Belgian GP - Race Report
ALESI MAKES A POINT Schumacher wins Belgian GP as Alesi scores first point for Jordan Honda Jean Alesi scored his first point with a Honda engine today when he took his Benson and Hedges Jordan Honda to sixth place in a dramatic Belgian Grand Prix packed with incident. The Lucky Strike BAR Hondas of Jacques Villeneuve and Olivier Panis finished in eighth and 11th places while Alesi’s Jordan Honda team-mate, Jarno Trulli, was forced to retire with engine failure while running in fifth place four laps from the end of a race run in two parts. Michael Schumacher drove calmly through the melee and into the record books as he scored his 52nd victory to clock up the highest number of grand prix wins by one driver. As the start lights came on the drama began as Heinz-Harald Frentzen, sitting fourth on the grid, stalled his Prost, forcing the start to be abandoned. As the field got away on the new formation lap the excitement continued as polesitter Juan Pablo Montoya’s Williams BMW remained stationary, demoting him to the back of the grid while his team-mate Ralf Schumacher led away from his brother, who promptly overtook the Williams round the outside within half a lap and began to open a lead over the Williams, his Ferrari team-mate Rubens Barrichello and Benetton’s Giancarlo Fisichella and BAR Honda’s Jacques Villeneuve, both of whom had made good starts. Villeneuve was unable to hold off the two McLarens of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard and finished lap one in seventh, with his team-mate Olivier Panis in 11th and Jordan Honda’s pairing of Jean Alesi and Jarno Trulli in 12th and 15th respectively. By lap two Alesi was up to 10th but three laps later Luciano Burti’s Prost and Eddie Irvine’s Jaguar made contact, the Prost hitting the barrier at virtually unabated speed and forcing the race to be red-flagged for Burti to be extracted from his car. With five laps already gone a two-part race was declared with the Schumacher brothers starting from the first row for the second race of 36 laps. However, this time it was Ralf ‘s turn to go nowhere fast as he sat helplessly in his Williams, still on its grid stands with its wheels in the air, as the field pulled away for the formation lap. With the threat of his brother consigned to the back of the grid, Michael eased away again at the start, chased hard by Fisichella, Barrichello and Coulthard. Montoya’s race came to an early end when his BMW engine expired and soon after the first round of pitstops began. By the end of the shakeout Schumacher had extended his lead over Fisichella to 21 seconds, and the race order continuing with Coulthard, Hakkinen, Barrichello, Trulli, Alesi and Villeneuve in the top eight. Just before the second pitstops began, Barrichello knocked his front wing off going over the Bus-stop chicane kerbs and Trulli and Alesi slipped by into fifth and sixth. The shuffle after the second pitstops kept the order the same although Barrichello found a way past Alesi to take sixth and Coulthard eventually overhauled Fisichella for second, over 30 seconds behind Schumacher. With Trulli out four laps from the end of the race, Alesi fought a hard battle with Ralf Schumacher to defend his sixth position and take his first point for Jordan Honda. Jean Alesi Position: 6th “This is such a good result for me and the team. When I came to Jordan Honda, I knew that the team really wanted to increase its points and I put myself under a lot of pressure to achieve this for the team. It was really motivating to see the pit board with my name and position on it with drivers such as Rubens and Ralf behind me. To score points in Formula One at the moment is very hard, but the team has made a good step forward in terms of reliability and I hope that my first point here today for Jordan Honda is only a starting point. It has been a positive weekend overall, despite our disappointing qualifying positions, but now I just want to score more points and help the team to finish higher in the championship.” Kazutoshi Nishizawa – Technical Director, Honda Racing Development “First of all I would like to say on behalf of everybody at Honda that we hope Luciano is OK and wish him a speedy recovery. I’m very pleased that Jean has scored his first point with a Honda engine. We all enjoyed watching him battle towards the end – he did a good job. We don’t know what caused Jarno’s engine failure but we will find the problem and resolve it for the next race. The BAR Honda drivers both had a tough race which is disappointing considering Jacques qualified in the top six.” Eddie Jordan, Chief Executive, Jordan Honda “To come away from this race with a point is incredible and far more than I could have expected given our poor qualifying performance. Jean made a brilliant start in the first part and Jarno did the same at the re-start. We were strongly holding fifth and sixth positions overall for the majority of the race so looking very strong for both cars to finish in the points. For Jarno’s race to be over just four laps from the end was frustrating but Jean drove a very commendable race to hold off Ralf to the finish line, and both Jarno and Jean did a great job for the team today. With the exception of Michael, who was in a league of his own, the outstanding drivers today were Jean, Jarno and Giancarlo. It was great to see Giancarlo on the podium, proving his true racing talent, and we hope that he can achieve plenty more podiums next year. I’d like to say well done to Michael as well, for making history ten years on from his debut Grand Prix at this race.” Craig Pollock, Team Principal and Managing Director, BAR Honda “This was a disappointing day for the team. Everyone worked very hard all weekend and we were encouraged by the reliability of our car in the race. There will definitely have to be a lot of hard work and analysis back at the factory and at the test in Mugello next week. We have to improve the car now to get crucial championship points.” Race results 1 M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari 1h08m05.002s 2 COULTHARD McLaren Mercedes + 10.098s 3 FISICHELLA Benetton Renault + 27.700s 4 HAKKINEN McLaren Mercedes + 36.087s 5 BARRICHELLO Ferrari + 54.521s 6 ALESI Jordan Honda + 59.684s 7 R.SCHUMACHER Williams BMW + 59.986s 8 VILLENEUVE BAR Honda + 1m04.970s 11 PANIS BAR Honda + 1 lap World Championship standings (after 14 of 17 rounds) Drivers’ 1 M Schumacher Ferrari 104 2 Coulthard McLaren Mercedes 57 3 Barrichello Ferrari 48 4 R Schumacher Williams BMW 44 5 Hakkinen McLaren Mercedes 24 6 Montoya Williams BMW 15 7 Villeneuve BAR Honda 11 8 Heidfeld Sauber Petronas 11 9 Raikkonen Sauber Petronas 9 10 Trulli Jordan Honda 9 12 Panis BAR Honda 5 15 Alesi Jordan Honda 5 Constructors’ 1 Ferrari 152 2 McLaren Mercedes 81 3 Williams BMW 59 4 Sauber Petronas 20 5 Jordan Honda 16 6 BAR Honda 16 7 Benetton Renault 10 8 Jaguar 5 9 Prost 4 10 Arrows 1 Round 15 of the FIA Formula One World Championship is the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday 16 September. -------------------------------------------------------------- Honda Formula 1 Press Office, 19 Heathmans Road, London, SW6 4TJ, UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7384 2133 Fax: +44 (0)20 7384 1238