Spanish Grand Prix, June 1999

Spanish Grand Prix, Barcelona, June 1999

After the emotional high of Manchester United defeating Bayern Munich in Barcelona for the European Cup just a few days earlier, the Spanish Grand Prix in the same city was something of an anti-climax. The F1 circus failed to put on a show as Mika Hakkinen led a procession from start to finish in a race that lacked everything. Qualifying promised some upsets as Jean Alesi's Sauber held provisional pole for a good while, then Eddie Irvine took the second Ferrari to the front.	Mika leads the way
However, the McLarens came good right at the end with Mika Hakkinen snatching his fifth successive pole and David Coulthard slotting into third behind Irvine. Unusually, Ferrari's Michael Schumacher could only manage fourth ahead of Alesi with BAR's Jacques Villeneuve a creditable sixth. In the race itself, Irvine picked up wheelspin on the dirty side of the track at the start and lost out in the drag to the first corner, dropping to fifth and delaying his teammate at the same time. Villeneuve took advantage and darted into third behind the two McLarens with Schumacher eventually passing Irvine round the first corner for fourth and Jarno Trulli in the Prost jumping from ninth on the grid to sixth. The McLarens began to open up a big lead whilst the Ferraris remained bottled up behind Villeneuve, faster but unable to pass. And so it remained for the first 23 laps with nothing to relieve the tedium until Eddie Irvine took his first pitstop. On lap 25 Villeneuve and Schumacher pitted together, the Ferrari managing to complete it's stop almost two seconds quicker than the BAR and emerging ahead. Villeneuve also failed to get out ahead of Irvine, and the race was on to catch the McLarens. Hakkinen was 28 seconds down the track but Coulthard, pitting on lap 26, overshot his mark and broke the front jack losing five or six seconds in the process. As David pointed out, he was out of practice because it was only the second pitstop he had managed to make all season. Nevertheless, the mistake put him within the sights of Michael Schumacher who began to put in one of those charges that marks him out from the crowd, eliminating a gap of eighteen seconds by lap 43. On lap 41, Villeneuve began the second round of pitstops and, following a keystone cops attempt to remove a damaged piece of wing by the pitcrew, stripped first gear and had to retire. Despite some promising performances Villeneuve has yet to complete a race this season, although his teammate Mika Salo did manage to gain the BAR team it's first finish later in the day.
Another solo drive for Mika	Ralf Schumacher's Williams now moved into sixth behind Trulli, having progressed from tenth on the grid to eighth at the first corner, and then benefitting from the earlier retirement of Jean Alesi. Meanwhile, brother Michael pitted on lap 43 just as he closed on Coulthard. The tactic might have worked had a tail-end Arrows not decided to pit immediately in front of him, delaying Schumacher's entry by a second or two.
When Coulthard pitted two laps later he made amends for his earlier error with a perfect stop, slightly quicker than Schumacher's, and rejoined seconds ahead of the flying Ferrari. The McLaren man did well to deny Schumacher any overtaking opportunity in the first few corners whilst his tyres were cold, but then surprisingly began to pull away. We were later to learn that Coulthard had been unhappy with his second set of tyres, whilst Schumacher did not like his third. Whatever, the charge was over and McLaren were now comfortably set up for the whitewash. In fact, following the second pitstops the points scoring positions were all decided. Behind third placed Schumacher, Irvine was running a somewhat lonely fourth, whilst Ralf Schumacher had managed to come out of his stop ahead of Jarno Trulli giving them fifth and sixth respectively. The only excitement of any kind came from a close run for sixth between Trulli, Rubens Barrichello in the Stewart and Damon Hill in the Jordan. Even this was spoilt by the blue flags as first Hakkinen, then Coulthard and finally Schumacher lapped the group. At least Damon Hill did manage to take advantage as Schumacher lapped to pass Barrichello, the only genuine overtaking manouevre of the race. Ironically, Barrichello was subsequently disqualified for a technical infringement on the car so it was all for naught, which just about summed up the day. Despite McLaren now being well and truly back in the championship hunt there is no disguising the fact that we have had two dreary races on the trot. Is this the end of Formula 1 as we know it? Should we have new tyres, less aerodynamic grip, wider bodies? Or, maybe, we should just go to Canada, where things always happen. Don't they?