54 Laps, 4.421
Michael's lucky day
MICHAEL SCHUMACHER won a dramatic Canadian Grand Prix when the race was stopped following a nasty accident for Olivier Panis, which left the Frenchman with broken legs. For Schumacher it was the perfect result because his championship rival Jacques Villeneuve had dropped the ball and crashed on the second lap. The biggest threat to Schumacher came on this occasion from David Coulthard's McLaren - which would have won if David had not stalled the car because of a clutch problem just a few moments before Olivier crashed.
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After the restart Michael set to work to build his advantage again, setting a string of fastest laps to pull out a 10 second gap by lap 28. He was on a two-stop strategy. By then Fisichella, Alesi and the impressive Wurz had all pitted leaving only David Coulthard to take the lead. As each lap ticked by the performance became more and more impressive. David was on a one-stop race and his pace with a heavy fuel load was impressive. The new Mercedes engine - which David was racing for the first time - was very strong and the tires were lasting the distance.
He finally came in on lap 40 and when Michael had to pit for his second stop on lap 44 David was 15secs clear. Michael blistered the next set of tires and so had to pit again and, seeing this, David came into the pits for a precautionary stop to get a new set of tires - just to be sure. And that is when it all went horribly wrong: the car stalled as David tried to accelerate away.
"The clutch did not disengage," explained David. The team did finally manage to start him up again but he was a lap down by then and the race was under another safety Car following Panis's accident. Three laps later the Grand Prix was red-flagged and ended 15 laps short of the scheduled 69. David was classified seventh, a disaster.
The team could, however, take some satisfaction from the fact that the car had been very competitive and that, even if the result did not show it, it had been McLaren's day. Let us hope that we see similar showings on different circuits as the season progresses.
GrandPrix.com