1998 British Grand Prix

  1998 British Grand Prix

Race details
Race 9 of 16 in the 1998 Formula One season
Silverstone Circuit in its 1998 configuration
Date	12 July 1998
Official name	LI RAC British Grand Prix
Location	Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone, Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, England
Course	Permanent racing facility 5.140 km (3.194 mi)
Distance	60 laps, 308.400 km (191.631 mi)
Weather	Rain, Wet Track
Pole position
Driver	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren-Mercedes
Time	1:23.271
Fastest lap
Driver	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari
Time	1:35.704 on lap 12
Podium
First	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari
Second	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren-Mercedes
Third	Eddie Irvine	Ferrari
Lap leaders

The 1998 British Grand Prix (formally the LI RAC British Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held at the Silverstone Circuit, England on 12 July 1998. It was the ninth race of the 1998 Formula One season. The race, contested over 60 laps, was won by Michael Schumacher driving a Ferrari car after starting from second position. Mika Häkkinen, who started from pole position, finished second with Eddie Irvine third in the other Ferrari. Schumacher's victory was his fourth of the season, and his third consecutive victory having won both the preceding Canadian and French Grand Prix, but was under controversial circumstances: he avoided a stop-and-go penalty by entering the pit lane to serve it on the final lap, crossing the finish line in the pit lane to win the race before reaching his pit box, although the controversial penalty was later rescinded.

Report

Qualifying

Mika Häkkinen took pole position by nearly half a second from championship rival Michael Schumacher. Jacques Villeneuve took third position whilst Häkkinen's team-mate David Coulthard qualified in fourth. Ralf Schumacher and Olivier Panis had their qualifying times deleted as they were not able to get out of their cars quick enough during an FIA safety drill, to practice evacuating the cockpit in case of fire. Ralf Schumacher had spun and stalled his engine early in qualifying and qualified in the spare car, which was set up for team-mate Damon Hill.

Race

Heavy rain fell during the morning prior to the race. Although the rain stopped before the start, there was a mixture of wet and dry parts on the circuit and as a result all but two cars started on intermediate compound tyres. The two Stewart-Fords decided to start on dry weather tyres.^[1] The first retirement came after 13 laps, when Damon Hill lost control on the damp track whilst battling with Villeneuve for 7th place. After 16 laps, it began to rain again, and many drivers switched to a full wet weather tyre.

David Coulthard retires from the race

David Coulthard driving on intermediates spun out on lap 38 whilst passing a backmarker. His McLaren-Mercedes team-mate Mika Häkkinen had built up a lead of 49 seconds over second place driver Michael Schumacher when four laps later he went off the track, did a complete 360 degrees turn before continuing. The incident damaged the front wing of his car and cost him 10 seconds of his lead but following numerous other spins caused by the worsening conditions the safety car was deployed which slowed the cars down, and removed Häkkinen's advantage over Schumacher altogether.^[2]

The race restarted on lap 50 and it took only two laps for Häkkinen to make another mistake, which put Schumacher in the lead. The German quickly pulled away from his rival, who was now nursing his McLaren home.

Michael Schumacher and David Coulthard side by side

However, two laps from the finish, it turned out that Schumacher was issued with a stop-and-go penalty for passing Alexander Wurz under the safety car on lap 43. He had to come in to the pits in three laps to serve his penalty, which he did by entering pit road on the final lap of the race, but in doing so crossed the finish line (which extends across the pit lane) before reaching his pit box and won the race. Controversy followed as the German driver clearly did not serve his penalty in full before the race ended. Ferrari argued that the penalty should have been issued within 25 minutes of the incident and they were informed 6 minutes after the limit had expired and that the hand-written notification was also unclear as to which penalty was actually being issued, a stop-and-go, or 10 seconds added to Schumacher's race time. The stewards then decided to apply the latter post-race, but as it was a penalty which could only be used to punish an infraction in the last 12 laps of a grand prix - not the case here - they eventually rescinded the penalty altogether.^[3] A protest was lodged by McLaren-Mercedes who felt Ferrari cheated by not having Schumacher serve the penalty, but this was rejected by the FIA. As a result the three stewards involved handed in their licences at an extraordinary meeting of the FIA World Council.^[4]

