laps later and returned to the circuit in seventh position. Zonta made his third and final pit stop of the race for fuel on lap 37 and dropped to eighth position. The time it took at Zonta's final pit stop prevented him from finishing in the first three places. Since little fuel was used during the safety car period, the Grand Prix leaders were seeking to make their pit stops after two-thirds race distance. Michael Schumacher took his pit stop on the 40th lap and was stationary for 7.2 seconds. He rejoined the circuit 13.6 seconds behind Häkkinen, who moved into the race lead. Michael Schumacher immediately began pushing hard to ensure that Häkkinen would not have a significant advantage following his pit stop. Three laps later, Häkkinen made a 6.6-second pit stop. He rejoined the track behind Michael Schumacher with a deficit on twelve seconds. Fisichella was the final driver to make a scheduled stop on lap 44. His pit stop was problematic: he stalled with a clutch system fault and his mechanics push-started his Benetton and he rejoined in eleventh. At the completion of lap 45, with the scheduled pit stops completed, the race order was Michael Schumacher, Häkkinen, Ralf Schumacher, Verstappen, Wurz, and Zonta. Zonta went straight onto the escape road near the Variante Goodyear chicane but retained sixth. Häkkinen set out to close up to Michael Schumacher while encountering slower cars and being impeded by Mazzacane. He set the race's fastest lap of 1:25.595 on lap 50 and drew to with 6.2 seconds of Michael Schumacher when Schumacher eased off slightly. Michael Schumacher was able to maintain his lead and finished first in his sixth victory of 2000 and the 41st of his career to go level with Ayrton Senna in a time of 1'27:31.368, at an average speed of . Häkkinen followed 3.8 seconds later in second, ahead of Ralf Schumacher who achieve his second successive podium finish in third. Verstappen took fourth, Wurz finished fifth, and Zonta completed the points scorers in sixth, 1.8 seconds behind Wurz. Salo, Diniz, Gené, Mazzacane and Fisichella completed the next five positions a lap behind the winner, with Alesi the final classified finisher. Post-race The top three drivers appeared on the podium to collect their trophies and in the subsequent press conference. Michael Schumacher broke into tears when asked if matching Senna's number of victories meant a lot