Villeneuve snatches Formula One crown from Schumacher

Jacques Villeneuve clinched the world championship in splendidly controlled style here after his Williams survived a savaging from the Ferrari of his title rival Michael Schumacher as they battled for the lead on the 48th lap.

Despite pre-race warnings from the senior officials that the final round of the championship should be free of such aggressive confrontations, Schumacher turned into the Williams' left-hand side as the Canadian driver dived through on the inside to take the lead. It was almost a re-run of the controversial accident with Damon Hill at Adelaide in 1994 in which Schumacher took his rival off the track.

This time Schumacher came off second best as his car skidded into the gravel trap where it stopped, bogged down with its rear wheels spinning frantically as he tried in vain to extricate himself and return to the race. Eventually, he abandoned his machine and walked back to the pits, knowing that Villeneuve only had to score a single point to take the title.

The resultant damage to the Williams prompted Villeneuve to ease his pace in the closing stages of the race. He led into the final lap of the European Grand Prix before prudently relinquishing the lead to Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard who rounded off the final race of the season with a hard fought 1-2 victory for the delighted McLaren-Mercedes team.

"I wasn't on new tyres from the start of the race and I had to struggle to keep up with Michael," said Villeneuve. "At the start he was simply glued to the asphalt. I don't know how he did it. I was impressed, because I was sliding everywhere.

"Then he was on the inside of me going into the first corner after the start and my team-mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen came up on the inside of me and I gave him room because I didn't want to risk banging wheels with him at that early stage in the race."

On lap eight, Villeneuve got ahead of Frentzen by which time he was 4.3 seconds behind Schumacher and began to reel the German in.

Schumacher made his first stop at the end of lap 22, dropping back to fourth, while Villeneuve came in a lap later and rejoined fifth, now separated from Schumacher by Coulthard's McLaren.

Now team strategy came into play. Just as Eddie Irvine did his best to help Schumacher in the Japanese Grand Prix, now Frentzen, who had taken the lead, slowed the pace of the race so that Coulthard and Villeneuve could close up again behind the Ferrari.

Over the next few laps Frentzen and the two McLaren drivers both came in for their first scheduled refuelling stops, allowing Schumacher to retake the lead a scant 0.9 seconds ahead of Villeneuve going into lap 29.

Schumacher made his second stop at the end of lap 43 followed by Villeneuve a lap later. Again the Williams driver got back into the race third behind Coulthard, but again the McLaren driver cleared the way by coming in for his second stop next time round.

Now Villeneuve was all over Schumacher's rear wing and lunged for the inside line going into the first corner. Then the two cars collided.

"I knew I had to make my move then, or else my tyres would go off a bit and I wouldn't be able to fight anymore," said Villeneuve. "I just went for it, and just braked late. I was surprised that he hadn't closed the door yet, but it was only a matter of seconds before he decided to turn in on me. But he didn't do it well enough, because he went out and I didn't."

On the last lap both Hakkinen and Coulthard caught the slowing Williams and, rather than jeopardise his championship title, Villeneuve eased over and allowed Hakkinen finally to score his first Formula One victory at his 96th attempt.