2001 British Grand Prix

The 2001 British Grand Prix (formally the Foster's British Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on July 15, 2001 at Silverstone in Northamptonshire, England. It was the eleventh race of the 2001 Formula One season. The race, which was contested over 60 laps, was won by Finnish driver Mika Häkkinen for the McLaren - Mercedes team, who managed to overtake the driver in pole position, Michael Schumacher. Schumacher, driving for Ferrari, finished in second behind Häkkinen, while team-mate Rubens Barrichello gained the final spot on the podium. It was Häkkinen's first victory of the season.

The race saw five drivers retire, as Jarno Trulli's Jordan collided with David Coulthard's McLaren in the first corner; Jacques Villeneuve's BAR pushed his teammate Olivier Panis off the track at the start, forcing Panis to retire; Ralf Schumacher and Luciano Burti also failed to finish the race. Tarso Marques also became the first DNQ of the season, as his Minardi couldn't make the 107% cut. It was Heinz-Harald Frentzen's last race for the Jordan team as he was sacked by that team after this race following a disappointing season and forced to sit out for the next race, the 2001 German Grand Prix.

Background
Defending constructors title holders Ferrari went into the race with a 52 point lead on McLaren-Mercedes, while Michael Schumacher was 31 points ahead of his nearest rival, McLaren's David Coulthard.

Practice and qualifying
Tarso Marques was unable to post a qualifying time within the 107% rule and the stewards rejected the subsequent request from Minardi to let the Brazilian race. Marques had suffered a throttle problem during the session and there was not sufficient time to change the settings on the spare car, which had been set up for team-mate Fernando Alonso.

Race
Michael Schumacher maintained his advantage going into the first corner with Mika Häkkinen following him through in 2nd. Jarno Trulli in the Jordan collided with championship contender David Coulthard at the first corner and went off, ending his race. Coulthard persisted, carrying damage from the incident but a suspension failure which came as result of the contact ended his race not long after. On lap 5, Schumacher ran wide and Häkkinen slipped past going into the 2nd corner. Häkkinen began to pull away at close to 2 seconds per lap while Juan Pablo Montoya in the Williams began to close up on Schumacher. The commentators suspencted Schumacher was either driving conservatively or carrying a problem, it turned out to be the former. Montoya eventually got past Schumacher at around the 1/3 mark in the race.

Häkkinen was one of the first to stop and came out in 2nd behind Montoya and ahead of Schumacher. When Montoya pitted, he came out behind his team mate Ralf Schumacher who was scrapping with Rubens Barrichello in the Ferrari, neither of whom had done their first stops. This was the ruin Montoya's race. Ralf eventually pitted but the damage was done, a poor stop didn't help Montoya's situation and he came out behind Rubens Barrichello who stopped earlier. Schumacher (Michael), rather predictably came out in 2nd ahead of his teammate but was some 30+ seconds behind Häkkinen driving a superb race.

The order at the front continued like this until the end of the race when Häkkinen took his first win of the season, 33 seconds ahead of Schumacher who cruised one step further towards a fourth world title. Barrichello came third ahead of a disappointed Montoya and an astounding Kimi Räikkönen in 5th, in only 11th race which in turn was only his 34th single seater race. Heidfeld, Frentzen, Villeneuve, Irvine and Verstappen rounded off the top 10.

Standings after the race

 * Bold text indicates who still has a theoretical chance of becoming World Champion.


 * Drivers' Championship standings


 * Constructors' Championship standings


 * Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.