Grand Prix de Monaco 2001

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THE KINGS OF MONACO

Michael Schumacher wins for the fifth time in Monte Carlo

When Princesse Grace, once the dream girl in cinema of Jackie Stewart, had congratulated legendary Graham Hill, the father of Damon, for winning the Grand Prix of Monaco in the box covered with violet velvet, it had become a routine thing at the end of the sixties. Hill, the only driver in history having got the triple crown (Formula One, Indianapolis, Le Mans), had started his career in the principality at the Còte Azur back in 1958 and had also ended it in 1975, but between these dates he had won there 5 out of his 14 Grand Prix. Later the Briton crashed fatally with his private air-craft at the end of 1975, the Princess, confronted with a hugh amount of personal problems, was killed in an accident high above Monaco and the exact circumstances of that are not absolutely clear until today. In 1984 a man named Ayrton Senna entered the scene in a Toleman Hart, came nearer and nearer to leading Alain Prost in a McLaren TAG with amazing speed and would have won his 6th Grand Prix ever, if race director Jacky Ickx had not stopped the race because of extreme raining. Later Senna won six times, from 1989 to 1993 he did it five times without interruption.

Ayrton Senna, Graham Hill and now Michael Schumacher are the Kings of Monaco, because in 2001 the German threetimes world champion celebrated his fifth victory on a track that, to express it clearly, had been banned from the calendar 25 years ago for safety reasons. Ahead of the Massenet Curve, shortly before the entrance of the Hotel de Paris the cars reach 270 km/h, leaving the tunnel, this year they come up to 300 km/h because of smaller wings available this year by new technical regulations. When Heinz Harald Frentzen bumped very heavily into the wall when passing the right bend tunnel straight, he was lucky his Jordan Honda was going along the armco barrier until reaching the tunnel`s way out and not crashing into the opposite side. But what will happened, if one car will crash from behind as it had been done by Jacques Villeneuve with Ralf Schumacher at Melbourne this year, making the cars take off, nobody wants to imagine really. The Grand Prix of Monaco with it`s glamorous atmosphere, thank God demanding an only dead with Lorenzo Bandini being killed back in 1967, will be held on the street circuit of Monte Carlo, until a car will crash into a grandstand making hundreds of spectators killed. Many years ago there had been thoughts at the Automobile Club of Monaco to buy some land outside the principality to construct a modern circuit, but meanwhile no one discusses that project anymore.

After David Coulthard`s McLaren Mercedes had stalled by a software problem at the beginning of the formation lap for the second time this year, making the Scotsman starting last, Michael Schumacher had not got any problems with the race anymore. With the exception of his sole routine pit stop in lap 54, making come Rubens Barrichello coming to the top for the following 3 laps, he stood in the lead whole distance. On the finish line both Ferraris were separated by 0.4 seconds in the positions being ordered by the team before. David Coulthard, after fighting through the whole field, came home 5th place, but for a long while he was involved in a fierce battle with Enrique Bernoldi in the Arrows Asiatech. In spite of being fighting in a direct duel about position no.8, the Brazilian was blue-flagged, but he ignored it. After the race Ron Dennis and Norbert Haug were not amused and it came to an open war of words between them and both Bernoldi and his boss Tom Walkinshaw. Mika Hakkinen is out of luck so far this year. The Silver Arrows showed a bad handling after only a few laps, later in lap 15 the Finn retired with steering problems.

For the pleasure of Dr Wolfgang Reitzle and Niki Lauda Eddie Irvine scored a podium finish for Jaguar the first time ever in spite of touching the armco barriers of Rascasse pretty heavliy. Also glamorous for Dr Reitzle, being the boss of all the Ford brands of Jaguar, Volvo, Lincoln, Aston Martin and Land Rover is his girl-friend: The attractive Nina Ruge is Germany`s number one society journalist with a daily TV show of her own.

Like Jordan Honda, having also lost Trulli in lap 30 by a blown engine with a lot fire, none of the Williams BMWs finished. Very early in lap 2, Montoya crashed at the swimming pool, Ralf Schumacher retired in the pits in the 58th lap with collapsed hydraulics.

For the first time since the 1999 European Grand Prix the Team of Alain Prost scored a worldchampionship point. Jean Alesi brought home the Prost Acer AP04 on position no. 6 in spite of coming in for an additional pit stop for a quick tyre change, because one wheel suffered under very bad vibrations. In contrast to Bridgestone, having got problems with their front tyres, the wear of Michelin`s rear tyres was very extreme making them nearly slicks shortly before being changed.

Very sad news this weekend came from Italy. In his home town of Camparada di Lesmo former March-, Surtees-, and Alfa Romeo driver Vittorio Brambilla died at the age of only 63. In 1975 the Italian won his only Grand Prix at Austrian Zeltweg in a very heavy rain with a works March Ford - and was so happy about his victory that he crashed into the pit wall after passing the finish line. Before that in the Warm Up US-American Mark Donohue had crashed so seriously in a private March to die in the Graz university hospital two days later of his head injuries. At that time the team principal of Donohue was Roger Penske. Some hours after the Grand Prix of Monaco 2001 he scored a double victory in the Indianapolis 500 with the young Brazilians Helio Castroneves and Gil de Ferran with cars bought from Dallara. Their Oldmobile engines are prepared by the Mercedes-Benz engine shop of Illmor. History sometimes uses strange ways.

Klaus Ewald

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