Brazilian GP - Säo Paulo 26 March 2000

Race Report

Only 20 cars started the Brazilian GP after Peter Sauber decided to pull his team out of the race to avoid exposing his drivers to unnecessary risk. The rear wing of Mika Salo's car had fallen off twice, in one case sending the Finn to crash at speed into the tyre barrier. The most disappointed about this turn of events was probably Pedro Diniz, who ended up missing his home GP. Alesi's Prost suffered from a similar problem, but Alian Prost decided to race on the ground that the rear wing that had fallen off Alesi's car was an older specification than the one they would use in the race. At the start of the parade lap Wurz failed to start, blocked other drivers and had to be helped by the mechanics. Following the new regulations, he was allowed to catch up with the pack and regain their positions. After the parade lap Wurz went back to the pits not realising that he was allowed to start from his original position despite stalling. M. Schumacher had a good start, managed to put himself in front of Coulthard and went immediately to the attack of Hakkinen. Barrichello maintained his starting position. Irvine also did a good start and went ahead of Fisichella. Before the end of the first lap M. Schumacher had managed to overtake Hakkinen after a struggle, while Barrichello had overtaken Coulthard cleanly. M. Schumacher immediately started pulling away leaving Hakkinen behind. By the third lap Barrichello was catching up Hakkinen, who was four seconds behind M. Schumacher. At the back of the pack Alesi was storming through the field and had gone up to 11th position. On lap six M. Schumacher lead by six seconds, followed by Hakkinen, Barrichello, Coulthard, Irvine and Trulli, who overtook Fisichella on the inside. M. Schumacher kept on putting on the fastest lap, gaining about one second per lap. On lap eight Wurz had to stop by the side with smoke pouring out of his car. Trulli was making the most of his sixth position and by the 10th lap he had caught up with Irvine who kept on locking his brakes. On the 11th lap Heidfield suffered a blown engine, stopped by the side and retired with his car smoking heavily. On lap 13 Alesi outbraked Frentzen for seventh position but had to stop and retired with gearbox problems. All the time Barrichello was getting frustrated by being stuck behind Hakkinen. On lap 14 Barrichello took his chance, cleanly outbraked Hakkinen and took second position, immediately pulling away in front of a delirious Brazilian crown. On lap 16 Trulli went for it and overtook Irvine for fifth position, while Villeneuve had to retire. On lap 19 the Ferrari mechanics came out and got ready to receive a car, fuelling speculations that Ferrari might be on a three-stop strategy. On lap 20 M. Schumacher pitted (10.1 seconds, proving that Ferrari is on a two-stopper), rejoining the race in third position in front of Coulthard and leaving Barrichello to lead his home GP. On lap 24 Barrichello had his pit stop (10.7 seconds) and rejoined in fouth position, giving the lead again to Hakkinen. By lap 25 Hakkinen was in the lead, followed by M. Schumacher, Hakkinen, Barrichello, Trulli and Verstappen. A few laps earlier Irvine had span, damaged his car against the tyre barrier and retired. On lap 27 Barrichello, who had been losing time to Trulli, had to go back to the pits with smoke coming out of his car and retired with hydraulic problems. The Ferrari mechanics had to put off a fire that developed on Barrichello's car in the garage. On lap 28 Zonta pitted, but there were problems with his front tyre and lost lots of time. On lap 30 Hakkinen went back to the pits with a dead engine, drove straight into the garage and retired. He then got into his car and drove away refusing to talk to anybody. Barrichello and Hakkinen's retirements left M. Schumacher in the lead, followed by Coulthard, Verstappen, Fisichella, Frentzen, Trulli, R. Schumacher, De La Rosa, Button, Herbert, Gené and Mazzacane. On lap 33 Gené's car went up in smoke and the Spaniard retired. On lap 35 Verstappen had his pit stop from third position (12.0 seconds), rejoined right in front of race leader M. Schumacher (who was one lap ahead) and let him pass. Verstappen's pit stop left Fisichella in third position. De La Rosa pitted one lap later (13.5 seconds). On lap 38 M. Schumacher led the race, then Coulthard, Fisichella, Frentzen, Trulli and R. Schumacher. On lap 42 R. Schumacher started attacking Trulli for fifth position. Frentzen went in for his pit stop (9.4 seconds), putting Button in the points in sixth position. On lap 43 Coulthard went for his first pit stop (8.8. seconds) and rejoined in second position. On lap 45 Button had his pit stop (10.5 seconds), losing his points position. At the same time Herbert too had his pit stop (11.1 seconds). On the following lap R. Schumacher pitted (11.1 seconds). On lap 48 M. Schumacher, 42 seconds ahead of Coulthard, started pushing and put in the fastest lap again, building up a gap to allow himself to have his second pit stop without losing the lead. On lap 51 Fisichella, in third position, was the only driver not to have stopped for fuel. On lap 52 M. Schumacher went for his second pit stop (7.7. seconds), keeping his lead ahead of Coulthard. On lap 53 Fisichella finally went for his pit stop (7.1 seconds) and kept his third position. On lap 54 Herbert rolled into the pits and retired from 10th position. Trulli came in for his second stop (6.2 seconds) from fourth position. On lap 58 Button took on Verstappen and after a battle overtook him to put himself back into the points. With only 11 laps to go M. Schumacher started slowing down, even allowing Trulli to overtake him and de-lap himself. The Ferrari crew looked rather relaxed, indicating that M. Schumacher might just have been allowing the mechanical components of his car to "rest". M. Schumacher went on to win the GP, in front of Coulthard, Fisichella, Frentzen, Trulli and R. Schumacher. Ross Brawn, interviewed after the race, confirmed that there was indeed some problem with M. Schumacher's car that caused it to underperform, but they were not sure yet what the problem was. M. Schumacher, who received his trophy from football start Pelé, gave Ferrari its first victory in Brazil for ten years. Barrichello had to suffer the big disappointment of having to retire after having led his home GP, to the dismay of his many fans. Coulthard did a good job of finishing second, despite losing third gear and radio connection with his team halfway through the race. His problems (he also started having trouble with the fourth gear with twenty laps to go) and Hakkinen's breakdown show that McLaren still have work to do on reliability, though Ferrari suffered from reliability problems too. Fisichella ran a good race, leaving his pit stop to the very end, and had a good result despite his car being almost unmanageable in the first part of the race because of the heavy fuel load. Frentzen and Trulli both finished in the points to avenge the result of the Australian GP. R. Schumacher brought home another point for Williams while his team mate Button again surprised with his mature way of racing. Verstappen even managed to get into the points for a while, never spinning once in the whole race. Next appointment is in San Marino on 9 April.