28 May 2001: Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello scored a dream one-two win in Monaco for their Scuderia-Ferrari Marlboro team, Schumacher backing off in the closing stages for a Ferrari formation finish, Barrichello only half a second behind as the two cars crossed the finish line 30 seconds ahead of their closest rivals.

Things went well for Schumacher before the race even started when an electrical problem saw the pole-man David Coulthard stall his McLaren-Mercedes before the warm-up lap and was thus obliged to start the race from the other end of the grid. Mika Hakkinen made a strong start in the second McLaren to split the two Ferraris in the opening laps, but then he too ran into trouble with the front end of his car, which saw him retire after 14 laps. "It was pulling to one side," said Hakkinen after a pit stop and then retiring for good, a problem suspected with the power steering system.

Schumacher was almost subdued on the winner's rostrum after leading for the entire 78 laps. "It wasn't that I was not happy, but it was not a very emotional win for me. There was nothing exceptional about it, as I did not have to fight for the win. It was an easy drive, but still hard work as it always is here. You have to do fast lap times and stay concentrated. I was thinking most of the time about reliability and at one point had a chat on the radio with Ross about the other people and he told me to keep up my concentration and that his heart was strong enough for another incident like I had in Indianapolis," joked Michael, who nearly lost the race while leading when he put a wheel off the circuit. It was Michael's fifth win at Monaco and his 48th career win.

Rubens Barrichello's second place was certainly no easy run for the Brazilian (above) who had a difficult time for much of the race with cramp in his right foot. "It started around lap 10 because the heel rest was loose. I was in a lot of pain and I could not feel the pedals," said Rubens. "When Imade my pit stop I banged the rest with my foot and that seemed to help as it got better at the end of the race and I was able to race normally at the end," he explained.

Fortunately he was able to lose time because of his problem without it costing him a place. Chased by the two BMW-Williams cars in the opening laps, the fifth placed car of Juan-Pablo Montoya crashed out of the race when he clipped a barrier on lap three while Ralf Schumacher hung on to third spot after Hakkinen's retirement until lap 58 when he stopped at the pits. A hydraulic problem saw him struggling to select gears and he was forced to retire.

Eddie Irvine took over third place after a strong race with the Jaguar-Ford, revised for this race and going a lot better than it has in the past. " The team have made a huge step forward. I just hope the improvement carries over to a circuit like Canada in two weeks time," said Irvine. Jacques Villeneuve drove a strong race for BAR to finish an eventual fourth, chasing Irvi9ne hard to the line to finish just 1,7 seconds behind after nearly two hours of racing, the last cars left on the same lap as Schumacher.

Coulthard's early frustration was increased by the nature of the Monaco circuit as he spent half the race trying to get past the Arrows-Asiatech ofEnrique Bernoldi, which he finally did, at the pit stops. Coulthard battled on bravely to the finish picking up two points for fifth place after Jean Alesi made a late unscheduled pit stop for a second change of tyres after clipping a barrier, but still managed to re-join the race in time to claim the final point for sixth. Coulthard also set the fastest lap of the race, on lap 68, as he pushed to catch Alesi in the closing laps.

Only 10 of the 22 starters made it to the finish line, both the Jordan-Honda's going out of the race, Trulli with an hydraulic fluid fire while holding fifth place and Frentzen while in seventh place when he crashed at high speed in the tunnel due to a mechanical problem.

Schumacher's fourth win in seven races now gives him a 12 point advantage over Coulthard for the Championship while Ferrari-Marlboro now holds a comfortable 22 points lead over McLaren-Mercedes in the Constructors' title.

Asked after his fifth win what was the secret of Monaco, Michael Schumacher came up with some simple answers. "To finish the race first of all. It's quite important, because it's very easy to make mistakes here. It's a very hard circuit."

Referring to today's win, Michael went on to say that "although it was an easy drive, it was still hard to some degree, because we were still doing reasonably fast lap times. I don't know what it is that makes it so special.

"I certainly love that circuit. I have always found it easier to find my set-up which is also very important here, to throw the cars through the corners. You have to be lucky to some degree as well. It's pretty challenging with the new technology. Because you have traction control, it means you go faster actually, and that means that some degree it's physically harder."

Rubens Barrichello said that he suffered bad cramp for much of the Monaco Grand Prix. "There was a time in the race when I was going out of Casino and pressing the pedal was just like feeling as though I had that white stuff on my feet. I could hardly feel it. I was trying to move my toes and drink water and I don't know what happened. I'm sure something happened inside of the cockpit with the heel rest, because it was vibrating and moving.

"I was asking God to give me a chance to race because the car was brilliant. I never had a car as good as this one of today. I had to brake so early and fortunately when I looked back, Ralf was dropping back at quite a good pace, so I had an easy race in that respect. It was just that I had to concentrate on not going off because I couldn't brake.

"Fortunately after the pit stop, I tried to push something on the heel rest and it seemed to accommodate it and then I had no problems. Then my life got easier and then I had quite an easy time to the end."
Eddie Irvine, who gained his first podium position since leaving Ferrari, said that his third place was very much due to the new aero package that the team used from Saturday onwards. "It made a huge step," said the former Ferrari driver. "For sure it will be better in Canada but here it's all about downforce. Efficiency is very important in Canada and our efficiency isn't very good. This is a big step forward but it's still a reasonable step behind other people. If we go to Canada and we perform well there, it bodes well for the rest of the year because the two circuits are very different.

However, Eddie revealed that there is a further problem with the car. "There's a problem with the steering that makes it very very difficult to drive. It happens in qualifying sometimes and it seemed to have happened in the race. It happened last year. It cost me a good qualifying position here, it's cost me qualifying positions on other circuits as well so we have to go try and figure that out. But the tyres were very very good, the engine performed great." FP