McLarens back on top again

Mika Hakkinen put the brakes on Michael Schumacher's world championship ambitions here yesterday as the McLaren-Mercedes team returned en masse to the winner's rostrum for the first time since Monaco two months ago.

It was the Finn's sixth Formula One victory, a success made doubly sweet for McLaren by the Scot David Coulthard recovering strongly to take second place after a first-lap accident which had again threatened to put paid to his chances.

With 10 rounds now completed and six to go - or seven, if rumours of an additional race at Spain's Jerez circuit in October prove true - Hakkinen now leads Schumacher by eight points. Having qualified a frustrated 14th, Coulthard was badly squeezed in a traffic jam at the second corner and was pitched into a spin by Pedro Diniz's out-of-control Arrows. As if to add insult to injury, as Coulthard sat broadside in the middle of the circuit, waiting to resume, his car's nose cone was shredded by the other Arrows, as Mika Salo enacted a spin-turn in front of him.

That forced the McLaren driver into the pits at the end of the opening lap, from where he resumed 19th in the queue behind the safety car, which had been deployed while several cars were cleared from the track at the first and second corners.

"A car stalled on the grid, so I had to lift off and lost some places," said Coulthard. "At the start I was taking the attitude that I would just try to keep out of trouble and I had that same attitude at the second corner.

"As I went into the corner, I looked in the mirror and saw a car (Jarno Trulli's) coming down the outside, so I moved right to give him room, only for Diniz to come up the inside and spin me round. Then I was hit by Salo when he did a `doughnut' (spin turn) in front of me, so I had to come into the pits for a new front wing, although the safety car meant that I did not lose as much time as I might have done."

Hakkinen's world championship points advantage would have been even greater had Eddie Irvine's Ferrari F300 not developed mysterious "braking problems" in the closing stages of the race, allowing Michael Schumacher to claim third place with only three of the race's 71 laps remaining.

That explanation from Ferrari's sporting director Jean Todt raised more than a passing grin from the opposition, particularly as Irvine seemed to be afflicted by these problems for only a handful of laps before Schumacher caught him; once the German was in third place Irvine resumed lapping competitively.

It is widely believed that Irvine's contract requires him to defer to Schumacher at all times but there is no way the Ferrari team can admit this in public without falling foul of the same disapproval from the sport's governing body which was directed towards McLaren when Coulthard waved Hakkinen past to win the first race of the season in Melbourne.

The opening stages of the race saw a close-fought battle between Hakkinen and Schumacher, the Ferrari clearly quicker than the McLaren ahead of it due to running a lighter fuel load with the intention of stopping twice to Hakkinen's once. However, the Finn kept his head and Schumacher eventually made the key driving error when he ran off the track on lap 17, also wrecking his nose section and ripping off an aerodynamic reflector.

He stopped for repairs before taking up the chase in 16th place, climbing back through to third with a little help from his team-mate. Schumacher's progress was aided immeasurably when Fisichella's Benetton and Jean Alesi's Sauber, which had qualified first and second, collided at the same corner which had so nearly claimed Coulthard.