2001 Brazilian Grand Prix

The 2001 Brazilian Grand Prix was a Formula One race held at the Interlagos Circuit on April 1, 2001.

The Grand Prix had three notable incidents, two of them being overtaking moves, both on Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher, and both taking place at the "Senna S" corner of the track.

The first of these overtaking maneuvers took place very early in the race. An early safety car was brought onto the track because McLaren driver Mika Häkkinen had stalled on the starting grid. When the safety car came in, F1 rookie Juan Pablo Montoya impressively overtook defending champion Michael Schumacher, almost forcing him onto the grass with what some commentators described as "Schumacher-like aggression".Fact|date=January 2008 Some sports commentators suggested this aggressive technique may have been rooted in Montoya's confidence in handling restart situations due to his experience in Champ Car competition.Fact|date=January 2008

The home crowd though had little to cheer about for Rubens Barrichello. He had problems before he even got on the grid and had to switch to the spare car. He then slammed into the back of Ralf Schumacher on the restart, causing Rubens to be out on the spot. Ralf Schumacher limped back to the pits, but was in for a long time replacing the rear wing; he later spun off when the track was wet.

By lap 39 it was turning into a dream race for Montoya - in his first season in Formula 1, he was leading his "home" Grand Prix by more than 30 seconds over Michael Schumacher. [ [http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/rr666.html F1 News - Grandprix.com > GP Encyclopedia > Races > Brazilian GP, 2001 ] ] However, this dream would then be ruined while he was lapping Jos Verstappen. Verstappen let Montoya by, but as he pulled in behind Montoya while braking for turn 4 his Arrows slammed violently into the back of Montoya's Williams and both men were out of the race.

Soon after Montoya's retirement it began to rain heavily, forcing everyone to change tyres, some went onto full-wet tires while others chose the intermediates.

A compromised Michael Schumacher was right back in the hunt after he had pitted early. He needed to pit again for fuel but was able to change tires as well. Coulthard stayed out an extra lap which at that point looked costly.

But then Schumacher, with a dry-weather set up on his car, spun soon after exiting the pit lane allowing Coulthard right back on his tail.

This led to the second amazing overtaking move of the race, this one by David Coulthard. He passed Schumacher with the aid of a backmarker, rather similar to his teammate Mika Häkkinen's move on Schumacher at the Belgian Grand Prix the previous season.

Coulthard stormed on to win, while Schumacher suffered another off on his way to second place and a delighted Nick Heidfeld took his first-ever podium driving for Sauber. It was also Sauber's first podium since Jean Alesi at the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix.

Classification

Notes

*Fastest L

*First podium: Nick Heidfeld
*Mika Häkkinen retired right at the start of the race as he stalled on the grid.
*Juan Pablo Montoya was on course for his first F1 victory, but he was hit by Jos Verstappen from behind.
*This race was run under heavy rain on the last 25 laps of the race.

External links

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j13g2KXAJZ4 Video of Montoya's accident on Youtube]

F1 race report
Name_of_race = Brazilian Grand Prix | Year_of_race = 2001
Previous_race_in_season = 2001 Malaysian Grand Prix
Next_race_in_season = 2001 San Marino Grand Prix
Previous_year's_race = 2000 Brazilian Grand Prix
Next_year's_race = 2002 Brazilian Grand Prix