Failures ruin race for WilliamsF1

To add to the failure was the failure of Ralf's refuelling rig to seat correctly forcing his pit crew to swap to Juan Pablo's, ruining any chance that Ralf had of securing a podium finish. Ralf was on a single stop strategy for the race. Ralf would go on to finish seventh but his engine would also fail on the slow down lap. All the work that the team had put into qualifying was for nothing.

With Juan Pablo's retirement Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher was able to cruise to victory in the race, his fifth of the season. Second place would go to McLaren's David Coulthard. Coulthard was to close in on Michael during the closing stages of the race to finish only a second behind. Coulthard was to come under pressure from Barrichello who was trying to make it a Ferrari one-two but was able to pull away from the second Ferrari.

In third came Rubens Barrichello. Barrichello was one a two stop strategy, which would see him lead the race in the early stages, but on his final stop he would lose second position to Coulthard as he regained the track.

In fourth came Kimi Raikkonen. Kimi spent the early part of the race in a fight with Ralf Schumacher after been able to get past him at the start. He may have finished higher if his mechanics had given him a quicker pit stop, but he would come out behind his team-mate Coulthard. Raikkonen’s eventual 4th place was again down to the loss of Montoya from second.

For Jordan’s Giancarlo Fisichella he would again score points for his team with a fifth place ahead of Renault's Jarno Trulli in sixth place. For the Renault team it was not a race where they continued their forward progress of the last few races. For team mate Jenson Button his race would end with less than two laps remaining pulling to the side of the track from a lowly tenth position.

For the BAR team they had a race where at least Olivier Panis would see the finish but their other driver Jacques Villeneuve would retire on lap ten. The modifications to the BAR Honda 004 really don't seem to have fixed their problems.

It was a race of varied strategies with Montoya been on a two stop strategy with his first stop been while there was a safety car period introduced to facilitate the clearance of Villeneuve’s stricken BAR Honda.

At the end of the day it was a race that saw Ferrari win again but the WilliamsF1 team must go away with mixed feelings knowing that they have a car that is becoming a regular challenger to the Ferrari F2002 but that their reliability has dropped off somewhat. As for how the team will fare at the next race at the Nürburgring is anyone's guess, but don't expect either BMW or WilliamsF1 to simply give up on the season as there are many races to come