dry. On returning to the race, he began to make his way through the field constantly recording fastest laps; the first of which was 1:54.416, five seconds faster than the remainder of the field. Schumacher made a pit stop on lap 10 for slicks, handing the lead to Häkkinen for a lap before he too pitted. Alesi's progress was interrupted when he spun attempting to pass Pedro Lamy's Minardi for 15th place, but he made his way up to second by lap 10, overtaking Hill around the outside in the final chicane to take the place. Alerted by Alesi's pace on the slick tyres, the other drivers came into the pits to change to slick tyres. The two Jordan cars collided on lap 15. Rubens Barrichello spun in the final chicane when he attempted to brake later than his teammate Irvine. Barrichello hit a wall, which damaged his car's rear wing and caused him to retire from the race. Irvine was involved in another collision at the chicane on lap 20 when Frentzen hit him from behind. Irvine continued without damage, but Frentzen had to pit for a new front wing. At the front, Alesi was lapping faster than Schumacher, even though Schumacher was on dry tyres. Alesi was only six seconds behind Schumacher when his Ferrari 412T2 suffered an apparent differential failure on lap 25. It was later discovered that the problem was a driveshaft failure, possibly as a result of his earlier spin. Schumacher made a pit stop for a second time on lap 31, returning to the race in second place behind Hill. Schumacher set the fastest lap of the race on lap 33, and regained his lead on the next lap when Hill made his pit stop. Behind them, Häkkinen and Coulthard were third and fourth respectively before their pit stops, but Coulthard pitted six laps later than Häkkinen and returned to the track in third place, one place ahead of the Finn. Johnny Herbert was fifth in the second Benetton car after the second round of pit stops, with Irvine rounding out the point-scoring places in sixth. At this stage, the rain began to fall again, but only at the Spoon Curve end of the track. The Williams drivers were second and third until Hill ran off the track at Spoon Curve two laps after his pit stop. He damaged his front wing in the