Ralf Schumacher wins hard fought Monaco Grand Prix.
Ralf Schumacher drove to a fantastic unexpected first win after battling first with Damon Hill and then Michael Schumacher, Ralf drove a steady race and at one stage had a near minute lead on the rest of the field, however Damon Hill prevented a lights to flag victory, the Arrows Honda was mega fast here and running a 3 stop strategy as opposed to a 2 and had the pace to actually overtake Ralf Schumacher with the Brit having one more pit stop to go. Unfortunately the engine spectacularly caught fire and though Damon parked the car and rushed out as quick as possible, he still picked up some major burns and will
miss the next 2 races.
This left Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine as Ralf's nearest challengers, Irvine had already leap frogged Mika Hakkinen and was heckling Michael Schumacher for nearly 40 laps unable to pass. The battling pair caught Ralf Schumacher within the final 8 laps but could not find away pass meaning the podium 3 finished nose to tail.
Mika Hakkinen ended a somewhat lonely 4th, like Damon Hill, he ran a three stop strategy but was unable to overtake when it mattered so he fell a long way back from the front of the field, yet Hakkinen was a long way ahead of the cars behind him too.
Verstappen, Montoya and Herbert were left to scrap over the minor points, the former two cars were not having that great a day after a poor qualifying effort whilst Johnny Herbert had managed to slice his way in to their mix with fine driving. As cars dropped out ahead the 3 of them made it in to the points with an extra lap squeezed in by Verstappen taking the "victory" being 5th place. Due to high attrition Noberto Fontana managed to take the final point in 8th after what was in reality a weak drive from him, he had only just managed to finish ahead of his team mate Lowndes. Jean Alesi had a poor race.
Jaques Villeneuve was having a strong race for the Champions team, he spent most of the race in 6th place and would have easily secured 5th had he not span off. His strategy was the same as the podium 3 runners but he did not quite have the pace to keep up with them. Greg Moore was right in the thick of the Verstappen/Montoya battle and more then likely would have finished 6th had he not span in to the barriers. The two Jordan cars were in the last 2 places in the race when they both span.
Unser Jr. may have had the pace for 8th place after dueling with Fontana only for him to spin. The big accident of the race involved Unser's team mate Jan Magnussen. Magnussen was quick and looked like a real points threat however in turn 1 he had a comming together with the Williams of Emmanuel Collard. The accident was very heavy and for Collard a painful one as he fractured his wrist, this means
Collard will be out for 3 races which is a shame as the Frenchman was beating Montoya around Monaco.
It was a terrible race for Minardi as Trulli jumped the start and Kristensen retired early on. Neither of them had looked particularly quick whilst Alain Prost looked very quick, setting the fastest lap early on that stood as the 3rd fastest time of the day, (fastest lap went to Hill) only the Frenchman also jumped the start and soon retired with a suspension issue.
Join us again in Montreal for round 7 of the championship.
There will be no testing, apart from the Champions Team who managed to reserve testing at Mexico.
Damon Hill is injured for 2 races (Current Reserve driver is Mark Webber)
Emmanuel Collard is injured for 3 races (Current Reserve driver is Jorg Muller)
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