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Formula One Round Six - The Austrian Grand Prix

© Anand Janefalkar

Formula One Round Six - Austrian Grand Prix

The sixth round of the Formula One 2001 season was staged at the A-1 Ring in Spielberg, Austria at the foothills of the styrian Alps. The circuit is the shortest of the venues on the Formula One calendar. The circuit has a history of favouring Mclaren with both Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard having a tremendous record here in the past races. The race was very critical for Mclaren and its drivers, as Mclaren lagged Ferrari by 18 points, David Coulthard trailed the current world championship leader by 8 points, and Mika Hakkinen desperate to make a headstart to his 2001 season.

The qualifying on saturday sprung up many surprises as Mclaren seemed to lose the balance of the car completely and struggled very hard throughout the session. They qualified with their worst grid positions in many races, with David Coulthard on 7th and Mika Hakkinen on 8th. The Williams BMW team were the strongest looking team, qualifying with positions 2nd and 3rd on the grid. Michael Schumacher of Ferrari qualified at pole position yet again as Ferrari had perhaps the best balanced car amongst all. Rubens Barrichello qualified on 4th position, making Ferrari very much in the reckoning for many constructors' points in the race. Amongst others, Jarno Trulli and Nick Heidfield qualified 5th and 6th respectively, ahead of the Mclarens.

The start of the race was predicted to be very interesting with Juan Pablo Montoya, tagged as the most aggressive amongst the new entrants, and Michael Schumacher, the greatest defender of all times, were on the first row, with Ralf Schumacher close on 3rd position. The Williams didnt disappoint their fans, as at the start of the race saw Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher too, speeding ahead of Michael Schumacher. The start was again a big disappointment for Mika Hakkinen as he yet again he failed to make a start. Meanwhile, David Coulthard made a tremendous start and was 4th at the first corner shortly, to be overtaken by Rubens Barichello at the very next corner. Both the Jordans failed to start, making it two in a row for Heinz-Herald Frentzen. Even Nick Heidfeld didnt start but later managed to start his car, though not in 6th position.

Just after the start, the Williams were looking very dominant with first two positions, with Ferrari closely behind and followed by David Coulthard in the Mclaren. Surprisingly, Jos Verstappen was sixth, challenging Coulthard at every corner. He finally overtook Coulthard to go into 5th place. In the Intermediate stages of the race, Ralf lost his braking and had to pull out of his 2nd position and retire with great disappointment. That made Montoya 1st with Michael Schumahcer second. The viewers were in for a treat at 300 km/hr as these two made all possible manouvers to get on top of each other. Juan Pablo Montoya showed that though a rookie in the Formula One scene, he could race with Michael Schumacher while Michael showed why he is called one of the all time greats in the sport. When finally Michael managed to get past Montoya at the second corner, Montoya took a very ambitious line inside, to stop the German from taking the lead, and mistimed his braking, thereby taking both the cars out of the track and onto the gravel.