Formula One fans are being treated to a roller-coaster ride of fortunes for their respective heroes. Two weeks ago, reporters, McLaren supporters and even those of Michael Schumacher, were becoming convinced that Ferrari's challenge for the drivers title was unravelling. Last weekend saw a classic fight back from Schumacher, sweetened by some bad luck for championship leader, Mika Hakkinen. Schumacher's luck came as a surprise even to him: "I thought we would be competitive today but I never dreamed I would leave Hungary having closed the championship gap from 16 just to 7 points," said the German. Hakkinen, who was lapped and limped home to take the last consolation point in sixth, reflected: "I've got a point and though it is not a lot it could still be enough for the championship. The battle is going to be very exciting now."

Hakkinen's team mate, David Coulthard, rued that if he and the team had recognised the developing scenario during the race earlier, he might have been able to check Schumacher's charge, take the victory for himself and minimise the damage to his McLaren team mate's championship lead from 9 points to 5 points. In the end, Coulthard admitted to being completely surprised at Schumacher's pace. "I'm still in a state of shock at how we lost," he explained. While Jacques Villeneuve (3rd) or Damon Hill (4th) might have been ecstatic at finishing second, Coulthard was clearly, even bitterly, disappointed with being the runner-up. Meanwhile, Heinz Harald Frentzen drove a gritty race to fifth, not only making a fight of it for Hill's 4th place but also fighting against a nasty dose of gastric flu.

Qualifying

There was much speculation as to how the slowness of the Hungaroring would tell on the leading Hockenheim runners. In the end it was clear that the status quo was largely being maintained. McLaren were dominant as usual and the resurgence of Williams and Jordan was showing no signs of running out of steam. However, the one big change to the trend came from Ferrari. The team and their scarlet cars had spent the last two weeks and over 1,200kms testing a more powerful V10 and new bodywork at Ferrari's private Fiorano test track. Fiorano is not a bad place to prepare for the Hungaroring, so the team arrived at the Budapest track with some optimism.

Admittedly, a McLaren and usually both drivers, headed the time sheets throughout the weekend. Mika Hakkinen comfortably took pole ahead of Coulthard with a time of 1m 16.913s, some two seconds and a few tenths slower than last year. Hakkinen was very confident and relaxed throughout the session. "The whole qualifying session was interesting," said the Finn, "as we continued to work on the set-up of the car but in the last ten minutes the strong winds meant that we were not able to go any further. That said I think we have a good package for the race tomorrow.". Coulthard seemed to be over-driving a bit and then failed to get his last lap in before the chequered flag came out. Traffic was a constant frustration for Coulthard and he explained that he was unfortunate to miss out on pole: "Hungary is a great track to qualify on if you get a clear lap, so I was disappointed to be held up on my last run. I was a couple of tenths up on Mika at one stage but I didn't manage to complete the lap and that is what matters."

Once again, he had to give best to Mika, this time to the tune of +0.158 seconds - close, but a miss is as good as a mile. Michael Schumacher's efforts could also be described as over-driving. His Ferrari seemed to be set without springs, crashing over the kerbing, wrestling with the twitching chassis, smoke in abundance as the un-loaded tyres slipped under the strain. All these heroics earned Schumacher a clear third on the grid, a quarter of a second slower than Coulthard, but nearly a full second ahead of Hill's Jordan sharing row two on the grid. Schumacher's session wasn't without problems - traffic and mid-run mistakes caused him to abort a couple of runs. Maybe he hadn't quite posted a representative time - race day would soon support that view - but in the meantime, Schumacher was quietly confident. "I can have a good race starting from third position, " he said. "With the right strategy we have a chance tomorrow and I believe we will make the most of it." Those were to be prophetic words.

In fourth, a delighted and relieved Damon Hill was revelling in his Jordan's continuing front-running performance. The team wasn't sure its competitiveness at Hockenheim would be maintained at the Hungaroring, historically a bogey-track for the Silverstone-based outfit. But this was Damon's best qualifying result since Jerez last year. Then, he was just six hundredths off pole for fourth place in the Arrows and while he was over a second off pole this time, he was just as happy. "This is a great qualifying result and keeps up the momentum of the past few races". Hill enthused. "It was a great team effort and it shows how far we have pulled ourselves up since Argentina and Monaco, which were similar circuits where we suffered on the twists and turns."

