Monaco GP - Montecarlo 16 May 1999

Race Report

The starting grid of the Monaco GP had Hakkinen in pole position with M. Schumacher alongside him on the front row, with Coulthard and Irvine third and fourth. The two Ferrari drivers kept the promises they had made in qualifying and as the lights went off they both shot off and overtook the McLaren driver each of them was paired off with on the grid. Both M. Schumacher and Irvine had made their intentions clear before the race was off by aligning their cars on the starting grid pointing inwards to be able to move to the right hand side of the track straight away. The slight loss of grid brought about by this strategy did not hinder them, as M. Schumacher shot ahead of Hakkinen who had to slam on his brakes and forcing Irvine, who had shot ahead of Coulthard, to brake hard too to avoid hitting him from the back. As the race entered the first lap M. Schumacher had the lead, followed by Hakkinen, Irvine, Coulthard, Barrichello and Frentzen. On lap three Hill, who had started from 17th position and was attacking to gain positions, collided with R. Schumacher and stopped his car across the track by the chicane. Incoming cars had to cut the chicane to avoid him, but the marshals managed to move Hill's car by the side just as race leader M. Schumacher was approaching. Interviewed later Hill said that given his bad starting position he had had to take risks and it was not R. Schumacher's fault that the accident had happened. R. Schumacher took his car back to the pits, had some quick repairs done and rejoined the race a few laps later. On lap nine puffs of white smoke started coming out of Coulthard's car, who carried on nonetheless. Throughout the first part of the race M. Schumacher kept on building up a gap between himself and Hakkinen, who appeared unable to keep up with the Ferrari, while Coulthard could not get close enough to Irvine to consider attacking him. On lap 23 Trulli, who had started on soft tyres, was the first driver to go for a pit stop (7.4 seconds). By lap 24 Irvine was catching up with Hakkinen and started putting pressure on him. Gené went too wide on a bend, hit the barriers sideways and retired. On lap 28 Panis went for his pit stop. At this point M. Schumacher had over 15 seconds advantage over Hakkinen and was obviously trying to build up as much of a gap as he could to go for a pit stop. Irvine was only about one second behind Hakkinen. On lap 32 Herbert's left back suspension gave way and the driver lost the tyre but, thanks to his experience, managed to keep the car under control and stopped it in a safe position. On the same lap Villeneuve went straight on a bend, hit the barrier and retired. Alesi took advantage of a distraction from Salo and overtook him. By lap 38 Coulthard, whose car had been giving out lots of white smoke, had been losing out on Irvine and the Irish driver could easily go for his first pit stop and rejoin in front of the McLaren driver to keep third place. Coulthard slowly went into the pits and retired with gearbox problems. Interviewed later he said that the white smoke from his car was caused by the oil leaking from the gearbox and not from the engine. Salo lost his brakes, hit the barrier and retired. At half distance Tagaki's engine blew up in smoke, luckily without causing R. Schumacher, who was following the Minardi closely, to lose control of his car. At this stage Irvine had pitted already and was 19 seconds behind Hakkinen, who was 27 seconds behind race leader M. Schumacher. At the Mirabeaux Hakkinen lost control of the car, possibly after slipping on the oil left by Takagi, and went into the escape lane, but managed not to hit anything and to keep the engine running so that he could reverse into the track and rejoin the race. After Hakkinen's detour, Irvine was now only a couple of seconds behind him and M. Schumacher was well out of reach (46 seconds ahead). On lap 41 M. Schumacher decided to take advantage of the gap between himself and Hakkinen and went for his pit stop (9.9 seconds), rejoining easily in the lead, 27 seconds ahead of Hakkinen who had not yet stopped and was only one second ahead of Irvine. On lap 40 Panis locked his wheels, went straight at a bend and retired. Fisichella pitted from sixth position and rejoined just in front of team mate Wurz who immediately overtook him. Shortly after M. Schumacher's pit stop lots of confusion arose about possible problems with the German's car, as the Ferrari mechanics kept on coming out as if ready for a tyre change and then going back in. The confusion was supported by M. Schumacher running slightly off the pace he had kept before the tyre change. On lap 46 Wurz pitted (9.6 seconds) and rejoined in ninth position. On lap 50 Hakkinen went for his overdue pit stop (8.4 seconds) and rejoined behind Irvine who had gained second position. Diniz went straight at a bend and retired. Barrichello pitted and rejoined in fifth position just ahead of Trulli. On lap 52 Alesi went for his pit stop from tenth position, only to go back a couple of laps later for new tyres again. After a few laps with the third set of tyres Alesi stopped at the Casino Square and retired. Irvine, who had a good margin on the following McLaren, went for his second pit stop and rejoined in second position ahead of Hakkinen. At the Grand Hotel corner R. Schumacher lost control of the back of the car, hit the barrier, lost the tail and retired. Frentzen went for his last pit stop from fourth and rejoined in the same points position. Trulli recovered from a trip on the escape route, but he had lost his sixth position to Fisichella. With only six laps to go a full blown battle was taking place between Barrichello and Fisichella for sixth position when the Brazilian, in his 100th F1 GP, lost control of the back of his car at the Swimming Pool, locked the wheels and sled sideways along the track until he hit the barrier and retired. That was good news for Benetton, as Fisichella took fifth position and his team mate Wurz moved to sixth position on his way to gain his first Championship point this season. Positions stayed unchanged to the end, giving Ferrari a one-two to the delight of the many fans who had come to Monaco from nearby Italy. Hakkinen finished third followed by Frentzen and the two Benetton. For the first time this season Ferrari was the car to beat and McLaren never seemed good enough to keep up, despite Hakkinen's effort to gain pole position in qualifying. Thought M. Schumacher had prophesied at the start of the season that the speed gap between Ferrari and McLaren would be closed by the Monaco GP, today's difference between the two leading Constructors is more likely to have been due to the car setup, always very tricky to get right in Monaco. Whether this is the case or not, it will become clear in the next races. It is too early to say whether Ferrari and M. Schumacher (who won his fourth Monaco GP today) will win the Championships, but they certainly are in a much better situation than they were in last year, when they were just chasing McLaren hoping to catch up. McLaren's reliability problems hit again today, forcing Coulthard, who has already had more than his share of bad luck this season, to retire. Frentzen put up another great performance, winning three more Championship points for himself and Jordan and putting himself only one point behind current World Champion Hakkinen. Damon Hill is officially Jordan's first driver but, given the difference in performance between the two drivers, it is possible that the first driver status at Jordan might change soon. Frentzen is finally driving to the level he is capable of, after a few uninspiring seasons. Barrichello, probably this season's revelation despite his long record in F1, was forced out of the race by what looks like his own mistake, thought it is possible that something broke in his car since his team mate Herbert suffered a collapsed suspension for no good reason (interviewed after the race he said he had not hit anything). Herbert showed off his skill and experience by managing to keep the car straight when he lost the back wheel, but it still meant another retirement not because of a mistake from him. Benetton gained three Championship points today, though it is arguable whether they really tried hard to get them. True, Fisichella battled with Barrichello for a while and might even have caused the Brazilian to make the mistake that took him out of the race, but both Fisichella and Wurz just kept on lapping and just made sure that they stayed in the race while everybody else was retiring. The points just came to them. Next appointment is on the 30th of May in Barcelona.

