1999 European Grand Prix

1999 European Grand Prix
Race details
	Race 14 of 16 in the 1999 Formula One season
	; The Nürburgring in its 1999 configuration
Date	September 26, 1999
Official name	XLIII Warsteiner Grand Prix d'Europe
Location	Nürburg, Germany
Course	Permanent racing facility ; 4.556 km (2.831 mi)
Distance	66 laps, 300.696 km (186.852 mi)
Scheduled Distance	67 laps, 305.252 km (189.684 mi)
Weather	Cloudy, cold, wet
Pole position
Time	1:19.910
Fastest lap
Time	1:21.282 on lap 64
Podium

The 1999 European Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on September 26, 1999 at the Nürburgring in Nürburg, Germany. It was the fourteenth race of the 1999 Formula One season.

It was considered to be one of the most eventful and exciting races of the 1999 season. Going into the race Mika Häkkinen, Eddie Irvine, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and David Coulthard were all harbouring World Championship aspirations. Häkkinen and Irvine were tied for the points lead, with Frentzen 10 points behind them and Coulthard a further two points back. The previous round at Monza had seen Häkkinen make an unforced error while leading, Coulthard and Irvine finished only 5th and 6th and Frentzen took his second race win of the season. Marc Gené's performance in the race is seen by many as the defining moment of the 1999 World Driver's Championship race, with Ferrari's Eddie Irvine unable to pass him for 6th place, the extra point, which could have gifted the Irishman the championship that year. (Had Irvine scored this point, it is widely believed that Michael Schumacher would have allowed Irvine to take second place from him in the Japanese Grand Prix later in the year, giving Irvine an overall lead of one point in the final standings.) Due to the high number of retirements, the Stewart cars prevailed enormously, with Prost's Jarno Trulli splitting the two. This resulted in the podium consisting of constructors named after former F1 World Champions.

Report

A wet qualifying session had seen the fastest times set right at the end of the session on a drying track, with Frentzen taking pole with seconds to spare. On race day the track was dry but the start was delayed when Zanardi and Gené lined up out of sequence on the grid, necessitating another formation lap. As the start was aborted during the start lights' sequence the top five qualifiers and another car actually jumped the start but were not penalised due to the aborting of the start. When the race finally got under way, Frentzen led from Häkkinen, but further back there was trouble at the first corner. Hill's Jordan suffered an electrical failure in the middle of the pack which caused Wurz to swerve into Diniz, sending the Sauber into a barrel roll. The safety car was deployed while Diniz was helped uninjured from his car; a fortunate end result as it was revealed that the Sauber's rollbar had failed when it hit the ground.

The race settled down with the top six Frentzen, Häkkinen, Coulthard, Ralf Schumacher, Fisichella and Irvine. A few laps into the race rain began to fall, and Häkkinen pitted for wet tyres. The rest of the frontrunners stayed out on dry tyres, which proved to be the correct decision as the rain quickly blew over and the track dried. Ralf Schumacher took advantage of the damp track to pass Coulthard, and Irvine passed Fisichella. However, things would quickly turn sour for the Ferrari driver, as he had a disastrous pitstop. Team mate Salo had damaged his wing the previous lap leaving the Ferrari pitcrew unprepared for Irvine. Added to this, the team made a late decision to stay on dry tyres and the pitcrew could only find three of them. Almost half a minute passed before the fourth was put on the car and Irvine was able to rejoin. Soon afterwards, Häkkinen pitted again to change back to dry tyres.

At the front Frentzen and Coulthard continued on dry tyres until their scheduled pit stops which they made together (Schumacher had pitted several laps earlier). Frentzen rejoined ahead of Coulthard, with both comfortably ahead of Schumacher. At this point in the race both Irvine and Häkkinen were well out of the points, meaning that if the order stayed the same Frentzen, Irvine, and Häkkinen would have all been tied for the points lead with two races to go, with Coulthard six points behind them.

What followed was a series of heartbreaking retirements. The first to fall was Frentzen, who ground to a halt at the first corner after his pitstop with the same electrical problem that had befallen his teammate. Coulthard inherited the lead and stayed out front until the rain came back with a vengeance. The Scot chose to stay out on dry tyres while most pitted for wets, which ultimately proved to be a costly mistake, as he slid off the road and out of the race on the 38th lap as the conditions worsened. Within a handful of laps two Championship contenders had seen their hopes of winning the title fall by the wayside. Ralf (still on dry tyres) then inherited the lead which he held until his pitstop six laps later. This allowed Fisichella (also on dries) to take the lead with Ralf in second, as the rain stopped. Meanwhile Herbert had quietly moved up the order after changing to wet tyres just at the right time.

The heartbreak then reached new levels. On lap 49 Fisichella lost what would have been his first win when he spun out of the lead like Coulthard before him, giving the lead back to Ralf. But then he too lost the lead (and probable first win) when his right rear tyre punctured, allowing Herbert to take the lead which he would not lose. Further back the Minardis were taking full advantage of the unpredictable nature of the race with Badoer in fourth and Gené in seventh. But with just 13 laps to go, Badoer's gearbox failed, denying the Ferrari test driver his first ever Formula 1 points and leaving him in tears. Gené was promoted to 6th, which became 5th when Jacques Villeneuve's car failed, robbing the BAR team of their first-ever point. Behind him, Irvine and Häkkinen had fought their way back into contention for points, with Irvine holding 6th ahead of Häkkinen. After cruising for most of the race, Häkkinen turned up the pressure, eventually forcing Irvine into a mistake and taking 6th place. At the front Barrichello tried everything to pass Trulli for 2nd and make it a Stewart 1-2, but ultimately had to settle for 3rd. Meanwhile, Häkkinen caught and passed Gené for 5th to earn 2 invaluable points, but the Spaniard held onto 6th ahead of Irvine to give Minardi their first point for four seasons.

