The San Marino Grand Prix is the first of the European calendar and as such often marks the change in what has become the established order in F1 for the fly-away races. This year there were new developments for most teams but little changed other that as you would expect from a move to a circuit like Imola rather than Argentina.

The biggest development of 1998 has been the "X-Wings" first brought in by Tyrrell last season. No fewer than 5 teams brought the wings to the race including, for the first time, a front running team in the shape of Ferrari. Whilst certainly beneficial to the performance of the car, they do nothing for the appearance of the cars and on the Ferrari in particular, many felt them to be one of the ugliest ideas an F1 designer has ever had.

Before the race

At the front of the grid there were no real surprises with the first two rows comprising of a pair of McLarens followed by a pair of Ferraris. That David Coulthard had outqualified Mika Hakkinen was of no real concern as they still had around 0.4 seconds in hand over the 3rd placed car of Michael Schumacher.

Damon Hill was the first real surprise on the grid. Not only was he up in 7th place but he was almost 0.3 seconds ahead of his team mate, Ralf Schumacher. Whilst still not quite on the pace of the leading Goodyear runners, Ferrari, the revised car with new rear-suspension and a longer wheelbase had propelled them to become one of the best of the rest rather than a disappointment.

Alexander Wurz continued his dominant form, beating Italian team mate Giancarlo Fisichella by 5 places and 0.7 seconds. This shows the closeness of competition at the front these days, with so many places separated by so little time.

Towards the back, Mika Salo and Toranasuke Takagi both did great jobs to line up 14th and 15th respectively, the latter ahead of both the works Ford cars of Rubens Barrichello and Jan Magnussen. In addition to this, in the Sunday morning warm-up, Salo was an astounding 2nd fastest overall, although this shouldn't be taken as a sign that they are becoming front runners.

The Race

As the lights went out, David Coulthard made a perfect start and sailed off into the lead followed by a slightly slower Mika Hakkinen and a fast-starting Michael Schumacher. Behind this group, Jacques Villeneuve had made a brilliant start and was already passing Eddie Irvine for third place whilst behind him, problems were already starting.

In the run down to the Tamburello chicane Alex Wurz was driving really slowly as he tried in vain to get his car to change up from 1st gear. With all the traffic around, Damon Hill (starting 7th) was left with nowhere to go but into the back of the Benetton. This broke the nose on the Jordan, ending the chance of points before even 10 seconds of the race were gone.

Slightly further back there was more contact as Jan Magnussen drove into the back of his team mate Rubens Barrichello breaking the rear wing off the Brazilian's car. Both continued but it appeared that Rubens was unaware of the loss of the aerodynamic aid so as he crested the brow of the hill before Piratella, he suddenly found himself facing backwards and in the gravel ending his weekend.

At the end of the first lap Damon Hill, Jan Magnussen and Alex Wurz all stopped to have the solutions to their respective problems fitted (2 nosecones and a new steering wheel), putting them firmly at the back of the field.

At the front, the McLaren drivers were not making a great deal of progress over the third placed Ferrari of Michael Schumacher and by the end of lap 2 Mika Hakkinen was 1.1 seconds behind his team mate and only 1.7 seconds ahead of Schumacher. A similar distance behind this three, Jacques Villeneuve was eking a small lead over Eddie Irvine who, in turn was keeping ahead of the second Williams driven by Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

Frentzen was having problems of his own with Giancarlo Fisichella pushing him hard for 6th place and the Sauber of Jean Alesi not far behind the Benetton. In the midst of these drivers, the now lapped Alex Wurz was making life easier for his team mate by remaining in formation behind him and preventing Alesi passing while sustaining sufficient pace to make blue flags redundant.

By lap 4 the McLaren pair were starting to pull away, indicating that perhaps their initial lack of pace was down to them feeling their way on a circuit already slippery with oil from the Porsche Cup race run before the Grand Prix.

Whatever the reason, by lap 5 the gap from Mika Hakkinen to Michael Schumacher was growning by at least 0.5 seconds per lap. In turn David Coulthard was pulling away from Hakkinen by around 0.2 seconds per lap, stamping his authority over the race and his team mate who had been so dominant earlier in the season.