Finishing Times - Monaco

Position	Driver	Car	Time
1st	Schumacher, M.	Ferrari	1h49'31"812 average 143,864 km/h
2nd	Irvine, E.	Ferrari	+30"476
3rd	Hakkinen, M.	McLaren-Mercedes	+37"483
4th	Frentzen, H.-H.	Jordan-Mugen Honda	+54"009
5th	Fisichella, G.	Benetton-Supertec	+1 lap
6th	Wurz, A.	Benetton-Supertec	+1 lap
7th	Trulli, J.	Prost-Peugeot	+1 lap
8th	Zanardi, A.	Williams-Supertec	+2 laps
9th	Barrichello, R.	Stewart-Ford	+7 laps

Fastest Lap

Driver	Lap	Speed
Hakkinen, M.	67	1'22"259

Starting Grid

Row	Driver	Car	Qualifying Time	Driver	Car	Qualifying Time
1st	Hakkinen, M.	McLaren	1'20"547	Schumacher, M.	Ferrari	1'20"611
2nd	Coulthard, D.	McLaren	1'20"956	Irvine, E.	Ferrari	1'21"011
3rd	Barrichello, R.	Stewart	1'21"530	Frentzen, H.-H.	Jordan	1'21"556
4th	Trulli, J.	Prost	1'21"769	Villeneuve, J.	BAR	1'21"827
5th	Fisichella, G.	Benetton	1'21"938	Wurz, A.	Benetton	1'21"968
6th	Zanardi, A.	Williams	1'22"152	Salo, M.	BAR	1'22"241
7th	Herbert, J.	Stewart	1'22"248	Alesi, J.	Sauber	1'22"354
8th	Diniz, P.	Sauber	1'22"659	Schumacher, R.	Williams	1'22"719
9th	Hill, D.	Jordan	1'22"832	Panis, O.	Prost	1'22"916
10th	Takagi, T.	Arrows	1'23"290	Badoer, L.	Minardi	1'23"765
11th	De La Rosa, P.	Arrows	1'24"260	Gené, M.	Minardi	1'24"914