Summary

Mika Hakkinen secured another win and is looking good for the championship. Giancarlo Fisichella set out to prove he is faster than Eddie Irvine and did during this race with second. Eddie Irvine brought home a nice third place finish.

The Arrows team can be extremely happy with Mika Salo fourth and Pedro Diniz sixth.

Notes

• M. Schumacher uses his T-car.
• Frentzen retires in the barriers when Irvine overtakes him. Frentzen commented to this: "Typically Eddie."
• M. Schumacher and Wurz battle it out for second. They hit each other a couple of times. M. Schumacher needs to go into the pits to get his rear suspension fixed. He gets back into the race with a couple of laps setback.
• M. Schumacher spins and looses the front of the car when he tries to overtake Diniz.
• Bridgestone was angry at the way the podium ceremony went. They were unable to give Hakkinen his Bridgestone cap on time. Fisichella got his from a Benetton mechanic. Bridgestone said Goodyear was given the opportunity to give Irvine his cap.
• It was speculated this weekend that Eddie Jordan is thinking about selling his team to Honda because of the bad results.
• The Sauber team is now the only team left to sign the Concorde agreement.
• Max Mosley has stated that there may be two new Grands prix in the year 2000: China and the USA. He said: "The structure of the calendar will be different, but I wouldn't want to pre-empt the decision of the World Council, which I hope will be in June. We are hoping to get an outline of the structure there." He also added that this year's calendar is now official and no Grands Prix will be added: "There is no chance for a race in that five week gap, it is just unfortunate the way the calendar has worked out this year. It will be radically different in 1999."
  • Weather during race: Partly Cloudy (19 Degrees C)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.   13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

Hakkinen (McLaren-Mercedes) B Fisichella (Benetton-Playlife) B Irvine (Ferrari) G Salo (Arrows) B Villeneuve (Winfield-Williams) G Diniz (Arrows) B Herbert (Sauber-Petronas) G Hill (Jordan-Mugen) G Nakano (Minardi-Ford) B M. Schumacher (Ferrari) G Takagi (Tyrrell-Ford) G Alesi (Sauber-Petronas) G Not Classified Trulli (Prost-Peugeot) B Panis (Prost-Peugeot) B R. Schumacher (Jordan-Mugen) G Wurz (Benetton-Playlife) B Magnussen (Stewart-Ford) B Coulthard (McLaren-Mercedes) B Barrichello (Stewart-Ford) B Frentzen (Winfield-Williams) G Tuero (Minardi-Ford) B Rosset (Tyrrell-Ford)B B: Bridgestone G: Goodyear

1h 51m 23.595s + 0m 11.475s + 0m 41.378s + 1m 00.363s 1 lap 1 lap 1 lap 2 laps 2 laps 2 laps 2 laps 6 laps: gearbox   22 laps: rear suspension 29 laps: rear suspension 34 laps: rear suspension 36 laps: crash 48 laps: rear suspension 61 laps: engine 67 laps: rear suspension 69 laps: crash 78 laps: crash DNQ

Fastest lap: Mika Hakkinen 1m 22.948s (lap 29)

The Quotes

• Hakkinen: "I have competed here on seven occasions and have never before finished the race although I did win one point in 1996! To win in Monaco is every driver's dream and to win here today is something special. It is however, only the effort of all the team that has made it possible for me to achieve this result."

• Fisichella: "It is a great result for me. My target was to get on the podium, but achieving second place is unbelievable. I have always liked the Monaco circuit as I won here in Formula Three and now I can add a second place in Formula One. The race was very difficult at the beginning because Michael Schumacher was pushing really hard and I had some problems with the rear of the car. But, after 15 laps, there was less understeer and I was able to pull away. Later, I touched the kerb inside the Rascasse and spun, but Eddie was quite a long way behind me so I was very lucky. Now, I have to try and do one better than this and win a race!."

• M. Schumacher: "After the incident with Wurz, my car was damaged and I felt something was wrong at the rear so I pitted. I thought my race was over, but the mechanics managed to change the track rod and so I continued, but the car was not quite as good as before. Having lost three laps, there was not much more I could do. I could only hope for rain or some other incidents that we know can often happen here. I tried to pass Alex, as he left the door open. We touched, but very lightly, it was just a normal incident and I definitely do not blame him. Our situation in the Championship is obviously not very good as the "wrong" McLaren had the technical problem! I hope in Canada the new tyre development we tried at the last tests will prove as good as they did then. We should be more competitive in the next few races."

• Irvine: "I am very happy to be third but not so happy with the performance of the car. Before the start I was worried that I would be stuck behind Frentzen as he was on soft tyres. After the first few laps I could close on him and I had seen he was weakest at the hairpin. I picked my moment and went down the inside. We made contact, but I was able to keep going. I was worried my car was damaged as we hit quite hard but after the next couple of corners I realised everything was alright. Once I got past him I had a lonely race. I pushed hard to keep up with Wurz, but I could not catch him. I left my pit-stop very late as I started with a big fuel load. I continued to push hard not to lose concentration and only backed off in the last few laps. We tested new tyres at Magny-Cours last week and I think we can go a lot better in Canada. I must say this car is fantastic to drive and I have never had so much fun driving here as I did over this weekend. Now we must improve the performance level."