Actually, Hill's third place set early in the qualifying session was gradually bumped down to 7th and things weren't looking good. But Hill turned in a great lap in the dying moments, showing his frustration at being held up by a Prost by leaving a pair of black stripes on the tarmac as he powered past in turn 2. The rest of the lap was smoothly executed, sharply contrasting with Schumacher's ragged display. Hill's 4th was at the expense of Eddie Irvine's Ferrari now in 5th. Although the second Ferrari was some way off Schumacher's pace, Irvine's grid position suggested that Ferrari's woes a fortnight before had indeed been cured. Barely a tenth of a second separated Hill in fourth and Villeneuve in sixth. There was quite a gap to 7th where Frentzen headed a closely matched group including Fisichella, Wurz, Ralf Schumacher and Alesi.

As expected, the under-powered Arrows cars did better than usual at the Hungaroring, which suits their car's strengths better than anywhere else. Once again, Pedro Diniz marginally out-qualified team mate Mika Salo. This time, however, there were no expectations of repeating Hill's near win for Arrows the year before. Elsewhere, Johnny Herbert was a very dispirited 15th, the Prosts of Trulli and Panis were floundering in 16th and 20th place respectively and the Stewarts of Barrichello and Verstappen faired little better in 14th and 17th. Tuero wound up 21st and last on the grid and his more experienced Minardi team mate, Shinji Nakano, was not much better placed in 19th position. The 22nd slot on the grid was left empty after Ricardo Rosset failed to beat the 107 percent rule, although his Tyrrell team mate was a respectable 18th on his first trip to Hungary.

The Race

Tyres turned out to be a critical factor for the race. McLaren had unusually opted for the softer Bridgestones on offer. The Woking team didn't have their usual surplus of grip, so the grippier tyres were chosen. After all, the McLarens are typically less tough on their rubber. However, Bridgestone's efforts with new wider front construction tyres didn't appear to be paying great dividends. There was a strengthening view in the paddock that Goodyears were the better choice for the race and so it proved to be. Although McLaren were starting on top, the next highest Bridgestone team, Benetton, was struggling.

Tactics was another big question mark. Last year the two-stoppers prevailed, but Frentzen on hard tyres and a single stop strategy looked like winning at one point. And then computer simulations suggested three stops was arithmetically the best strategy, but that ignored the fact that traffic could spoil the calculations. Bridgestone's technical director, Hirohide Hamashima mused: "Basically, it was two stops last year, although Michael Schumacher got a blister and had to make three. Heinz-Harald was on a one-stop strategy and was very well placed until he had a problem with the fuel filler on his car. This year I think one stop will be likely." How wrong that was to prove.

The start was without incident and the McLarens headed the field with Hakkinen in front. Michael Schumacher didn't make such a good start and Hill, despite starting on the less favoured right hand side of the grid, almost pulled level with the Ferrari at the braking point for turn one. At this point, the Jordan's momentum was lost and Irvine was able to slot his Ferrari in behind his team leader. The top six at the end of lap one were Hakkinen, Coulthard, Schumacher, Irvine, Hill and Villeneuve. Behind them came Frentzen, Wurz, Alesi and Fisichella. Ralf Schumacher initially made a good start from tenth, but went wide at turn 1 and was stuck in 13th.

Last time out Jacques Villeneuve demoted Hill on the first lap, but not this time. The 1996 World Champion kept his successor behind him and opened up a small gap. Ahead, the other World Champion in the race was staying with the leading McLaren, although Irvine was falling back slightly. Irvine then responded and briefly held the fastest lap, 1m21.129 on lap 7, but Hakkinen quickly responded the following lap with a 1m20.664. Everything was looking good for McLaren Mercedes. The positions remained un-changed until lap 13, when Irvine crawled into the pits with a broken gearbox. If he was to play any part later in the race to sabotage the McLarens' strategy, we will never know. Tuero's Minardi was the second retirement on the following lap with also with a broken gearbox.

By now Hakkinen was 2.3 seconds ahead of Coulthard, who was holding up Schumacher at a further second behind. Hill had dropped back significantly in fourth, some 14 seconds behind Schumacher, but Villeneuve wasn't close enough to challenge Hill just yet. One wondered if Hill was gambling on a one-stopper. Villeneuve was soon to have a significant problem when his power steering assistance failed. Frentzen was keeping in touch with the other Williams and neither the following Alesi or Wurz were giving him any problem.

