Okay! Race number two, and it's at Malaysia!
Round 2: MalaysiaIt had been a positive start for Jaguar, with points in their first race they were off and running, and looking to capitalise on their early advantage at Sepang. The weather forecast for the event was hot and sunny throughout, perfect conditions for the teams to get down to setting up their cars and go racing. During practice, both Sammy and Irvine set some promising times in low fuel runs, and so the mood was upbeat as they went into qualifying. The reality however, for Irvine at least, was something far different. Baulked during one flying lap and mistakes in his others meant he would start a lowly 17th. For Sammy, 8th place was less than he was expecting, but it was a position from which he felt he could work a good result. Elsewhere on the grid, with the top three teams filling the top six places, Badoer and Alonso set some amazing times to go 12th and 13th, whilst the Benettons were the polar opposite, Panis and Button on the penultimate row of the grid in 19th and 20th.
1. M Schumacher -- 1:41.126
2. Hakkinen -- 1:41.148
3. Montoya -- 1:41.251
4. Coulthard -- 1:41.702
5. R Schumacher -- 1:42.204
6. Trulli -- 1:42.381
7. Raikkonen -- 1:42.543
8. Jones -- 1:42.7529. Frentzen -- 1:43.670
17. Irvine -- 1:46.957A two stop race was the order of the day for everyone on the grid, and ready to replicate his performance from 2000 where he took 4th place and fastest lap, Sammy was raring to go.
Lap 1
As Hakkinen sneaks ahead of Schumacher to take the lead off the line, there's carnage into turn 1 as David Coulthard misses his braking point and ploughs into the back of both Montoya and Michael Schumacher. Schumi's brother Ralf can't avoid the mess, and all four are out of the race already. Trulli and Jones are also implicated, but suffer less damage and have to tour round for repairs, but a number of other cars also end their days in the mess including Villeneuve for the second race in a row, and also Frentzen. Irvine too receives damage and the Jaguar pit crew show off their ability by quickly turning Jones' car around in time for Irvine to pit straight after. The stop means Jones is forced to switch from a two to a one stopper, and consequently his car is now full of fuel.
Lap 2
Starting lap 2, Jones rejoins in 12th place, an indicator to just how many cars were involved in the accident, and at the front an incredible top 6 is comprised of a dis-believing Hakkinen, followed by Fisichella, Raikkonen, Heidfeld, Barrichello, and Badoer! The lap 1 mess has also broken up the field significantly, with a six second gap from Sammy to Bernoldi in 11th.
Lap 5
Sammy catches Bernoldi very quickly indeed, the high volume of fuel not affecting his race pace too much, and passes him for 11th place on lap 5. Mazzacane is next, a further 7 seconds up the road.
Lap 11
Sammy catches and passes Mazzacane on lap 11 to move inside the top 10 once more. Button is in 9th and another 9 seconds ahead. All the cars in front of Jones managed to avoid the first lap incident, with the next car behind him to have pitted for repairs being Trulli, 19 seconds back. Meanwhile, at the front, Hakkinen continues to set fastest lap after fastest lap, completely unchallenged for the lead. Barrichello is now up into second place having worked his way past both Raikkonen and Fisichella.
Lap 17
Slowly but surely Sammy reels Button in, and the gap is now down to 2.8 seconds, at which point Verstappen, who was in 8th in front of Button, destroys his engine in a cloud of black smoke. This promotes Sammy into 9th position.
Lap 23
By this point in the race, all of the two stoppers in front of Sammy have pitted, and consequently he has moved up to 5th place, 12 seconds behind Raikkonen. Button, Panis, Heidfeld and Badoer were the drivers to loose out to the Jaguar, and Trulli is now in 6th place behind Jones, having cut the gap down to 15 seconds.
Lap 31
At the end of the lap, Sammy pulls in to make his stop, with some seriously worn tyres. The gap to Raikkonen prior to the stop had remained static at around 10 seconds, but Trulli had had the magnets on, closing in quickly on Sammy, to the point where the gap had fallen to just 8 seconds by the Jaguar's stop. On his current pace, the Italian looks set to jump Sammy when he makes his stop. Jones emerges from the pits having lost just the one place to Trulli and so in 6th position, with a gap of 21.5 seconds to the Ferrari, and a 4 second gap back to Heidfeld and the rest, who were yet to make their second stops.
