1998 Canadian GP – Schumacher celebrates, McLaren duo retires

On this day in 1998, Michael Schumacher celebrated in the seventh race of the season in Canada while McLaren drivers Hakkinen and Coulthard retired due to gearbox failures.

McLaren started fiercely in the 1998 season with five wins and six pole positions in the first six races and was stopped only by Michael Schumacher in Argentina where he won ahead of Hakkinen.

After the sixth race in Monaco, Hakkinen led with 46 points, Coulthard had 29, Schumacher 24 while McLaren had 75 points, 36 more than Ferrari.

That is why Canada was key to Schumacher’s and Ferrari’s ambitions for the world championships, which Schumacher and Irvine had highlighted ahead of the race.

In qualifying, McLaren secured another front row but Schumacher had a great start and passed Hakkinen. The race was interrupted after start crash between Trulli, Alesi and Wurz but all three drivers used their spare cars and started the race again.

At the start of the race, Fisichella passed Schumacher but Hakkinen retired with a gearbox problem. Schumacher overtook Fisichella in the first lap, but due to his brother Ralf’s incident, a safety car came out on the track.

After SC, leading drivers Coulthard and Schumacher began to make the advantage over the rest of the pack and Scott retired during the second SC period.

The incident between Salo and Herbert triggered the third safety car that Schumacher used for his third pitstop and when he returned to the track there were yellow flags. However, in the lap 20, when he left the pitlane, German blocked Frentzen in Williams, forced him to go to the grass and lose control, after which he retired.

Williams’s Patrick Head was furious and went to Jean Todt’s Ferrari pit-wall to talk about Schumacher’s behavior.

Schumacher later received 10-second stop-and-go penalty for incident with Frentzen, who dropped behind Hill in Jordan who Michael overtook in the lap 38 and returned to second place.

Schumacher overtook the leading Fisichella in lap 45 and kept the lead until the end of the race and celebrated 16 seconds ahead of the Fisichela and a minute ahead of his teammate Irvine.

The fourth was Wurz who recovered from the incident at the start of the race, and the last points in the fifth and sixth place were won by Barrichello and Magnussen.

With this victory Schumacher reduced Hakkinen’s advantage to 12 points, nine races before the end, and Ferrari got closer to McLaren with 22 points gap.

STARTING GRID

RACE RESULTS

Fastest lap: Michael Schumacher – 1:19.379 (lap 48)

DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP AFTER 7/16 RACES

CONSTRUCTORS’ CHAMPIONSHIP