Spanish GP - Barcelona 30 May 1999

Race Report

It was a good day for McLaren in Spain, as Irvine started badly and got in the way of team mate M. Schumacher, who was on the second row, effectively bottling him up and allowing the two McLaren and Villeneuve's BAR to go ahead of them. Gené's car failed to start and the Spaniard had to retire on his home track. With the positions settled down, Hakkinen was in the lead, followed by Coulthard, Villeneuve, M. Schumacher, Irvine and Panis. M. Schumacher kept up with Villeneuve, without ever trying to overtake him, giving Hakkinen and Coulthard plenty of scope to run away and build a good lead. On lap two M. Schumacher was already 4.4 seconds behind Hakkinen. Villeneuve was slower than M. Schumacher and held him up until the first pit stop. M. Schumacher's car was suffering from understeering due to set-up problems and the German decided not to risk overtaking the BAR. The positions stayed largely unchanged until the pit stops. De La Rosa, on a three-stop strategy, was the first driver to pit on lap 18, followed by Herbert and the two Benetton. On lap 23 Irvine (7'8") went to the pits for the first time and rejoined in 10th position, shortly followed by Hakkinen (6'8"), who rejoined in second position behind Coulthard. M. Schumacher (7'4") and Villeneuve pitted at the same time on lap 25. The Ferrari mechanics were faster than the BAR ones and M. Schumacher gained third position but rejoined in traffic which slowed him down. On the same lap Zanardi pitted but the gearbox broke as he tried to restart and had to retire. On lap 26 Coulthard went for his pit stop but overshot his pit position, which forced the McLaren mechanics to run after him and stretch the airline. His pit stop was 12'8" as a consequence. On the same lap Frentzen, Barrichello, Hill and Panis pitted. Panis retired. On lap 29 Alesi, which had not done as well as it was hoped after his practice performance, suffered gearbox problems, parked the car by the side of the track and retired. Free from Villeneuve, M. Schumacher started pushing and even achieved the fastest lap on lap 29. At this stage in the race Hakkinen was leading, followed by Coulthard, Schumacher, Irvine, Villeneuve and Trulli. On lap 38 Frentzen suffered problems with the differential and retired. M. Schumacher carried on steadily closing the gap between himself and Coulthard, until he was in visual contact on lap 38. On lap 40 Villeneuve went to the pits with problems to the rear wing. The BAR mechanics struggled with the rear wing trying to remove the parts that had become loose, but as soon as they succeeded, Villeneuve suffered a gearbox failure and could not leave the pits. He retired for the fifth time in five races. Herbert retired on lap 42 probably because of hydraulic problems. On lap 43 M. Schumacher stopped at the pits for the second time (7'7") and rejoined in third position. On the following lap Hakkinen went for his second pit stop and rejoined behind team mate Coulthard, who pitted on lap 45 and managed to rejoin in front of M. Schumacher. Not much else happened in the last third of the race, with Coulthard managing to keep M. Schumacher away enough for the German not to pose a threat to him. On lap 53 Badoer's car stopped on a bend and the Italian driver retired. Hakkinen went on to win the race followed by Coulthard. M. Schumacher and Irvine were third and fourth, R. Schumacher brought home two point for Williams and Trulli gained his first season point. McLaren's recent reliability problems were noticeably absent form the Spanish GP, where the Woking team performed brilliantly, bringing home maximum Championship points. Ferrari was never in the race for the lead, despite Irvine's performance during qualifying. Benetton had a bad day, with both cars suffering serious grip problems, which caused both Fisichella and Wurz to take several trips on the dirt. Alesi too suffered from a bad car set-up which caused him to lose time at the start and then forced him to retire when the gearbox gave in. Alesi has already said that he does not intend to stay with Sauber next year. It was a bad day for Jordan too, with Frentzen, who had done well in practice, retiring and Hill failing to finish in the points. Villeneuve was not too disappointed despite his retirement because he had managed to get ahead of both Ferrari and had managed to keep M. Schumacher at bay, indicating that the car is improving. Next appointment is in Canada on the 13th of June.

Finishing Times - Monaco

Position	Driver	Car	Time
1st	Hakkinen, M.	McLaren	1h34'13"665 average:195.608 km/h
2nd	Coulthard, D.	McLaren	+06"2
3rd	Schumacher, M.	Ferrari	+10"8
4th	Irvine, E.	Ferrari	+30"1
5th	Schumacher, R.	Williams	+1'27"2
6th	Trulli, J.	Prost	+1 lap
7th	Hill, D.	Jordan	+1 lap
8th	Salo, M.	BAR	+1 lap
9th	Fisichella, G.	Benetton	+1 lap
10th	Wurz, A.	Benetton	+1 lap
11th	De La Rosa, P.	Arrows	+2 laps
12th	Tagaki, T.	Arrows	+2 laps

Barrichello was disqualified from his eighth finishing position following checks on his car after the race.

Fastest Lap

Driver	Lap	Speed
Schumacher, M.	29	1'24"982

Starting Grid

1. Mika Hakkinen (Finland) McLaren 1'22"088 (average: 207.348 kph) 2. Eddie Irvine (Britain) Ferrari 1'22"219 3. David Coulthard (Britain) McLaren 1'22"244 4. Michael Schumacher (Germany) Ferrari 1'22"277 5. Jean Alesi (France) Sauber 1'22"388 6. Jacques Villeneuve (Canada) BAR 1'22"703 7. Rubens Barrichello (Brazil) Stewart 1'22"920 8. Heinz-Harald Frentzen (Germany) Jordan 1'22"938 9. Jarno Trulli (Italy) Prost 1'23"194 10. Ralf Schumacher (Germany) Williams 1'23"303 11. Damon Hill (Britain) Jordan 1'23"317 12. Pedro Diniz (Brazil) Sauber 1'23"331 13. Giancarlo Fisichella (Italy) Benetton 1'23"333 14. Johnny Herbert (Britain) Stewart 1'23"505 15. Olivier Panis (France) Prost 1'23"559 16. Mika Salo (Finland) BAR 1'23"683 17. Alex Zanardi (Italy) Williams 1'23"703 18. Alexander Wurz (Austria) Benetton 1'23"824 19. Pedro de la Rosa (Spain) Arrows 1'24"619 20. Tora Takagi (Japan) Arrows 1'25"280 21. Marc Gené (Spain) Minardi 1'25"672 22. Luca Badoer (Italy) Minardi 1'25"833