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Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher
delighted the Italian crowd
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Michael Schumacher escaped the chaos of the first lap to secure his sixth win of the season and pull him back to within two points of the championship lead. Title rival Mika Hakkinen could only manage second in front of Ralf Schumacher who enjoyed his second consecutive podium finish. The race was overshadowed however by two first lap incidents which saw six drivers retire and led to the tragic death of a fire marshal who was struck by a flying tyre at the second chicane.
There has been much discussion regarding a first lap incident since teams came to test at Monza last week. The revised first corner was expected to cause trouble but the field made it through without incident with the exception of Eddie Irvine who hit Mika Salo's Sauber. Irvine retired from the race but Salo trundled round to the pits with a punctured rear left tyre and was able to rejoin the race.
The field were not so lucky at the second chicane as Heinz-Harald Frentzen hit the cars of teammate Trulli and Rubens Barichello. As the three cars skidded across the gravel trap they collected David Coulthard's McLaren and all retired from the race. Behind Pedro de la Rosa made a failed move on Johnny Herbert and went into a roll across the gravel trap, bouncing off Coulthard's McLaren before coming to a rest upside-down beside Barichello's Ferrari. All the drivers miraculously escaped injury, a testament to the strength of the cars, but the force of the accident ripped tyres from their tethers and they bounced across the track, fatally injuring the marshal.
The remaining drivers followed the safety car for eleven laps with Michael Schumacher leading Mika Hakkinen. It seems likely that Jacques Villeneuve was relieved to be in third place. His slow start may have saved him from getting caught up in the first lap incident. A bizarre incident just before the restart saw Jenson Button veer off the track and into the Arnco. The impact was enough to put the young Brit out of the race. "Normally when you have a restart you're supposed to keep the same pace all the time," said Button. "But Michael decided to slow down on the exit of Ascari and then accelerate and then brake … so everyone caught up and spread out across the circuit and I had nowhere to go."
Schumacher later apologised in the press conference for the incident. "I was accelerating/braking, accelerating/breaking, to warm up my brakes. I think [I made] a mistake the way I did it, because some drivers were thinking we would start the race already and I was going flat out. But I started braking again and naturally all the cars behind started braking, but probably saw it a little bit late. I'm sorry for whoever suffered from that."
At the restart, Schumacher was able to pull away from Hakkinen and the rest of the field to the delight of the Tifosi. After a clean pitstop Schumacher drove to the finish with ease. Although Mika Hakkinen began to catch him in the later stages of the race the German was always in control. Schumacher jumped onto the podium, punching his arms in the air in front of the thousands of Ferrari fans who flooded the track after the race but the joy and relief from winning proved too much. He broke down in tears during the press conference, and was comforted by his brother and Hakkinen. The victory was his 41st, equalling Ayrton Senna's record, and came after the Italian press' criticisms that he is not doing enough to win Ferrari's first driver's championship for 21 years.
"I'm sorry - I'm just so happy and just exhausted," he said. When asked why the victory meant so much he replied, "It's obvious why. We are here in Italy. We obviously were in some difficulty in the last races where we haven't been as competitive as we wished to be for whatever reason, and we are back on the road which I think we showed very obvious all weekend. It's my 41st victory, and the crowd outside just has been amazing. I mean, it's much more than it has been in '98, and it's, I don't know, but it's simply a lot more, it came a lot more close to me, and it's different. It's difficult to put into words."
Jos Verstappen brought his car home in fourth place after he was able to set an impressive pace throughout the race, consistently topping the field through the speed trap. Wurz's days at Benetton may be coming to a close, but the Austrian stayed out of trouble and was able to score his first points of the season, coming home in fifth place.
Ricardo Zonta was perhaps the surprise of the day. After setting the fastest time in morning warm-up, he put in a sensational drive taking advantage of a light fuel load to carve through the field to move up to third place. Unfortunately for the Brazilian the one-stop drivers proved too fast and he could manage only sixth place. Jacques Villeneuve, meanwhile, must be questioning what he has to do to get a good points finish. His chances of securing BAR's first podium finish evaporated when the Canadian's engine expired on lap 15. "The car was easy to drive and it was easy to be quick," he said. "We were on a one-stop strategy and suddenly the car stopped."
Mika Salo and Pedro Diniz came home just outside the points while the Minardis completed the top ten. An excellent drive from Fisichella had him in line for a good points position in his home race but he stalled his car during the pitstop, due to problems with his gearbox and rejoined down the field, finishing the race in a distant eleventh. Jean Alesi was the last of the finishers, some two laps adrift of the leaders.
With three races remaining the championship is far from over. Coulthard's and Barichello's early retirements from Monza means that the battle is now a race between Hakkinen and Schumacher. Schumacher's win has ensured that the championship cannot be decided before Japan and as the F1 circus moves on to Indianapolis, the only thing that is certain is that the US grand prix is definitely not a race to miss.
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