2001 Malaysian Grand Prix

The race took place in the afternoon from 14:00 MST and in front of a crowd of 75,000 spectators.^[45][46][47] The weather at the start was overcast but hot and humid.^[48][49] The air temperature ranged from 32 to 33 °C (90 to 91 °F) and the track temperature 41 to 44 °C (106 to 111 °F);^[48][2] forecasts four days earlier predicted conditions to be consistent with sunny skies.^[50] Every driver, except for Burti, began on the soft compound tyres.^[51] Most teams had anticipated the possibility of rain but it was not much of a threat for them to make their cars suitable for wet-weather.^[42] Five minutes before the pit lane was officially closed, Michael Schumacher's race car had an oil leak,^[48][51] prompting him to drive the spare Ferrari that was setup for his teammate Barrichello.^[52] He avoided a pit lane start because he exited the area one minute before it closed.^[49]

On the formation lap, Frentzen's engine misfired due to a computer-hardware error that limited his rev limiter to 4,000 rpm as he drove away from his starting slot.^[2][53] Just before the race was due to start,^[52] Fisichella was out of position because he missed his starting slot and was stranded in the middle of the grid.^[2] He drove to his original starting position and was perpendicular across the track with not enough steering lock and rolled between the two cars ahead and behind him.^[51][52] Because series regulations barred drivers from reversing, this resulted in an aborted start. A new start time of 14:10 MST was planned and the race was shortened from 56 to 55 laps over a distance of 304.865 km (189.434 mi) since drivers were required to do a second formation lap.^[1][48] During this lap Montoya ran to his garage to take the spare vehicle because his race car had an engine problem.^[2]

Michael Schumacher, from the pole position, made a brisk getaway to maintain his startline advantage going into the first corner.^[52] His teammate Barrichello made a slow start and fell from second to fourth as Trulli was to the left of him and Ralf Schumacher to his right.^[2] Ralf Schumacher slid before turn one and he defended his position at the corner.^[51] That caused the left-front corner of Barrichello's Ferrari and the rear of Ralf Schumacher's Williams car to connect; Schumacher spun 180 degrees in front of the pack and smoke emitted from his tyres, sending him to the rear of the field as other drivers went past. In doing so, Irvine was sent into a half-spin by Verstappen as Räikkönen drove near the pit lane wall with a broken transmission.^[36][51][54] Elsewhere, Häkkinen slowed to avoid piling into Ralf Schumacher. He fell from fourth to eighth as his teammate Coulthard moved from eighth to fourth after going into the grass to avoid the incidents.^[2][51] Verstappen moved from 18th to sixth by the end of the first lap by driving on the inside,^[55] as Ralf Schumacher fell from third to 20th over the same distance. At the end of the first lap, Michael Schumacher led his teammate Barrichello in second by 1.3 seconds, with Trulli a further 1.8 seconds behind in third.^[56]

As the two Ferraris pulled away from the rest of the field midway on lap two, Panis' engine failed and flames licked from the car, pitching him backwards into the gravel trap. Leaking oil pooled on the track and dripped onto his hot exhaust, where it ignited.^{[36][51][52][53]} Fisichella overtook his teammate Button for 11th as Ralf Schumacher moved from 20th to 14th.^[2] An unexpected monsoon shower began to fall on lap three.^[57][58] The two Ferraris continued to pull further away from the rest of the field, although they were unaware of Panis' deposited oil because they had not been told of it in time by the marshals. Both drivers slid on the oil and into the gravel trap, and navigated back onto the track in third and seventh.^[47][2][51] Trulli took the lead with Coulthard in second. None of the leaders made pit stops to switch to wet-weather compound tyres immediately because half of the track was dry while the final hairpin was flooded as some areas did not have adequate drainage. On lap four, Montoya, Bernoldi, Heidfeld and Villeneuve aquaplaned into a gravel trap and retired. Whiting deployed the safety car on the lap though several cars, including Trulli, Coulthard and Barrichello, aquaplaned into the turn 15 hairpin.^[42][52]

During the safety car period, several drivers made pit stops for rain tyres. Although he had no radio communication with his team, Coulthard exited the pit lane leading while Ferrari had a fraught stop.^[52] Barrichello's second error and Michael Schumacher being three seconds behind on the lap before meant Ferrari believed that the latter was ahead.^[42] After Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn called both Michael Schumacher and his teammate Barrichello for their first pit stops,^[52] Schumacher sat behind Barrichello for 1 minute and 12 seconds because the team was missing Barrichello's front-right wheel since Brawn mistakenly told the mechanics that Schumacher was ahead; debris also had to be removed from Barrichello's bargeboard that was removed. The duo emerged in 10th and 11th. Rain stopped falling by lap seven although there was a large amount of standing water as the safety car remained on track for the next three laps.^[42][51][54] The track dried quickly and the safety car was withdrawn at the end of lap 10.^[36][42] Coulthard led from Frentzen and Verstappen at the lap-11 restart.^[45] He began to pull away from the rest of the field as Verstappen slipstreamed Frentzen on the back straight and out-braked him for second at the turn 15 hairpin.^[48][49] On lap 12, Frenzten fell to fifth when Häkkinen and Ralf Schumacher passed him.^[58] Barrichello radioed Brawn about dirt on the track and that his teammate Michael Schumacher should take care.^[55] During the lap, Schumacher, on a light fuel load and whose engine almost overheated in the pit lane,^[47][54] went onto the dirt to pass Barrichello,^[59] who went to the left of Trulli at turn five and was blocked by him.^[51]