Behind these cars, Jacques Villeneuve was by now just over 2.5 seconds ahead of Eddie Irvine who was leading Heinz-Harald Frentzen by almost exactly the same amount. Whilst this isn't a great deal of time, neither driver was under too much pressure, but the same could not be said for Frentzen whose Williams had two sky-blue Benettons filling it's mirrors and the deep-blue Sauber of Jean Alesi not far behind. With the four cars only separated by a little under 3 seconds, any error was sure to be punished harshly.

Behind Jean Alesi, Ralf Schumacher was starting to draw clear of Jarno Trulli whose Prost-Peugeot was looking odder than most of the cars around the track as it was sporting only 1 "tower". Both Prost drivers had tested with both towers and one tower alone in the free practice sessions and then switched to using only the left hand one for the race.

On lap 8, the already ruined race of Jan Magnussen came to an end when his gearbox failed yet again. Rumours of his impending departure from the Stewart team filled the pits at Imola and many expect the San Marino Grand Prix to be the last for Magnussen (driving a Stewart at least). Jos Verstappen has been tipped to replace him but it would be a shame for the team to blame the driver for their problems when it is the team that needs to improve as well. More unconfirmed rumours suggest that Norberto Fontana is in the frame for a test seat, does this indicate that money is starting to get tight over at Stewart?

By lap 10, Coulthard was leading Hakkinen by 2.8 seconds, who was ahead of Schumacher by 6.6 seconds. In turn, Schumacher was leading Jacques Villeneuve by 9.6 seconds who had Eddie Irvine 2.4 seconds behind his Williams.

Lap 12 saw the retirement of Johnny Herbert's Sauber. Herbert had got stuck behind Jarno Trulli following a start affected by the Hill-Wurz incident and on lap 11 had started to feel the back end go loose. After getting on the radio to the team, he thought they had told him that the suspension was broken so as he arrived at the pits he pulled into the garage and climbed out of the car. By the time it was realised that the Sauber only had a flat tyre, it was too late to rejoin the race and Herbert was out.

Back at the front, the McLaren pair were disappearing up the road making it clear that Schumacher would almost certainly have to be on a different strategy to the "Silver Arrows" if there was to be any real chance of victory. Mika Hakkinen was putting around 0.8 seconds a lap onto his lead over the Ferrari and with Coulthard getting ever further ahead of the Finn, only a disaster would prevent a McLaren 1-2.

Fortunately for the tifosi, a disaster for McLaren occurred on lap 17 when the gearbox on Hakkinen's car got stuck in 4th gear allowing the Ferrari to catch and overtake him part way through the Acque Minerale. This was the first mechanical failure of a McLaren since the Luxembourg Grand Prix in 1997 and, like Damon Hill's retirement at Monaco in 1996, shows that the team are not bulletproof. It was also a less than perfect way for Mika Hakkinen to end his 100th Grand Prix and his 70th for McLaren.

The retirement of the second place car seemed to trigger a series of retirements. First, Giancarlo Fisichella missed his braking point at the entry to the Villeneuve chicane and spun backwards across the gravel and into the tyre wall ending a trying weekend for the Italian driver. A crash in his new Porsche on public roads before the weekend had left him feeling sore and this contributed to the accident as much as his eagerness to pass Frentzen.

On the very next lap both Alex Wurz and Pedro Diniz retired, the former when the oil pressure dropped in his Playlife (nee Mecachrome) engine and the latter when his engine started to lose power, halting him in the pits.

The first stops came on lap 21 when 7th placed Ralf Schumacher stopped for fresh rubber and fuel, followed on lap 22 by Jean Alesi and Jarno Trulli. Olivier Panis pitted on lap 23 and lap 24 saw the second Jordan of Damon Hill stop for the first time. Coulthard, Schumacher and Villeneuve pitted on lap 26, with Frentzen and Irvine stopping a lap later.

The reshuffle following the stops left Eddie Irvine ahead of Jacques Villeneuve and Jean Alesi ahead of Heinz-Harald Frentzen. It seems that these days Williams seem to have problems will every aspect of their racing and the pitstops are no exception, with the drivers often losing out to other competitors during their stops.

Lap 27 saw Shinji Nakano's Ford engine let go, the Japanese driver parking his Minardi at the side of the track after the Variante Alta, billowing smoke and fire out of the back as the oil ignited.

After losing 5th place, Frentzen seemed to get the bit between his teeth and set about trying to pass Jean Alesi more vigorously than I would have expected of him considering his performances so far in 1998. In the end he was unable to pass, but for several laps we were entertained to the kind of racing everyone would dearly love to see throughout the field.

