2000 San Marino Grand Prix - Report

Report

Qualifying saw Mika Häkkinen on pole position with Michael Schumacher second, David Coulthard third, Rubens Barrichello fourth, Ralf Schumacher fifth and Heinz-Harald Frentzen sixth. During qualifying Schumacher took pole position for a brief moment, beating Häkkinen's time by 0.025 seconds. Häkkinen's final timed lap of the session however, was quick enough reclaim pole position. In the first 2 sectors of the circuit, Häkkinen was slower than Schumacher by 0.085 and 0.089 seconds respectively. A small mistake at turn 12 forced the Finn to run wide off the track for a moment, and as he exited the final corner onto the pit straight, the car oversteered. Despite these two errors, Häkkinen reclaimed pole position by 0.091 seconds.

As raceday dawned, it seemed that the McLarens were faster than the Ferraris. At the start, Schumacher did not make a good getaway and, in order to defend his position, moved to the left to block Coulthard. As the two tussled while reaching Tamburello, Coulthard had to lift off, allowing Barrichello to get level with him. In the next corner, Rubens was ahead. At the same time, Jacques Villeneuve had a superb start and got past four cars in front of him. Following Jacques were Jarno Trulli and Eddie Irvine in sixth and seventh respectively. All this had allowed Häkkinen to get a 1.2 second lead over Schumacher and a further 1.9 seconds over Barrichello and Coulthard.

It soon became clear that the race was developing into a battle between Häkkinen and Schumacher. Barrichello and Coulthard were dropping away at a second a lap and they were quite a bit ahead of third group consisting of Villeneuve, Trulli, Irvine, Ralf and Mika Salo. At the front, Häkkinen soon began to edge away from Schumacher, slowly but surely. On lap 20, the gap was out to 3 seconds before it stabilized until the pitstops. Meanwhile Irvine accidentally pushed the speed limiter button, allowing Ralf and Salo to get ahead. On lap 26, over 25 seconds behind the leaders, Barrichello and Coulthard divied into the pits. Coulthard was faster and got ahead of Barrichello. On the next lap, Häkkinen stopped to refuel with a 3.2 second lead. He was stationary for 7.6 seconds unlike Schumacher who was there for 10 seconds. This nearly doubled Mika's lead, up to 5.7 seconds. At the same time, Coulthard had a momentary technical glitch, allowing Barrichello back into third.

Behind the top four, Villeneuve, Ralf and Salo were battling for fifth, sixth and seventh and left Irvine and Trulli to battle for eighth and ninth. At the front, Häkkinen hit a piece of wreckage and lost time. He recovered and increased his lead back up to over five seconds by lap 39. But then Schumacher began to close in. On lap 41, it came down by a second. Another three tenths were chipped away in the next lap. On lap 43, however, Schumacher had to deal with the Sauber of Pedro Diniz who tried to be a bit gentle and the two nearly collided. Schumacher lost over a second but immediately something in the electronics went wrong on Häkkinen's car. It immediately reset itself but Mika had lost two seconds. So, when Häkkinen pitted on lap 44 with a 3 second lead, Michael stepped up a gear, but it did not look like he was going to get the 25 seconds needed to get ahead of Mika.

Next lap, Barrichello went into the pits from third while behind them Ralf drops out with fuel pressure. Coulthard's sector times decreased as he went next time around. He came ahead of Rubens. McLaren had won the smaller battle, i.e. the battle for third. Now it was left to Schumacher to get ahead of Häkkinen. Schumacher came into the pits on lap 49. It was short and he came ahead of Häkkinen. There was a massive difference in their IN and OUT lap times which made the difference. Coulthard still could not match the pace of the leaders, around three tenths slower but he pulled away from Barrichello at over two seconds a lap. In behind them, Salo was hounding Villeneuve. On lap 58, Trulli had gearbox problems and stopped from eighth. Thus, Schumacher won comfortably from Häkkinen with Coulthard in third. Barrichello was fourth while Villeneuve held off Salo.