraulic problems. Villeneuve, who was calmly driving along, suddenly lost his tail wing, went into a spin and retired. Zonta, who was following him, just managed to avoid him and stayed in the race. The safety car came out to allow the debris left by Villeneuve to be cleared away, allowing the pack to compact and M. Schumacher, who was seventh behind Trulli at this point, to gain precious seconds on Hakkinen. As the safety car left the track Irvine, who had caught up with Hakkinen, went to the attack, restrained himself until he had passed the finishing line to avoid being given a penalty, then overtook the McLaren for the lead. Hakkinen was obviously having trouble as several other cars overtook him. The new line up had Irvine in the lead, followed by Frentzen, Trulli, R. Schumacher, M. Schumacher and Diniz. Hakkinen drove slowly back to the pits, just like Coulthard had done, where he got new tyres and the mechanics could have a look at his car. The engine was sounding very rough, but they decided to let him out on the track again in last position, where it became obvious that he had lost almost all acceleration. Zanardi suffered a spin and hit the barrier, causing the safety car to come out again. M. Schumacher had managed to get up to forth position behind Zonta, with the safety car allowing him yet again to catch up with the rest of the pack. With Hakkinen obviously unable to compete, the German was looking at getting as many Championship points as he could. Hakkinen gave up his attempt at staying in the race, went to the pits and retired. As soon as the safety car left the track, Gené and Trulli got entangled in a shunt and both had to retire, narrowly missing De La Rosa and causing the yellow flags to be displayed again. M. Schumacher's hopes were dashed by a rear tyre puncture which forced him to slowly drive back to the pits, where he got new tyres and a new front win. Ferrari showed off its claimed reliability, as M. Schumacher's car appeared not to have suffered from driving on the damaged tyre, though he found himself again in last position. In the meantime Diniz retired with gear problems while Frentzen started pushing to catch up with race leader Irvine. Wurz suffered a broken rear suspension and retired while Barrichello was given a 10 seconds stop-go penalty for overtaking with the safety car out. With 26 laps to go the drivers started doing their pit stops. Irvine and Frentzen pitted at the same time, but the Ferrari driver managed to maintain his advantage and rejoined as Fisichella was arriving, putting the Benetton in between himself and Frentzen. Fisichella, on a considerably lighter car because he had not yet stopped, started attacking Irvine for the lead, rather pointlessly, as he still had to stop. Irvine held out and it became evident that Ferrari had a good performance under full fuel load, as the Irish driver started building up a gap between himself and Frentzen. At the end Fisichella pitted rejoining in fifth position behind Takagi. M. Schumacher started having problems with the buttons on his steering wheel, decided to go into the pit lane at the very last second, noticed that the mechanics were not ready for him, went through and out on the track again. On the following lap he went into the pits again, driving very slowly, where he had a new steering wheel fitted and new tyres. As he left the pit lane it was obvious that his problem was solved, but it was too late in the race for him to regain lost ground and could only hope that drivers in front of him would retire. Barrichello, having stopped for the 10 seconds penalty, was putting an enormous effort into his drive and even managed fastest lap on lap 45. Badoer retired with smoke pouring out of his engine. In final stages of the race Irvine found himself with a comfortable six seconds lead over Frentzen, but got stuck behind backmarker Zonta, who would not let him pass despite being blue-flagged four times (for which he might get punished). Zonta is new to F1 but he should know the meaning of the blue flag. The possible explanation is that he thought the Ferrari behind him was M. Schumacher's, not Irvine's. With Irvine being held up, Frentzen started catching up with him and when Irvine finally managed to overtake Zonta his lead had been reduced to just over four seconds. Frentzen made a mistake and Irvine recovered some of his lead, driving steadily on to gain his maiden victory. Irvine's joy was all too obvious from his body language and his handling of the car as he went round for his victory lap, with the Ferrari flags being furiously waved by the crowd. Frentzen finished second place, followed by R. Schumacher, Fisichella, Barrichello and De La Rosa in his first ever F1 GP. The start of the 1999 F1 season could hardly have been worse for McLaren, who went in sure of victory after having overperformed all the other teams in the practice and qualifying sessions. Their only consolation is that M. Schumacher did not score any points, though that was more out of back luck than anything else. McLaren seem to have a serious reliability problem, while Ferrari appeared a robust car, as M. Schumacher managed to do the fastest lap despite damage to the car. A very good performance came from F1 newcomer De La Rosa and veteran Barrichello, who fought his way to fifth position despite starting from the pits in the spare car and having been given a 10-seconds penalty. Frentzen and R. Schumacher also finished on the podium despite being both in new teams. Fisichella was satisfied with his fourth position, as he said after the race that he had aimed at fourth or fifth place. There could be tails from the Australian GP, as Ferrari are arguing that M. Schumacher should not have started from the back of the grid because Takagi had stalled too, so when M. Schumacher started his car not all the other cars had passed the line. There is a five weeks gap to the next race in Brazil on the 11th of April and McLaren and Stewart will have the time to look at their reliability problem. The 1999 F1 season is on its way.

Finishing Times

Position	Driver	Car	Time
1st	Irvine, E.	Ferrari	57 laps in 1:35:01.659 at 190.852km/h
2nd	Frentzen, H.-H.	Jordan	1:35:02.686
3rd	Schumacher, R.	Williams	1:35:08.671
4th	Fisichella	Benetton	1:35:35.077
5th	Barrichello, R.	Stewart	1:35:56.357
6th	De La Rosa, P.	Arrows	1:36:2.976
7th	Takagi, T.	Arrows	1:36:27.947
8th	Schumacher, M.	Ferrari	1 lap

Starting Grid

Row	Driver	Car	Qualifying Time	Driver	Car	Qualifying Time
1st	Hakkinen, M.	McLaren	1:30.462 average speed: 211.036 km/h	Coulthard, D.	McLaren	1:30.946
2nd	Schumacher, M.	Ferrari	1:31.781	Barrichello, R.	Stewart	1:32.148
3rd	Frentzen, H.-H.	Jordan	1:32.276	Irvine, E.	Ferrari	1:32.289
4th	Fisichella, G.	Benetton	1:32.540	Schumacher, R.	Williams	1:32.691
5th	Hill, D.	Jordan	1:32.695	Wurz, A.	Benetton	1:32.789
6th	Villeneuve, J.	BAR	1:32.888	Trulli, J.	Prost	1:32.971
7th	Herbert, J.	Stewart	1:32.991	Diniz	Sauber	1:33.374
8th	Zanardi, A.	Williams	1:33.549	Alesi, J.	Sauber	1:33.910
9th	Takagi, T.	Arrows	1:34.182	De La Rosa, P.	Arrows	1:34.244
10th	Zonta, R.	BAR	1:34.412	Panis, O.	Prost	1:35.068
11th	Badoer, L.	Minardi	1:35.316	Gené	Minardi	1:37.013