• Tuero: "I cannot be satisfied with myself, as I didn't finish not even the first lap of this Grand Prix. In fact, at the turn before the Casino my race 'crashed' into the guard-rail."

• Nakano: "I am very happy with my result, even if the start wasn't easy at all: Olivier Panis was in front of me for about 15 laps and was much slower than me. I did what I could to pass him, but this track doesn't give you many chances to overtake anybody. When Panis stopped, i could finally push hard. I felt my car was good and it would allow me to recover, as it happened: I first reached Takagi, then Trulli and I closed the gap of 22 seconds between me and Hill. Maybe, if I could have had some more laps... The mechanics made a very good job at pit-stop and this helped me even more. Last year, here in Monte Carlo I didn't even see the chequered flag and I cannot deny, that having today my name on the race classification before Michael Schumacher, makes me feel quite strange."

• Takagi: "This was a difficult race made more difficult by the fact I wasn't feeling well. As a result, am happy to have finished. If we hadn't lost a little time during the second pit stop and I had got back out on the track ahead of Nakano, we would have achieved a top-10 finish. Also, my final set of tyres just didn't seem to have any grip compared with the earlier sets and I was forced to reduce my pace late in the race when our telemetry showed the engine suffering with an oil pressure problem. IF everything had gone perfectly, I believe it would have been possible to finish in eighth place, ahead of Damon Hill. Now I am looking forward to the Canadian Grand Prix where we will be able to use the P10 specification Ford engine for the first time in qualifying."

• Coulthard: "At the start I tried to see if I could squeeze round the outside of Mika on the first corner but I ran out of space and therefore I decided to drop back and assess the situation. I felt good physically and started to close on Mika again so, I decided to try and put Mika under some pressure and see what would happen. But my engine blew without warning and that was it, race over."

• Alesi: "I made a great start as usual. I took a risk, and it paid off. You need to do that here. The car felt fine, and it was soon clear that the two-stop strategy that I wanted to use was working really well. Then, about 12 or so laps before the finish, I lost third gear, then immediately second. A couple of times I thought the car was going to stop, but I managed to keep going by using just fifth and sixth gears, although it was very difficult under braking. On the lap I stopped, I was in fifth gear round the Swimming Pool. When I lifted off the car went straight into neutral and wouldn't engage any gears. I took the steering wheel off and put back on again in an effort to make it work again, in case it was an electronic problem, but it was fruitless. My race was over. I'm very disappointed, because fifth place was easily ours this afternoon."

• Herbert: "I thought I'd made a good start, but obviously it wasn't good enough and I got stuck for another race behind Trulli. I was very disappointed to find that my car still lacked the good balance that it had in qualifying, but which we had lost in the morning warm-up. It just wasn't there any more, which is very confusing. I just lacked speed. I was lucky not to get involved in Wurz's accident. It just looked like he lost it in the tunnel, and there were bits everywhere. It could have been dodgy, but I wasn't hit by anything."

• Wurz: "I don't know what happened. I just hit the barrier in the tunnel. I am frustrated because I had a good chance of earning some points today. I enjoyed the battle with Michael, but I don't know yet if that had anything to do with my collision."

• Richards (Benetton boss): "I am so pleased for Giancarlo because he had a poor start to the season, but now he has got his confidence back and you can see it so clearly now. I feel very sorry for Alex. He really attacked hard and defended his position against Schumacher and I think the consequences of that probably damaged the front of the car and caused the accident."

• Hill: "This was not a rewarding race. You always push hoping, especially in Monaco, something will happen to move you up the grid. But all weekend, nothing we have done has been good enough and it is quite tough to compete under those circumstances."

• R. Schumacher: "I had been running behind Damon for most of the race and could not pass him. So when he came in for his pit stop I was really pushing for two laps. On my first 'push' lap a car came out of the pits and I braked and came a little out of line and so went into the barrier at Sainte Devote. It was not a big hit, but big enough to damage the rear suspension and I had to retire. "The car was not too bad under the difficult circumstances we have had this weekend. The two laps when I was pushing would have been very good. My start was a lot better than it has been - I lost one place but I think I then gained it back."

Drivers Championship table

Hakkinen (McLaren-Mercedes)	46
Coulthard (McLaren-Mercedes)	29
M. Schumacher (Ferrari)	24
Irvine (Ferrari)	15
Wurz (Benetton-Playlife)	9
Frentzen (Winfield-Williams)	8
Villeneuve (Winfield-Williams)	8
Fisichella (Benetton-Playlife)	7
Alesi (Sauber-Petronas)	3
Salo (Arrows)	3
Barrichello (Stewart-Ford)	2
Herbert (Sauber-Petronas)	1
Diniz (Arrows)	1

Constructor Championship table

McLaren-Mercedes	75
Ferrari	39
Winfield-Williams	16
Benetton-Playlife	16
Sauber-Petronas	4
Arrows	4
Stewart-Ford	2

Pictures courtesy of Benetton-PlayLife