lane for the first of two planned stops at the conclusion of lap 17 that took 7.2 seconds to finish. He rejoined the event in sixth position. Frentzen made his pit stop one lap later and re joined in sixth place, behind Barrichello. By lap 20, Häkkinen had a lead of 1.4 seconds over Coulthard, who in turn was almost 22 seconds ahead of Trulli. De La Rosa was a further 2.1 seconds behind Trulli, and was being caught by Barrichello in fifth who set a new fastest lap, a 1:44.300. Villeneuve overtook Irvine for eighth place on lap 22. On lap 25, a man sporting a white raincoat with French writing critical of Mercedes-Benz emerged from beside the barriers and stepped onto the outside verge towards the Ostkurve. He ran in front of a group of cars approaching him at high speed to the inside of the circuit to avoid being caught by marshals. The incident prompted race officials to deploy the safety car and the closed field up. With the pit stop window coming up, teams immediately brought their drivers into the pit lane to take advantage of the scenario with Trulli and De La Rosa the first to make pit stops. Both Häkkinen and Coulthard had passed the pit lane following the safety car's deployment. McLaren called in Häkkinen to the pit lane at the end of lap 26. His teammate Coulthard remained out on worn tyres because of confusion over the radio whether he should have entered the pit lane. Coulthard would make a pit stop on the following lap and emerged in sixth place. On the same lap, the man was caught and escorted off the circuit. The safety car period was advantageous to drivers who had made a pit stop before it was deployed. Racing resumed on lap 29 when the safety car entered the pit lane. Trulli immediately came under pressure from Barrichello and withstood the latter's attempts to pass him. Ralf Schumacher spun at the Jim Clark chicane on lap 30 and Verstappen was forced wide in avoidance. Later on Diniz attempted to pass Alesi on the approach to the Ayrton Senna chicane and went across the latter at high speed. Alesi crashed into the barrier at high speed, removing both his car's left-hand side wheels. Diniz's car was not damaged. Alesi suffered from abdominal pains, dizziness and vomiting. Officials again deployed