1999 ITALIAN GRAND PRIX

Practice at Monza (10th September)
Team Winfield Williams F1 had their best day of the season with Ralf Schumacher at the top of the pile and teamate Alex Zanardi third fastest after the first day of practice for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

Second fastest was Frenchman Jarno Trulli, behind by just under two tenths of one second.

Championship leader Mika Hakkinen was sixth fastest, two places in front of his McLaren team-mate David Coulthard while the Ferrari of Eddie Irvine could only manage 16th fastest, after going off the circuit in the afternoon session. The Ferrari's will be expected to well in front of a home crowd, looks like they will have a lot of work to do!!

Jean Alesi had led the way in the morning session in the Sauber but dropped to fifth overall after an engine blow-up. Giancarlo Fisichella and Heinz-Harald Frentzen also went off the track in separate incidents while Olivier Panis was fourth, despite spinning out in his Prost.

But of course this was only the Friday practice session. Things soon went back to normal in the qualifying session! Check out that McLaren dominance. The tifosi will not be happy.

Victory for Heinz Harald Frentzen for the second time this season ensures us that the last few races are going to be as exciting as this one proved to be. The German now sits but ten points behind joint-championship leaders, Eddie Irvine and Mika Hakkinen, and two ahead of David Coulthard, after a weekend Jordan will never forget.

McLaren will want to forget however as Mika Hakkinen made a mistake for a second time this season, failing in what seemed to be an easy opportunity to reinforce his status as hot favourite for the drivers title. Had he cruised home to what clearly would have been an easy win, Mika would have been eleven points ahead of Eddie Irvine in the championship right now. The pure frustration of Hakkinen was clearly visible when he emotionaly broke down in the trackside woodland on his way back to the pits.

Rubens Barrichello was the star of the earlier half of the race, driving an excellent stint and passing several cars and holding off David Coulthard's McLaren in the second half of the race to take fourth place, but none of this was good enough to get past Ferrari's saviour Mika Salo and a very impressive Ralf Schumacher who both thoroughly deserved to be on the podium.

Although Eddie Irvine is very fortunate and now ties the lead for the Drivers' Championship, his weekend was a total nightmare. Failing to capitalise on Hakkinen's mistake he only managed to take one lucky point from the race. This point will however prove vital as the Chamionship draws to a close.

Other drivers not in the top six worth a mention were Alex Zanardi who ran strongly in third place early on before his car lost pace and he dropped back into seventh place just out of the points and of course Jacques Villeneuve who clearly to the delight of the team brought the BAR home eighth, to finish his second race in thirteen.

With only 3 races to go the Italian Grand Prix has opened up the whole championship and left us sitting on the edge of our seats in anticipation, I for one can't wait for the European Grand Prix where I'm sure we will see a vengeful-like drive from World Championship contender Mika Hakkinen

Phil Ahern

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