By Lap 18 Mika Salo's race had ended with a blown engine, but his compatriot, Hakkinen, improved the fastest lap to 1m 20.614s. Coulthard, almost four seconds adrift of Hakkinen, was now seemingly under some pressure from the following Ferrari, but he was holding Schumacher back in readiness for the first pit stops. Hill was the first leader into the pits on lap 24 for new tyres and fuel - scotching any speculation of a radical one-stop plan. The next lap in came Michael Schumacher and Coulthard followed suit the next lap. Coulthard was able to re-join just ahead of Villeneuve, but Schumacher was now temporarily stick behind the Canadian. Villeneuve didn't pit until lap 31, by which time Coulthard had built up a cushion of around four seconds on Schumacher. Hakkinen had pitted on lap 28 and retained his lead in the process. Still things looked rosy for the silver arrows. Meanwhile, Hill retained his fourth spot, narrowly beating Villeneuve in the first pit stops, but the Williams was beginning to pile on the pressure.

From lap 30, Hakkinen's grip on the race was beginning to loosen. He set another fastest lap on lap 30, but it was to be his last. The following lap his cushion on Coulthard started to dwindle. By lap 37 the gap had halved to two seconds and Coulthard had Schumacher all over him. It seemed the plan to keep Schumacher in back in third was in jeopardy. To demonstrate that something was awry, Hill and Villeneuve were now catching the leading trio. By lap 42 Hakkinen had seen his gap to Coulthard stabilise, but was this simply the Scot getting the better of Schumacher? And then on the same lap, Schumacher unexpectedly dived into the pits. Clearly, he had felt he was wasting time stuck behind Coulthard. Ferrari's Ross Brawn was suspecting that the McLarens were in trouble - Schumacher needed clear space to make up time.

McLaren's Ron Dennis quickly realised what Ferrari was up to and ordered Coulthard in on lap 44, but Schumacher's out-lap and the lap to follow, were a blinder and although Coulthard's stop wasn't slow by any means, he found himself an incredible four seconds behind Schumacher by lap 45. Indeed, Schumacher lowered the fastest lap by half a second to 1m 19.918 on his first complete lap after the stop. In a desperate attempt to get Hakkinen's stop completed before he was caught by the flying Ferrari, the Finn was ordered in on lap 46. But it was all over - Hakkinen emerged five seconds in arrears of Schumacher.

It was clear however that Schumacher was going to need a splash and dash third stop before the end of the race, but neither McLaren could respond and Schumacher was pulling away at over a second a lap with 30 or so in hand. He needed a lead of 24 seconds to make the final stop in order to retain his lead. 15 laps from the finish, Schumacher had built an amazing 27 second lead and had no trouble with his third stop.

Coulthard knew the game was up and he knew that Ferrari had reacted to Hakkinen's slowing down more intelligently than McLaren had: "I radioed into the pits because I knew Mika had a problem because he was lapping much slower than me. We waited too long and we lost too much time," a demoralised Coulthard explained. To make matters worse, one of his ear plugs had come loose during the race and he was temporarily deafened in that ear.

From his second stop, Hakkinen was in real trouble. The knocking noise Hakkinen was hearing from his car's suspension, matched by its wayward handling was getting worse. He only let Coulthard past on lap 52 - again was this an error in judgement? For five laps Coulthard stayed behind Hakkinen, each lap losing over two seconds to Schumacher. For his part, Schumacher nearly threw it all away on lap 52 when he understeered onto a gravel trap, but his recovery was as masterful as the error was heart-stopping.

After most, but not Schumacher - of course, had completed their final stops on lap 56, Hakkinen was lying in third with a 27 second lead on the next man - Jacques Villeneuve. But the torture for Hakkinen was far from over. Five laps later, the 27 second gap was just 15 seconds. Hill, who had lost out in the final pit stops to Villeneuve, was also closing rapidly on Hakkinen. On lap 66, Villeneuve out-dragged Hakkinen down the pits straight, demoting him to fourth. Four laps later a grateful Hill repeated the compliment. Frentzen, who was having a close battle with Hill, waited less than a lap to follow suit. The next guy was Alesi, but he was too far back to benefit.

So in the end, McLaren lost out to Ferrari and Michael Schumacher in both car reliability and strategy. If Coulthard had been allowed past Hakkinen earlier, he may well have emerged after the second stops in front of the Ferrari, holding him up long enough to have failed on the third stop gamble. It's all speculation of course, but as Coulthard publicly reminded his team: "We will have to learn from this." The net result is that Hakkinen is once again under intense pressure, a situation he may have to blame himself for - at least partially. At least McLaren should fare better at the faster circuits of Spa and Monza to come, but Formula One is a funny old game - anything can and probably will happen.