Dancing in the rain

The race in Malaysia got off to a chaotic start. Fisichella (Benneton Renault) forgot where he should start, got in the middle of the track, the start of the race was delayed for five minutes, which was enough for Montoya (Williams BMW) to cancel his car, so he ran to the pits in a real sprint to sit in the spare car. The postponement of the start was the most beneficial to Frenzen (Jordan Honda), who told the mechanics during the warm-up lap that his engine was stalling, and the judges allowed him to change cars and start from ninth place.

The restart meant disaster for the younger Schumacher (Williams BMW), who had an excellent third place in practice. When he tried to go around Barrichello (Ferrari) in the first corner, he hooked him and turned him on the track, similar to what he did with Franzen in the first race in Melbourne. The crowd that then arose was best used by the drivers from the back of the column who had enough time to react well and get positions they can only dream of. Verstappen (Arrows), for example, went from 18th to sixth place!

The Ferrari duo then quickly gained the lead as they raced to their first double win of the year. And yet, they can only thank crazy luck for finishing the race at all. Namely, when Pani's (BAR Honda) radiator literally exploded in the third lap and oil spilled on the track, both Ferrari drivers ran into a spot at full speed and ended up in the grass next to the track.

OKAY EVALUATION: "I saw how the fence was approaching me and Rubens, who behind me also jumped off the track and thought - it's over," Schumacher said after the race. "We were very lucky that the cars were not damaged, it also started to rain, a deceleration vehicle came onto the track, so we didn't get to the very back." moment that the Brazilian has a damaged front stabilizer. Changing the damaged part will slow both of them down by almost two minutes and they will end up in 11th and 12th place. When the race resumed, it turned out that in the Ferrari pit they had made the best assessment of what tires to use in a situation where half of the track is under water and half is dry. Schumacher and Barrichello achieved a better time than the others by as much as three seconds per lap and immediately found themselves in the leading positions, which they maintained until the end of the race.

The McLaren drivers tried to catch up with the leaders, but Hakkinen crashed the car so that he finished the race in sixth place. Coulthard was trying to get into second place, but the fact that he was only five seconds behind Barrichello speaks volumes for the fact that the Brazilian did not push towards the end knowing that the Scotsman could not overtake him.

SUPERIORITY FERRARI: Franzen and the younger Schumacher can be satisfied with the fourth and fifth places, although after the race Ralf lashed out at Barrichello with a barrage of harsh words for pushing him on the track in the first corner. All in all, it seems that the weather is on the side of the organizers this season for the simple reason that the monsoon rain only added to the excitement of the race. There were spectacular off-tracks, laps, changes in the order and real racing, which the crowd loves and which gives the whole event the much-needed excitement. By winning the Malaysian Grand Prix, Schumacher recorded his 46th victory in his career, and his sixth in a row, equaling the record of the famous Albert Ascari, who did the same while also driving for Ferrari in the 1952 season, when he became world champion for the first time. The curiosity is that the elderly Schumacher won in Sepang driving a spare car because the one that was prepared for the race started leaking oil just before the start.

"Ferrari are the best at the moment and they are doing to us what we did to them in '98," said David Coulthard recalling the situation when he and Mika took 12 pole positions and eight out of a possible 16 wins. "Now they are ahead, but we are fighters, we know what we have to do and we have already improved the cars in Malaysia, and we are preparing the same for Brazil."

"McLaren is most dangerous when it's in a subordinate position," warns Ferrari's technical director Ross Braun, and Schumacher adds that "it's nice to dominate the track," but he assumes that "will not be the case in the following races." The next one is on April 1 at the Interlagos circuit near Sao Paulo for the Brazilian Grand Prix.