retirement with an engine failure on lap five and spun off on his car's oil that was leaking from his car. Verstappen set a new fastest lap of the race on lap six as he immediately closed on Diniz in 17th. Alesi overtook his teammate Heidfeld for tenth on the following lap.Häkkinen continued to set fastest laps and opened the gap between Coulthard and De La Rosa to five seconds by lap eight. Barrichello claimed fourth position after passing Salo on the same lap and Ralf Schumacher made a pit stop for a new front wing. Ralf Schumacher went into the garage for repairs to his left-front brake on the following lap. By lap 13, Häkkinen's gap to Coulthard was two seconds, who in turn was a further ten seconds in front of De La Rosa. Barrichello was a further six seconds behind De La Rosa, but was drawing ahead of Salo in fifth. Verstappen suffered an gearbox failure and became the race's fifth retirement on lap 15. On lap 16, Diniz and Zonta were given ten-second stop-go penalties, both for their roles in the lap one accidents following a review of television coverage. They took their penalties immediately. Ralf Schumacher emerged from his garage to rejoin the race two laps later. Häkkinen had extended his lead over Coulthard to 10.9 seconds by lap 24. Alesi, who was on a two-stop strategy, became the first driver to make a scheduled pit stop on the same lap and exited the pit lane in thirteenth place. On lap 25, Zonta was involved in another collision when he attempted to pass Mazzacane at Castrol Kurve corner, which promoted Diniz to 14th position. After Häkkinen had built up a 15.2-second lead over teammate Coulthard in second by the 30th lap, McLaren opted to slightly slow him and his teammate by displaying pit boards instructed them to reduce their revolutions per minute to preserve their engines. On lap 33, De La Rosa made a pit stop from third to retire from the race with a gearbox oil leak after Arrows detected abnormally high gearbox temperatures. This moved Button to sixth position. Wurz dropped to tenth after running eighth by lap 34. Häkkinen's lead had grown to more than 17 seconds when he made his one and only pit stop on lap 38, emerging in second position. His teammate Coulthard led the next three laps before