rotated in front of Ralf Schumacher, the latter spun into the rear of the Jaguar. Ralf Schumacher spun onto the grass and Irvine's rear wing detached at turn three. The loss of downforce beached Irvine in the gravel trap, as Verstappen spun and crashed against the right-side tyre barrier exiting the Ford Kurve. Further up the field, Barrichello caught and overtook Fisichella into the Veedol chicane for fourth on lap 32. He entered the pit lane on the next lap as the technical director of Ferrari Ross Brawn switched Barrichello to a three-stop strategy to better recover positions on dry tyres on a wet track. Michael Schumacher made a pit stop on lap 35 for enough fuel to finish the race. Häkkinen took the lead on lap 36 as Schumacher emerged in second. He increased the lead to 25.6 seconds by lap 40 since Michael Schumacher had a heavily fuelled car. Three laps later, Alesi overtook Wurz for tenth. Häkkinen had delayed his second pit stop for ten laps; he was unable to build up a lead large enough because of slower traffic and was leading by 21.9 seconds by lap 44. He and his teammate Coulthard made their final pit stops on lap 45, and rejoined in second and fifth respectively. With their pit stops complete, Michael Schumacher led Häkkinen by 12.5 seconds with the yet-to-stop De La Rosa third. Villeneuve was told to enter the pit lane from fifth on lap 46. He was retired because his team detected via telemetry an engine fault linked to a valve issue. De La Rosa made his stop on the 48th lap, elevating Barichello to third and Coulthard to fourth. On that lap, Gené retired with a failed accelerator throttle. On lap 49, Button was duelling with Herbert and ran into the rear of Herbert's car at the slow Veedol chicane, creating a hole in the leading edge of the Williams' front wing that Button was unable to notice; both drivers remained on the circuit and continued. Barrichello made the race's final pit stop on lap 51. Barrichello gained seven seconds on Coulthard; the gap was not large enough for Barrichello to retain third and he fell to fourth. Three laps later, Zonta's rear wheels locked under braking and he spun into a gravel trap and then beached upon a kerb. On lap 61, Wurz out-braked Button going uphill towards the