Lap 37
Irvine ends a poor race when his engine expires on the run down to the final corner. Having pitted for repairs on lap 1, he'd spent the race mired at the back of the field struggling for pace. Trulli meanwhile has still not pitted, and with the gap now at a massive 31 seconds between him and Sammy, it's obvious which driver has won that battle. Panis is now in 7th behind the Jaguar, with the gap remaining stable, floating around 5-6 seconds each lap.
Lap 42
Trulli finally pits at the end of the lap, and running a full 10 laps longer than Sammy hands him a comfortable 5th place with an 18 second advantage as he emerges from the pits. Sammy has a brief off-track excursion at turn 14, but he only looses a couple of seconds as he recovers. At this point, Button, Panis and Heidfeld have all made their second stops, leaving Badoer in 7th place, 10 seconds behind Sammy, the Italian having a blinder of a race in the Minardi.
Lap 47
Hakkinen laps Sammy, loosing the Briton a bit of laptime, but it's insignificant as since Badoer pitted on lap 43, Sammy now has a full half a minute on Panis. Trulli however shows no sign of slowing his pace, catching and passing Raikkonen on track to take an amazing 4th place! With the Sauber demoted to 5th, it's now 26 seconds ahead of Jones.
Lap 55
A lap down, but in 6th position, Sammy crosses the line to finish the race. By the end, Raikkonen had increased his advantage to 36 seconds, with Panis 32 seconds behind. It was a lonely end for the Englishman, but two points finishes in the first two races have given Sammy his best ever start to an F1 season, and he was understandably upbeat when interviewed after the race,
Sammy Jones wrote:It was a tough race out there. Temperatures were very high and it was physically very demanding, especially when we had to switch to the one stop strategy and carry loads more fuel than we intended. The first lap crash was crazy, cars were going everywhere in front of me, I think I even saw the Williams' on top of each other at one point during it all. I was annoyed to pick up the damage, but what can you do? I did my best to avoid it, and the irony is maybe if I'd qualified a bit worse, I would have more time to read the situation and get through unscathed. The rest of the race was just about extracting as much out of the car as possible, trying to get the best result I could for the team in the circumstances. To be the second best car to have recovered from a stop on the first lap behind Trulli is a nice achievement, and the points are very welcome indeed. It's great considering the start of the race that we're able to still score points, I think we can look forward to a lot more of these this year.
For the other 11 finishers of the race, there were mixed fortunes. Hakkinen ran away with a truly dominating victory, with no-one even coming close to him at any point. Barrichello and Fisichella completed the podium for BAR and Jordan respectively, excellent performances from both, particularly for Rubens, being new to the team. Trulli drove the race of his life to recover to 4th position having been near last after his first lap pit stop, and deservedly clinches the Drive of the Race award. Raikkonen took an impressive fifth place, thus scoring points in only his second race in F1. Further down the field, Badoer drove a great race to finish 9th and ahead of Button on pace, earning the Briton Reject of the Race, whilst Mazzacane and Bernoldi were hopelessly slow and the only two cars to be lapped more than once.
1. Hakkinen -- 1:38:18.514
2. Barrichello -- +51.209
3. Fisichella -- +1:11.512
4. Trulli -- +1:13.818
5. Raikkonen -- +1:23.561
6. Jones -- +1 lap7. Panis -- +1 lap
8. Heidfeld -- +1 lap
9. Badoer -- +1 lap
10. Button -- +1 lap
11. Mazzacane -- +3 laps
12. Bernoldi -- +3 laps
Drive of the Race: Awarded to
Jarno Trulli for his brilliant comeback drive.
Reject of the Race: Awarded to
Jenson Button for being beaten by Badoer's Minardi on pure race pace alone.
World Drivers' Championship After 2 Rounds:
1. M Schumacher -- 10
= Hakkinen -- 10
3. Trulli -- 9
4. Barrichello -- 8
5. Fisichella -- 4
= Montoya -- 4
= Jones -- 48. Raikkonen -- 2
9. Frentzen -- 1
World Constructors' Championship After 2 Rounds:
1. Ferrari -- 19
2. McLaren -- 10
3. BAR -- 8
4. Jordan -- 5
5. Williams -- 4
= Jaguar -- 47. Sauber -- 2