Michael Schumacher overtook Frentzen, Ralf Schumacher and Häkkinen off the racing line on the 13th lap. He approached Verstappen in second on the next lap though Verstappen twice blocked his path.^[51] Further back, his teammate Barrichello passed Ralf Schumacher and Häkkinen took fourth.^[2] On the 15th lap, Michael Schumacher overtook Verstappen on the inside for second and began to draw closer to Coulthard,^[45] who drove with an understeer.^[55] He passed Coulthard on the right for the lead on the start/finish straight linking the final and first corners on lap 16.^[51] That lap, Barrichello overtook Verstappen and Coulthard to advance to second as Michael Schumacher began to pull away by five seconds. It appeared at this point that Ferrari would win the race comfortably barring a mechanical issue. Häkkinen and Ralf Schumacher were the first two drivers to enter the pit lane and switch from the full wet compound tyres to the dry compound tyres on lap 17. Barrichello made his second stop four laps later in which the second bargeboard was removed from his car, emerging in fourth. Coulthard fell to 40 seconds behind the Ferraris by the time of his second stop on lap 25. He rejoined the race in third, more than 20 seconds behind Barrichello.^[42][2]

In the meantime, Ralf Schumacher overtook Frentzen for fifth on lap 24 and Häkkinen for fourth four laps later.^[2] On lap 27 Mazzacane delayed Häkkinen and Verstappen, who were in the act of lapping him. When Häkkinen got past, Button followed through for 14th after being previously unable to overtake Mazzacane.^[49][58][60] Light rain began to fall again on lap 28 though it was not heavy enough to affect the race.^[57] Michael Schumacher led by 67 seconds when he made his second pit stop on lap 30 for a front wing adjustment and fuel to complete the race.^[49][57] He rejoined 28 seconds ahead of his teammate Barrichello in second. Further back, Verstappen lost fourth to Ralf Schumacher on lap 31. Fisichella in ninth became the race's final retiree with no fuel pressure at the pit lane entrance the lap after.^[49][2] Around this time, Häkkinen duelled Verstappen for fifth though he could not pass and allowed Frentzen to gain on the pair. Verstappen defended fifth by out-braking Häkkinen at the turn 15 hairpin on lap 38; the manoeuvre put Häkkinen wide and allowed Frentzen to overtake him for sixth.^[48][2][54] Barrichello made his final pit stop three laps later and he remained in second.^[45] Verstappen entered the pit lane for the third time on the 43rd lap to take on enough fuel to complete the race.^[54]

The track was entirely dry by lap 47 as Coulthard lowered the deficit behind Barrichello to 4.5 seconds. One lap later, Häkkinen set the race's overall fastest lap, at 1 minute 40.962 seconds, as he pursued Ralf Schumacher in fifth.^[57] However, he did not have enough traction exiting the corners to pass Ralf Schumacher, whose more powerful engine gave him a straight-line speed advantage on the main straights, but emitted a large amount of carbon brake dust each time he braked into the heavy braking zones.^[48][49] Michael Schumacher reduced his pace since overtaking caused by blocked radiators was a possible worry for him but maintained the lead to take his second victory of the season,^[42][61] and the 46th of his career, overtaking Nigel Mansell's and Ascari's joint record of five victories in a row from pole position with his sixth.^[52] Barrichello was 23.660 seconds behind in second and Coulthard came third.^[47][2] Frentzen's scheduled two-stop strategy put him fourth despite locking rear wheels and was ordered by Jordan to stop at the end of the pit lane barrier because he needed to have enough fuel in his car to pass a post-race FIA analysis.^[42][55] Ralf Schumacher in fifth held off Häkkinen in sixth. Outside of the points-scoring positions, Verstappen, Trulli, Alesi, Burti, Button and Mazzacane followed in positions seven to twelve.^[2][52] The Minardi cars were the final two finishers, Alonso ahead of Marques; the latter was delayed by a right-rear puncture.^[62]

The top three drivers appeared on the podium to collect their trophies and spoke to the media in a later press conference.^[4] Michael Schumacher called the race "exciting" and said it reminded him of his victory at the 1996 Spanish Grand Prix, "It was probably the same story, but honestly it's great being somehow dominant, but we know that won't be the case for every coming race now. It was special conditions, special circumstances, and we used them well for us."^[63] Barrichello said that he made an extra pit stop to have debris removed from his car, adding, "I think we have a good car, a fantastic car actually, the best car I have ever driven, like I have said. Once I came on the radio to say that I saw some bits of the car flying, and that's basically was some of the barge boards and maybe the brake duct or something."^[63] Coulthard stated he was unsurprised at Ferrari's faster speed, "They clearly have a car advantage at this time, very similar to the sort of advantage we probably had in '98, and that allows you, if you make the right calls, to really drive at the pace you want to relative to others. So it's quite clear to everyone that they're the class of the field at the moment and we have a lot of work to do to catch up."^[63]

