Michael wins his ninthJos 15th

Published on 14 October 2001 by Verstappen Info Page

Michael Schumacher has won the last Grand Prix of this season and has a grand total of nine wins this year. With gaining a new worldchampionship he also broke the record for most wins and most points. All weekend no one could match Michael's efforts, only Juan Pablo Montoya prevented that Michael also got the fastest lap.
The start was without any problems, Michael's Ferrari leaped away from the rest. After three laps the gap between Michael and Juan Pablo Montoya was 8.2 seconds. Rubens Barrichello was not able to maintain his third place. With a not well thought 3-stop strategy Ferrari threw away all of Barrichello's chances. Rubens finished 5th.

Jos Verstappen had a reasonably good start, after the first lap he was 16th having started from 20th. According to the statistics Jos put the grand total on 84 for successfull overtakings. Let's hope he will be able to start further up the grid next year. "I've said it all before: we can't go any faster, furthermore no comments. I had to change into the T-car because the powersteering of my car failed." According to Jos.

Mika Hakkinen, who is taking a sabatical, seemd to go for third place but in the end he passed it to David Coulthard. The Scotsman came third and managed to keep Barrichello behind him in the drivers championship.
Alesi was not able to prove how good a finisher he his, especially in his last race. The most experienced driver of the field left the race (and Formula 1) in a spectacular way when he tried to avoid Kimi Raikkonen. The young Fin, who will be replacing Mika Hakkinen at McLaren next year, lost control over his Sauber when his left rear suspension broke. In an attempt to avoid Raikkonen Alesi went off track with him. Raikkonen was not hurt but complained about pain in his neck.

In the second half of the race Jos received a 10 second penalty for overtaking Thomas Enge in the formation lap. "He nearly stalled in the hairpin so I had to overtake him. He might have had a problem. We were told not to leave big gaps so the wait for the start won't be too long. Ah well, it doesn't matter anymore. We're all going home now." according to Jos.