2001 Austrian Grand Prix

The 2001 Austrian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at A1-Ring on May 13, 2001.

Race summary

The big issue at the start was launch control, four cars were left stranded on the grid as the race got under away, amazingly the rest of the cars managed to swerve and avoid the stalled cars. The two williams drivers both got absolute flyers away from the grid to be one and two, Juan Pablo Montoya was leading and Ralf Schumacher was second, with Michael Schumacher third. Jarno Trulli who had got going again from pits after being one of the stalled cars was soon disqualified for leaving the pit lane with the red light on when the safety car and the pack were going past the pit exit.

It was no surprise that the safety car was deployed to clear the stalled cars away.

At the re-start Montoya led away again but Ralf Schumacher was soon in trouble when his brakes gave up, at the same time Montoya was suffering bad tyre graining, allowing Michael Schumacher to close right up on him, at the same time Rubens Barrichello closed up on his team mate and Jos Verstappen, Coulthard and also Kimi Räikkönen to close up, causing a train of cars behind Montoya.

Montoya tried to hold them all off but then Michael Schumacher make his move at the tight second corner and Montoya basically forced both of them off the track, leaving Barrichello in the lead, both Montoya and Schumacher both recovered back on the track but were now down the field. Verstappen mean while pitted soon after with a much lighter field load.

Michael Schumacher however soon fought his way back through while Montoya was to drop out in the end.

At the round of pit stops, Coulthard jumped Rubens Barrichello to lead the race, however both Ferrari's closed right up on the McLaren.

Then controversary struck, Barrichello was asked via the radio to let his team mate through for the championship, he did not until the final corner of the last lap, causing a lot of problems after the race.

In the end David Coulthard came home first just ahead of both Ferraris and a superb fourth for Kimi Räikkönen in the Sauber, his team mate would have been up there to, but he was one of the four drivers who had problems at the start, although he did well to get up to 9th after starting a lap down.

Classification

Notes

*Jos Verstappen scored his first world championship point of the season.
*Heinz-Harald Frentzen's Jordan stalled on the grid and retired because of a gearbox problem.
*Jarno Trulli was disqualified for leaving the pit lane while the red light was showing.

F1 race report
Name_of_race = Austrian Grand Prix | Year_of_race = 2001
Previous_race_in_season = 2001 Spanish Grand Prix
Next_race_in_season = 2001 Monaco Grand Prix
Previous_year's_race = 2000 Austrian Grand Prix
Next_year's_race = 2002 Austrian Grand Prix