It was the only race ever won by the Stewart Grand Prix team, as well as being the only time Stewart had two drivers finish on the podium. It was also the last Grand Prix victory for Johnny Herbert, and the last podium finish for the Prost Grand Prix team. Jackie Stewart considered the race greater than any of his own race wins.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Lap	Gap
1	8	Heinz-Harald Frentzen	Jordan-Mugen-Honda	1:19.910
2	2	David Coulthard	McLaren-Mercedes	1:20.176	+0.266
3	1	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:20.376	+0.466
4	6	Ralf Schumacher	Williams-Supertec	1:20.444	+0.534
5	18	Olivier Panis	Prost-Peugeot	1:20.638	+0.728
6	9	Giancarlo Fisichella	Benetton-Playlife	1:20.781	+0.871
7	7	Damon Hill	Jordan-Mugen-Honda	1:20.818	+0.908
8	22	Jacques Villeneuve	BAR-Supertec	1:20.825	+0.915
9	4	Eddie Irvine	Ferrari	1:20.842	+0.932
10	19	Jarno Trulli	Prost-Peugeot	1:20.965	+1.055
11	10	Alexander Wurz	Benetton-Playlife	1:21.144	+1.234
12	3	Mika Salo	Ferrari	1:21.314	+1.404
13	12	Pedro Diniz	Sauber-Petronas	1:21.345	+1.435
14	17	Johnny Herbert	Stewart-Ford	1:21.379	+1.469
15	16	Rubens Barrichello	Stewart-Ford	1:21.490	+1.580
16	11	Jean Alesi	Sauber-Petronas	1:21.634	+1.724
17	23	Ricardo Zonta	BAR-Supertec	1:22.267	+2.357
18	5	Alessandro Zanardi	Williams-Supertec	1:22.284	+2.374
19	20	Luca Badoer	Minardi-Ford	1:22.631	+2.721
20	21	Marc Gené	Minardi-Ford	1:22.760	+2.850
21	15	Toranosuke Takagi	Arrows	1:23.401	+3.491
22	14	Pedro de la Rosa	Arrows	1:23.698	+3.788

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	17	Johnny Herbert	Stewart-Ford	66	1:41:54.314	14	10
2	19	Jarno Trulli	Prost-Peugeot	66	+22.619	10	6
3	16	Rubens Barrichello	Stewart-Ford	66	+22.866	15	4
4	6	Ralf Schumacher	Williams-Supertec	66	+39.508	4	3
5	1	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren-Mercedes	66	+1:02.950	3	2
6	21	Marc Gené	Minardi-Ford	66	+1:05.154	20	1
7	4	Eddie Irvine	Ferrari	66	+1:06.683	9
8	23	Ricardo Zonta	BAR-Supertec	65	+1 lap	17
9	18	Olivier Panis	Prost-Peugeot	65	+1 lap	5
10	22	Jacques Villeneuve	BAR-Supertec	61	Clutch	8
Ret	20	Luca Badoer	Minardi-Ford	53	Gearbox	19
Ret	14	Pedro de la Rosa	Arrows	52	Gearbox	22
Ret	9	Giancarlo Fisichella	Benetton-Playlife	48	Spun off	6
Ret	3	Mika Salo	Ferrari	44	Brakes	12
Ret	15	Toranosuke Takagi	Arrows	42	Accident	21
Ret	2	David Coulthard	McLaren-Mercedes	37	Spun off	2
Ret	11	Jean Alesi	Sauber-Petronas	35	Halfshaft	16
Ret	8	Heinz-Harald Frentzen	Jordan-Mugen-Honda	32	Electrical	1
Ret	5	Alessandro Zanardi	Williams-Supertec	10	Collision	18
Ret	7	Damon Hill	Jordan-Mugen-Honda	0	Electrical	7
Ret	10	Alexander Wurz	Benetton-Playlife	0	Collision	11
Ret	12	Pedro Diniz	Sauber-Petronas	0	Collision	13

Standings after Grand Prix

Drivers' Championship standings

Pos	Driver	Points
1	Mika Häkkinen	62
2	Eddie Irvine	60
3	Heinz-Harald Frentzen	50
4	David Coulthard	48
5	Ralf Schumacher	33

Constructors' Championship standings

Pos	Constructor	Points
1	McLaren-Mercedes	110
2	Ferrari	102
3	Jordan-Mugen-Honda	57
4	Williams-Supertec	33
5	Stewart-Ford	31

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

References

Classification
Qualifying
"1999 European GP: Qualification". ChicaneF1.com. http://www.chicanef1.com/race.pl?year=1999&gp=European%20GP&type=qual. Retrieved 2007-07-31.

Race
"1999 European Grand Prix". The Official Formula 1 Website. http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1999/81/. Retrieved 2007-07-29.

"1999 European GP: Overview". ChicaneF1.com. http://www.chicanef1.com/racetit.pl?year=1999&gp=European%20GP. Retrieved 2007-08-02.

Notes, Race details
"1999 European GP: Overview". ChicaneF1.com. http://www.chicanef1.com/racetit.pl?year=1999&gp=European%20GP. Retrieved 2007-08-01.

Previous race: 1999 Italian Grand Prix	FIA Formula One World Championship 1999 season	Next race: 1999 Malaysian Grand Prix
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