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Lap	Gap
1	8	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:23.271	—
2	3	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1:23.720	+0.449
3	1	Jacques Villeneuve	Williams-Mecachrome	1:24.102	+0.831
4	7	David Coulthard	McLaren-Mercedes	1:24.310	+1.039
5	4	Eddie Irvine	Ferrari	1:24.436	+1.165
6	2	Heinz-Harald Frentzen	Williams-Mecachrome	1:24.442	+1.171
7	9	Damon Hill	Jordan-Mugen-Honda	1:24.542	+1.271
8	14	Jean Alesi	Sauber-Petronas	1:25.081	+1.810
9	15	Johnny Herbert	Sauber-Petronas	1:25.084	+1.813
10	5	Giancarlo Fisichella	Benetton-Playlife	1:25.654	+2.383
11	6	Alexander Wurz	Benetton-Playlife	1:25.760	+2.489
12	16	Pedro Diniz	Arrows	1:26.376	+3.105
13	17	Mika Salo	Arrows	1:26.487	+3.216
14	12	Jarno Trulli	Prost-Peugeot	1:26.808	+3.537
15	19	Jos Verstappen	Stewart-Ford	1:26.948	+3.677
16	18	Rubens Barrichello	Stewart-Ford	1:26.990	+3.719
17	21	Toranosuke Takagi	Tyrrell-Ford	1:27.061	+3.790
18	23	Esteban Tuero	Minardi-Ford	1:28.051	+4.780
19	22	Shinji Nakano	Minardi-Ford	1:28.123	+4.852
20	20	Ricardo Rosset	Tyrrell-Ford	1:28.608	+5.337
21	10	Ralf Schumacher	Jordan-Mugen-Honda	No Time 1	—
22	11	Olivier Panis	Prost-Peugeot	No Time 1	—

1.^ -Qualification times of Ralf Schumacher and Olivier Panis were disallowed because they failed an FIA safety drill.

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	3	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	60	1:47:02.450	2	10
2	8	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren-Mercedes	60	+22.465	1	6
3	4	Eddie Irvine	Ferrari	60	+29.199	5	4
4	6	Alexander Wurz	Benetton-Playlife	59	+1 Lap	11	3
5	5	Giancarlo Fisichella	Benetton-Playlife	59	+1 Lap	10	2
6	10	Ralf Schumacher	Jordan-Mugen-Honda	59	+1 Lap	21	1
7	1	Jacques Villeneuve	Williams-Mecachrome	59	+1 Lap	3
8	22	Shinji Nakano	Minardi-Ford	58	+2 Laps	19
9	21	Toranosuke Takagi	Tyrrell-Ford	56	+4 Laps	17
Ret	14	Jean Alesi	Sauber-Petronas	53	Electrical	8
Ret	16	Pedro Diniz	Arrows	45	Spun off	12
Ret	11	Olivier Panis	Prost-Peugeot	40	Spun off	22
Ret	18	Rubens Barrichello	Stewart-Ford	39	Accident	16
Ret	19	Jos Verstappen	Stewart-Ford	38	Engine	15
Ret	7	David Coulthard	McLaren-Mercedes	37	Spun off	4
Ret	12	Jarno Trulli	Prost-Peugeot	37	Spun off	14
Ret	20	Ricardo Rosset	Tyrrell-Ford	29	Spun off	20
Ret	23	Esteban Tuero	Minardi-Ford	29	Spun off	18
Ret	15	Johnny Herbert	Sauber-Petronas	27	Spun off	9
Ret	17	Mika Salo	Arrows	27	Throttle	13
Ret	2	Heinz-Harald Frentzen	Williams-Mecachrome	15	Spun off	6
Ret	9	Damon Hill	Jordan-Mugen-Honda	13	Spun off	7

Standings after Grand Prix

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Mika Häkkinen 56 2 Michael Schumacher 54 3 David Coulthard 30 4 Eddie Irvine 29 5 Alexander Wurz 17

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 McLaren-Mercedes 86 2 Ferrari 83 3 Benetton-Playlife 32 4 Williams-Mecachrome 19 5 Stewart-Ford 5

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

Footnotes