Ralf Schumacher said he felt the first lap collision with Barrichello prevented him from finishing on the podium and noted it was the second collision the latter had with a German driver in the past two races, "He should learn the rules. It is a racing accident but it difficult to understand how it happened because the car in front usually has the priority in the corner."^[64] Barrichello argued that Ralf Schumacher had not provided him with enough space to negotiate through, "If he comes around the outside, he leaves some room for a line. But I had no room or line and I had to let the car roll. He was in front and suddenly he shut the door and that was where we touched."^[65] Ron Dennis, the McLaren team principal, said he was certain the decision to run his cars on the wet tyres was correct, "Are we disappointed? Not really, but we are more frustrated. Today was one of those days when you have to make a decision and we made ours to go on wets and they (Ferrari) took a risk and went on intermediates."^[66] Brawn stated Ferrari had information from testing at the Fiorano Circuit that the intermediate tyres operated efficiently in deep standing water, "We knew there were dry parts of the track and we knew there were wet parts of the track and we knew the tyres were very good in the morning [warm-up] as well. That was what we ran this morning. We knew it was very good and we knew it would go into the dry."^[67]

Irvine described the weather conditions that were observed early in the race as "worse than Spa proportions, the rain was of Suzuka proportions – just like the weather at the race in Japan in 1995."^[68] Villeneuve said that "It was just undriveable in those conditions. It was a big downpour. I couldn't see anything and what made it more dangerous was that everyone was on dry tyres and did not have their red lights on."^[68] Verstappen said that although he was disappointed to score no championship points he was still pleased, "It was great to play with the big boys. It showed all the F1 teams that I can drive. You need equipment to win races, and I think that if I had the right equipment, I could do it."^[69]

Fisichella apologised to the Benetton team over the radio for missing his starting position that led to the start being aborted.^[70] He said that he was focused on ensuring his car was setup to his liking and only saw the vehicle ahead of him. The Benetton team principal Flavio Briatore did not reprimand Fisichella, but praised him for moving to seventh place before retiring.^[70] The result extended Michael Schumacher's lead in the World Drivers' Championship to 10 championship points over Barrichello and Coulthard, tied for second place. Frentzen moved past his compatriot Heidfeld for fourth.^[8] In the World Constructors' Championship, Ferrari further increased their advantage over McLaren to 19 championship points while Jordan passed Sauber for third and Williams in fifth registered their first championship points of the season with Ralf Schumacher's fifth-place finish with fifteen races left in the season.^[8]

Drivers who scored championship points are denoted in bold.

Pos	No.	Driver	Constructor	Tyre	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	B	55	1:47:34.801	1	10
2	2	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari	B	55	+ 23.660	2	6
3	4	David Coulthard	McLaren-Mercedes	B	55	+ 28.555	8	4
4	11	Heinz-Harald Frentzen	Jordan-Honda	B	55	+ 46.543	9	3
5	5	Ralf Schumacher	Williams-BMW	M	55	+ 48.233	3	2
6	3	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren-Mercedes	B	55	+ 48.606	4	1
7	14	Jos Verstappen	Arrows-Asiatech	B	55	+ 1:21.560	18
8	12	Jarno Trulli	Jordan-Honda	B	54	+ 1 Lap	5
9	22	Jean Alesi	Prost-Acer	M	54	+ 1 Lap	13
10	19	Luciano Burti	Jaguar-Cosworth	M	54	+ 1 Lap	15
11	8	Jenson Button	Benetton-Renault	M	53	+ 2 Laps	17
12	23	Gastón Mazzacane	Prost-Acer	M	53	+ 2 Laps	19
13	21	Fernando Alonso	Minardi-European	M	52	+ 3 Laps	21
14	20	Tarso Marques	Minardi-European	M	51	+ 4 Laps	20
Ret	7	Giancarlo Fisichella	Benetton-Renault	M	31	Fuel pressure	16
Ret	10	Jacques Villeneuve	BAR-Honda	B	3	Spun off	7
Ret	16	Nick Heidfeld	Sauber-Petronas	B	3	Spun off	11
Ret	15	Enrique Bernoldi	Arrows-Asiatech	B	3	Spun off	22
Ret	6	Juan Pablo Montoya	Williams-BMW	M	3	Spun off	PL2
Ret	18	Eddie Irvine	Jaguar-Cosworth	M	3	Water leak	12
Ret	9	Olivier Panis	BAR-Honda	B	1	Engine/Spun off	10
Ret	17	Kimi Räikkönen	Sauber-Petronas	B	0	Driveshaft	14
Sources:[40][71]

Notes

• ^2 – Juan Pablo Montoya started the race from the pit lane.^[2]

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

Previous race: 2001 Australian Grand Prix	FIA Formula One World Championship 2001 season	Next race: 2001 Brazilian Grand Prix
Previous race: 2000 Malaysian Grand Prix	Malaysian Grand Prix	Next race: 2002 Malaysian Grand Prix