Australian Grand Prix, March 1999

Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne, March 1999

The king is dead, long live ... Eddie Irvine? Yes, the Ferrari number two wrote a script all of his own in the Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne and emerged with his maiden F1 victory. Last season's opener lacked a little excitement, shall we say. This year there were cars flying off, blowing up and colliding all over the place in a race of attrition that saw only eight take the chequered flag. It hadn't looked that way at the start. Qualifying saw the familiar McLaren pair of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard in their customary front row slots, enough to prompt headlines in the local papers of "here we go again".	Irvine wins GP shock horror!
However, the omens were not good for McLaren, with several off-track incidents during practice and qualifying and reliability problems during testing. Then, Mika was forced to take the spare car to the grid following a misfire on his own. What's more, he almost took the rest of the pit with him too. The car was still connected to an electrical cord, and as Mika drove out the roof was pulled down on the unfortunate Ron Dennis and crew! Michael Schumacher was, predictably, at the head of the chasing pack in the number one Ferrari. More surprisingly he was followed by Stewart's Rubens Barrichello in fourth and Jordan's Heinz-Harald Frentzen in fifth. Eddie Irvine rounded off the top six. Problems started early on as the cars lined up after the formation lap, and it was Stewart's turn first. Johnny Herbert's car started billowing smoke, prompting action from the fire marshals, quickly followed by the same problem for Rubens Barrichello. The start was abandoned, Barrichello lost the advantage of his superb qualifying position and was forced to start in the spare car from the pitlane, and Johnny Herbert's first race for Stewart was over before it had started. Take two saw more problems, as both Mika Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher had trouble getting away for the formation lap. Mika managed to get rolling in time to maintain his pole position, but Michael couldn't select first gear and was relegated to the back of the grid for the second race in succession. Let's hope this isn't getting to be a habit. With positions 3 and 4 on the grid vacant the McLarens had a comfortable margin of safety when the race was finally started and proceeded to disappear, in formation, into the distance. Irvine beat Frentzen into the first corner for third, while Ralf Schumacher in his debut drive for Williams pipped Giancarlo Fisichella in the Benetton for fifth. Jacques Villeneuve even managed to get the new BAR car into seventh as poor Damon Hill, in his hundredth Grand Prix, was shunted off by Jarno Trulli's Prost at the second corner. As last year, the McLarens began to open up a formidable gap. Eight seconds by lap three became 15 seconds after ten. Meanwhile, Michael Schumacher was entertaining the crowd with a typically barnstorming drive through the tailenders, using all of the track and a bit of the surrounding countryside as well, and had made it up to 11th place by lap 10. Rubens Barrichello was more or less matching Schumacher's pace and had also made up ground to 13th.
The Ferrari No. 2 makes his bid for glory	Suddenly, the McLarens started to slow and by lap 15 David Coulthard was into the pits and out of the race with hydraulic problems. Almost simultaneously, Jacques Villeneuve's BAR shed its rear wing causing a spectacular 180 mph spin which fortunately ended with the car parked neatly at the edge of the track. However, it was enough to bring the safety car out and Mika's 18 second lead was reduced to nothing as the field formed up behind him.
As the safety car pulled in on lap 17 it was obvious that the McLaren had problems and Eddie Irvine took advantage to plunder the lead, followed by Ralf Schumacher, Frentzen, Trulli and, ominously, Michael Schumacher who was now up to fifth. Pedro Diniz, now driving for Sauber, found himself in an unaccustomed sixth place. Hakkinen cruised round for a while but was eventually forced to retire with a mechanical throttle problem. At the front, Frentzen and Trulli both passed Ralf Schumacher whilst his team mate Alessandro Zanardi ended his first race for Williams by spinning off, bringing out the safety car for the second time. The race restarted on lap 25 but Eddie Irvine was equal to the challenge and maintained his lead, with Frentzen still in second followed by the two Schumachers, Diniz and Alexander Wurz in the Benetton. Things became even more chaotic over the next few laps as, with pitstops and retirements, the order seemed to change every few seconds. Trulli had pitted but tripped over a Minardi on rejoining putting both out of the race. Michael Schumacher relived Suzuka as his rear tyre punctured, although this time he made it back to the pits, albeit at the tail end of the field again. Pedro Diniz lost drive and retired, and Alexander Wurz lost his rear suspension at speed. Rubens Barrichello made it briefly up to fourth before being mysteriously called in for a 10 second stop-go penalty on lap 31. This left room for some new faces in the points positions, Fisichella's Benetton having regained fourth position with guest appearances at times from Tora Takagi and Pedro De La Rosa in the Arrows, Luca Badoer's Minardi and Ricardo Zonta's BAR. Meanwhile, the two leaders pitted together on lap 34 allowing Fisichella to split them on rejoining until his own stop on lap 38. Michael Schumacher was having more trouble, this time with faulty electrics mounted on the steering wheel. He pitted once but caught his crew out and drove straight through. Next time round he barely made it to the pits and looked to be stuck in neutral. A new wheel got him going again, but yet again he was last. Despite a few fastest laps later that was how he would finish. Irvine now had a five second lead and Frentzen, Ralf Schumacher and Fisichella were managing to keep out of trouble behind him. Rubens Barrichello was on another charge, passing Zonta, Takagi and de la Rosa in the space of four laps to take fifth place by lap 43. Zonta's engine let go on lap 50, but not before he had held Irvine up. However, Frentzen couldn't take advantage and, despite a late effort from Ralf Schumacher, which ended when pieces began to fall off his car, there were no further changes in position. Pedro de la Rosa managed to keep it all together for an excellent sixth place for Arrows in his debut Grand Prix. The first race of 1999 was full of action, if not racing, and was a welcome first victory for Eddie Irvine. The new tyres, more slippery but lasting longer, were responsible for some of the mayhem but reliability was the problem for most teams. They now have five weeks to get things ready for Brazil. G'day.