Report
There were some surprises in qualifying as Michael Schumacher was on pole position ahead of Jarno Trulli who was a surprising second, David Coulthard in third, Heinz-Harald Frentzen in fourth, Mika Häkkinen in fifth and Rubens Barrichello down in sixth.
At the start, Schumacher got away well and stayed ahead of Trulli. Coulthard was third ahead of Frentzen, Häkkinen and Barrichello. At the Loews hairpin Häkkinen made a superb move on Frentzen but behind them in the middle of the pack, Pedro de la Rosa went around the outside of Jenson Button. There was not enough space and Button tipped de la Rosa into a spin and the Arrows curled across in front of Button and the cars behind them were all forced to come to a stop. The race was red-flagged.
In the restart, Schumacher again took the lead and Trulli kept second under pressure from Coulthard. Frentzen kept fourth ahead of Häkkinen but behind them Barrichello had a poor start allowing Ralf Schumacher to push Jean Alesi out of the way to take sixth. Frentzen resisted an attack by Häkkinen at Loews and the field went by without trouble. The order was: Schumacher, Trulli, Coulthard, Frentzen, Häkkinen, Ralf, Alesi, Barrichello, Giancarlo Fisichella and Johnny Herbert.
The Jordan team did not have the pace that they had in qualifying and Trulli was holding up Coulthard as well as allowing Schumacher to get away at a second a lap. Overtaking was almost impossible and so we had Frentzen holding up Häkkinen, Ralf on his own and Alesi blocking Barrichello and Fisichella. Many laps passed in this way with Schumacher disappearing off into the distance and faster cars being held up by slower ones until many started disappearing one by one. The first to go was Alesi who had a broken transmission on lap 30, releasing a hard charging Barrichello and Fisichella. At the front, Schumacher was pulling away at over a second a lap now and Barrichello now free, was lapping at a near similar pace, the two Ferraris being the fastest on the track.
The race took a big twist within three laps. On lap 36, behind Frentzen, Häkkinen suddenly slowed down and was forced to pit. The team opened an inspection hatch and moved some radio cables which were blocking the brake pedal and sent him back out but he was a long way behind. On lap 37, Trulli slowed down with a gearbox problem, retired on the spot and released Coulthard but he was 36 seconds behind Schumacher. Still Schumacher was slowly pulling away from Coulthard. Behind them, on the next lap, Ralf crashed into a wall and ended up with a deep gash on his leg. The order was: Schumacher, Coulthard, Frentzen, Barrichello, Fisichella, Eddie Irvine, Mika Salo, Jacques Villeneuve, Häkkinen and Ricardo Zonta. The race now angain settled after the previous retirements with Barrichello closing on Frentzen but 15 seconds behind and Häkkinen closing in on Villeneuve.
There was no change in the top 7 after the stops and only Häkkinen got past Villeneuve and began closing in on Salo. On lap 55, still pulling away and having a 39 second lead, Schumacher's car slowed down massively. He went to the pits, still ahead but the team discovered that he had a cracked exhaust. Schumacher was out and Coulthard was in the lead. His McLaren teammate Häkkinen was by now only 5 seconds behind Salo. By lap 61, he was right behind but unable to overtake. Barrichello was closing in on Frentzen and Frentzen crashed on lap 71 and was unable to continue. On lap 75, still behind Salo, Häkkinen lost sixth and seventh gears and could not prevent Salo from getting away. The race ended with Coulthard winning from Barrichello, Fisichella, Irvine, Salo and Häkkinen who was able to crawl to the line to get a point.
Read more about this topic: 2000 Monaco Grand Prix
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