Hakkinen benefits from Schumacher's delay

After more than two months of looking the most haunted man in the Formula One paddock, Mika Hakkinen exorcised the ghosts of two non-finishes and two missed chances to surge back into world championship contention with victory at yesterday's Spanish Grand Prix as a combination of pitlane incident and accident robbed Michael Schumacher of a fourth win of the season.

Despite colliding with Ferrari fuel mechanic Nigel Stepney on his first visit to the pits after 24 laps, Schumacher retained the slender lead he had built over Hakkinen in the race's early stages. But on his second scheduled stop, after 41 laps, and with Hakkinen rushing into the pits directly behind him, Schumacher's crew got it all wrong as the replacement refueller apparently failed to fix the nozzle correctly.

The lapse cost Schumacher 10 seconds and by the time the German blasted back onto the track, Hakkinen was gone, already pressing an unexpected advantage.

But this was Schumacher territory. The comeback king on familiar ground. But for once, time stood still for the German. Afflicted by a slow puncture, Schumacher's lap times plummeted. Hakkinen ground out an impossible-to-catch lead while behind him, David Coulthard loomed large. Eventually the Scot closed in, bustling around the outside of the Ferrari into turn one after nearly coming a cropper with a move down the inside on the previous lap.

Relegated to third, Schumacher battled gamely, but with brother Ralf and Ferrari team-mate Rubens Barrichello swarming all over his F1-2000, he gave way. Barrichello swept through to third as the brothers tussled aggressively in the final corners.

It was the cue for Schumacher to enter the pits for a third time, solely for replacement tyres. But the damage was done, an irretrievable gap had been forged by Hakkinen and Coulthard and there was nothing the German, who eventually finished fifth, could do to break it.

Hakkinen now moves into second place in the drivers' championship with 22 points, 14 behind Schumacher and just two ahead of Coulthard, who bravely defied cracked ribs to race yesterday. The one-two also moves McLaren to within seven points of Ferrari in the constructor's championship.

"There is definitely a sense of relief with this win," said the defending world champion. "It's fantastic. It feels like it has been a really long, long time. It was close a few times this season, but finally we have run a race without any problems. "I remember when we were sitting here last year, it was a very similar situation," he added. "I said then it was a turning point. I said we'd find the reliability, we'd understand the car much more and it was true and the more the season went on the more competitive we were."

Schumacher, while admitting that yesterday had been a catalogue of errors, said he was pleased to have scored some points. "You cannot always have lucky races and today's didn't go so well for us. Maybe it had something to do with my tyre choice but there were obviously other factors," he said, referring to the accident which left Stepney with a broken ankle. "But considering the problems we had at least we scored some points. I'm disappointed because everybody tried their best. But I'm not angry as I took two important points."

Although Schumacher admitted he wasn't angry at events during the race, David Coulthard's ire at the German's tactics was clear afterwards as he claimed Schumacher had driven in a determinedly dangerous manner during his first attempt to pass him at the end of the pit straight.

" I don't think the first moment with Michael was at all fair," he said. "He made his manoeuvre far too late. It's quite clear you're allowed to make one manoeuvre and he waited until I had committed with momentum. In fairness, he can't judge that momentum by using his mirrors, but it was incredibly close. We both arrived at the corner on the limit and almost made contact."

While the championship leaders grappled for the major honours, Jordan struggled to a single-point finish yesterday, as they were again forced to watch Ralf Schumacher push Williams to fourth to stretch the BMW-powered team's lead over Jordan in the constructor's championship to six points.

Indeed, it was only a late engine failure on Jenson Button's FW22 that prevented Jordan from being bundled out of the points altogether. But the young Briton's troubles, just four laps from home, were lapped up by the much slower Frentzen, who gratefully accepted the solitary point.

"It's very encouraging to have finished the race after the difficult start we've had to the season," said Frentzen. "Winning a point is an important bonus, especially on this circuit which is not one where either myself or Jordan have performed well in the past."

Team-mate Jarno Trulli lost any chance of success when he stalled during his first stop after 22 laps. The time-lag in the pits dropped him from ninth to 14th and almost a minute off the pace.

"It is disappointing but the important thing, though, is that we finished the race without any reliability problems," Trulli said. Eddie Jordan concurred with the Italian saying that the team was now looking forward to the next race at the Nurburgring, a circuit which has suited the team better in the past.

"I believe we've made a major breakthrough in our reliability," he said. "I must admit, it was a great relief to see both cars finish, even if it was disappointing not to have them both in the points. But in nine years Jordan has only ever scored three points here, so at least we increased that today."