Mike Hakkinen dramatically turned the tables on his World Championship rival Michael Schumacher by taking his McLaren-Mercedes to a dramatic and clear-cut victory over the Ferrari team leader in front of a capacity crowd here in the Luxembourg Grand Prix yesterday.
In one of the most assured and decisive performances of his career, Hakkinen, against the odds and on the eve of his 30th birthday, delivered his seventh McLaren victory after Schumacher and the Ferrari number two Eddie Irvine had taken the front row of the grid.
The Finn's win takes him four points ahead of Schumacher in the drivers' championship table with only 10 more available for the winner of the final round, the Japanese Grand Prix on November 1st. Schumacher needs to finish at least second at Suzuka without his rival scoring and, even if he wins, second place would give Hakkinen the title; they would then both have 96 points but the McLaren driver would triumph on the strength of three second places to Schumacher's two.
The weekend started on a very low note for Hakkinen and his prospects seemed poor. He spent practice and qualifying battling a handling imbalance on his McLaren, but finally got everything right in the half-hour warm-up yesterday morning. From then on he knew that his car was a potential winner.
On the opening lap Irvine seized an immediate lead from Schumacher but made a slight error negotiating the tight chicane at the end of the opening lap, a slip which allowed the German driver to overtake neatly coming into the final corner.
Thereafter the race looked as though it was going to be little more than a routine Ferrari demonstration run, but after Hakkinen outbraked Irvine for second place on lap 14 the contest really came alive as he began to cut into Schumacher's advantage.
From 7.5 seconds adrift on lap 16, Hakkinen closed to 5.2 seconds behind by lap 24, when the German driver came in for his first refuelling stop. Hakkinen stayed out for another five laps before making his own first stop, punching in a sequence of quick laps which enabled him to return to the race ahead of Schumacher after his stop.
"In the first stint I was able to catch Michael," said Hakkinen, "but in the second stint it was hard to get away from him. Why? Well, there were a lot of backmarkers for one thing, and that made life very difficult. Also someone's engine blew up at the end of the main straight and we had to take a different line."
He said he had realised Irvine was grappling with some sort of handling problem when he was boxed in behind him in the early stages. "He lost the back end in the corners a couple of times and was banging over the kerbs," said the Finn.
The look of abject disappointment on Schumacher's face reflected just how confident he had been after qualifying on pole position. "In the first stint we had quite a bit of oversteer and it was similar in the second stint," he said.
In third place Coulthard helped bring the McLaren-Mercedes team to within a point of clinching the constructors' championship but he was clearly dissatisfied with the handling balance of his car throughout.
After qualifying on the front row of the grid for the first time in his career Irvine was highly disappointed with fourth place, his Ferrari suffering dramatically from understeer which seriously unsettled its handling.
Jordan's hopes of vaulting into third place were thwarted by Ralf Schumacher retiring with a broken brake disc while Damon Hill was another whose weekend was blighted by poor handling as he struggled home in eighth.
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