British Grand Prix, July 1999

British Grand Prix, Silverstone, July 1999

DC - Top Brit	The British Grand Prix at Silverstone may not have had the excitement of the French and Canadian events that preceded it, but it may yet have a greater bearing on the championship. Michael Schumacher broke his leg in a massive first lap accident and will be out for at least 6 weeks, Mika Hakkinen retired without scoring and David Coulthard took advantage of the unaccustomed reliability of his car to claim his first Grand Prix victory on home soil. The pre-race hype was all about Damon Hill's will he, won't he retirement plans. The general consensus was that a good drive at Silverstone would be enough to motivate him to finish the season, and his promising early warm up and pre-qualifying performances gave some credence to this.
Qualifying gave us a familiar looking grid, Hakkinen's McLaren once again on pole followed by Schumacher's Ferrari, then Coulthard's McLaren followed by Eddie Irvine's Ferrari. Fifth and sixth were the Jordan boys, Heinz-Harald Frentzen pipping Hill as he has tended to all season. Hakkinen made a good start and lead into the first corner, but Schumacher made an awful start and dropped to fourth behind Coulthard and Irvine. Hill managed to beat Frentzen off the line, but it was all in vain as two cars had stalled on the grid. The race was red flagged. Schumacher had obviously not noticed the flags, however, and went to overtake Irvine into Stowe corner. For some reason the car locked up at the front, possibly due to a rear brake failure, and straight-lined, narrowly missing Irvine and plunging off across the gravel trap in a cloud of tyre smoke. The car skated over the gravel, which had no braking effect at all, and hit the tyre wall head on at a speed that was probably still over 100 m.p.h. Schumacher was lucky to get away with a broken right leg, a few seasons ago that would have been a fatal accident. At the restart Hakkinen once again lead the field, but this time Irvine got ahead of Coulthard, Frentzen held fourth but Ralf Schumacher in the Williams, despite his brother's recent accident, made a brilliant start from eighth to grab fifth ahead of Hill. Once again there was a staller on the grid, this time bringing out the safety car for a lap rather than the flags. When the safety car retired Coulthard made an attempt at Irvine but the Irishman held firm, and the field began to string out behind Hakkinen, who had built a 4 second lead by lap 10. Pitstops for the leading group began on lap 23 with Damon Hill, followed by a very quick stop from Coulthard on lap 24 together with Frentzen and Schumacher nose to tail. Williams made the better job of the stop and got their man out ahead of Frentzen. On lap 25 Hakkinen stopped and the mechanics had a struggle to fit the rear left wheel, slowing the stop. As the McLaren pulled away, Mika weaved a bit and was obviously not happy with what he felt, taking a slow lap and revisiting the pits next time round. Another 27 second stop ensued and his race was effectively over as he rejoined 11th.
Meanwhile, Irvine had stopped on lap 26 but slightly overshot his pit causing a small delay. This was enough for Coulthard to just beat him out of the pits and claim the lead, with Irvine second, Schumacher third, Frentzen fourth, Hill fifth and Rubens Barrichello in the Stewart now up to sixth. The leading pair were now 21 seconds ahead. On lap 29 Mika Hakkinen had a nasty moment when the troublesome left rear wheel parted company with the car.	Coulthard entertains the home crowd
This was fortunately in a slow corner and just before the pitlane. Although Mika rejoined the team later called him in to retirement for safety reasons. Shortly afterwards Jacques Villeneuve's BAR expired in an inconvenient position and the safety car made it's second appearance, closing up the field. Damon Hill lost out to Barrichello just after the restart on lap 32 and dropped to sixth. Irvine was still chasing Coulthard's tail as the second round of stops began on lap 41 with Ralf Schumacher, followed by Irvine on lap 42 and Coulthard on lap 43. Although Irvine made no mistake this time, the McLaren team still made a slightly quicker stop and Coulthard maintained his lead, finding this set of tyres more to his liking and beginning to leave the Ferrari behind. When Frentzen pitted on lap 46, Damon Hill had the opportunity to lead his final British Grand Prix for a lap, much to the delight of the crowd. However, following his own stop he was back down to sixth although two laps later he regained fifth from Barrichello as the Stewart suffered a puncture. Stewart teammate Johnny Herbert now made a brief appearance in sixth position, although the Englishman was unlucky to receive a stop-go penalty at this point for overtaking under the safety car. This left Pedro Diniz in the Sauber in the final points position. Ahead, Coulthard continued to hold Irvine at bay until the chequered flag and chalked up his first victory of the season, his relief at receiving his first slice of luck all year almost tangible. Frentzen harried Schumacher to the line but was unable to pass, whilst a good performance from Hill was hampered by an hydraulics problem in the last few laps, although he managed to hold onto fifth position ahead of Diniz. And so as the Damon Hill era comes to an end David Coulthard staked his claim for a place in the hearts of British fans, and also did himself no harm in the championship race either. Ferrari's new number one blew his first chance of victory following his erstwhile leader's demise with his pitstop error, but Eddie Irvine will not be one to let that worry him. Eddie for champion anybody?