Thus, on lap 32, the top 10 looked like this:
Coulthard -> 26.3s -> M.Schumacher -> 23.7s -> Irvine -> 5.8s -> Villeneuve -> 10.3s -> Alesi -> 0.6s -> Frentzen -> 19.1s -> Panis -> 4.1s -> R.Schumacher -> Trulli -> Hill

This wasn't the case for long as Jarno Trulli took a trip across the gravel and grass at Rivazza and ended his first race of 1998 in front of his home fans there and then.

Lap 40 saw the start of the second round of stops with Jean Alesi being the first driver to come in for fuel and tyres. Alesi was followed a lap later by Heinz-Harald Frentzen who would, perhaps have benefited from being allowed to run for a little longer on the clear track that was presented to him when the Sauber stopped. Luckily, for once, the Williams pit crew did a good job on the stop and this combined with the fast in lap Frentzen drove, left the German in 5th place, once again ahead of Jean Alesi.

On lap 42, Tora Takagi left the race citing a loss of engine air pressure as the reason for the retirement of his Tyrrell-Ford.

During the 45th lap David Coulthard, Eddie Irvine and Jacques Villeneuve all stopped for the second time without causing either of the latter to change position. Most worrying for Ferrari and the tifosi was that Coulthard exited the pits ahead of Michael Schumacher and the German driver would still have to stop for the second, and final, time unless Ferrari had been running an unusual strategy.

Sure enough, the very next lap, Michael Schumacher brought his Ferrari into the pits for refuelling and his new set of tyres. This left the McLaren with an apparently unassailable lead of over 20 seconds with only 15 laps remaining.

The second Tyrrell retired on lap 48, having stopped in the pits sporting similar ailments to those that had sidelined the sister car of Takagi.

With the top 6 effectively decided, it was really now a case of whether Michael Schumacher could get any closer to David Coulthard before the end of the race and make it look less like yet another trouncing of the opposition by McLaren.

Slowly the gap between the silver and red cars started to come down. From 17.2 seconds on lap 49 to 14.9 seconds on lap 51, the lead was being eaten away by increasingly bigger amounts each time the cars completed a circuit.

Lap 56 saw the retirement of the remaining Prost of Olivier Panis, the Frenchman being stopped by a blown Peugeot. Although Prost is certainly not reliable enough, it seems that their speed is improving now that they are on home turf and Alain Prost and the drivers believe that the worst is now over and they can begin to get back towards the front.

Suddenly the gap between David Coulthard and Michael Schumacher started to drop at well over 1 second a lap and the Scotsman was looking visibly slower in the second half of the track, the part that puts most strain on the car's brakes. This was particularly pronounced on the entry to Rivazza 1 where the McLaren actually looked on it's way to retirement rather than on the way to finish the lap.

From lap 58 the gap dropped from 11.1 seconds, to 9.7 seconds, then down to 6.3 seconds and the crowd and commentators started to think that Ferrari would be able to take their first Imola victory since 1983 with the man who has brought them out of their mid-90's slump.

Unfortunately for the tifosi and the gang at Maranello, 6.3 seconds in 2 laps was always going to be a hard job, especially with Coulthard's MP4/13 appearing to run well enough in the first sector of the lap. For the next two laps Schumacher tried his level best to catch the McLaren but the gap as well as having to lap Jean Alesi proved too much and he crossed the line 4.5 seconds after the race winner.

Around 46 seconds after these two Eddie Irvine crossed the line trailed by Jacques Villeneuve who had closed to within 3 seconds of the Ferrari. Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jean Alesi closed out the top 6 followed at some distance by Ralf Schumacher, Esteban Tuero, whose Minardi had run reliably for the first time, and Mika Salo. Damon Hill was classified but ended his race 5 laps early after entering the pits with an engine problem.

Many will point to this race and say that it proves conclusively that Ferrari are now consistent challengers to McLaren, but they still lack around 0.5 seconds and in F1 terms this is a lot, especially with many teams a similar distance behind Ferrari. As Mika Hakkinen mentioned in a post race interview, the pressure is still on Ferrari to catch up rather than McLaren to stay ahead but don't expect the Woking based team to slow their development. 1998 is STILL very much McLaren's year and the other teams have a lot to do.

The Times (62 Lap Race)