the optimum strategy was one of a solitary pit stop. However, a driver in a lightly fuelled car could have an advantage over his rivals and this often resulted in less stress being put on the brakes. Michael Schumacher made a good start to hold the first position from Ralf Schumacher on the inside line going into the first corner. Coulthard in third place was heavily fuelled for a one-stop strategy and he led a close pack of cars. Verstappen was lightly fuelled and he gained seven places to move into seventh, while Zonta moved from twelfth to ninth. Barrichello overtook Trulli for fourth later in the lap. Further back in the field, Fisichella ran into the rear of Bernoldi's slower car at the L'Epingle hairpin and damaged the front wing on his car. Then, on the back straight, Button steered to the left to avoid striking Bernoldi but doing this meant his teammate Fisichella drove into the rear of his car. At the end of the first lap, Michael Schumacher led Ralf Schumacher by three-tenths of a second. Following another six-tenths of a second in arrears was Coulthard and the rest of the order was Barrichello, Trulli, Panis, Verstappen, Räikkönen, Zonta, Häkkinen, Montoya, Heidfeld, Irvine, de la Rosa, Villeneuve, Bernoldi, Marques, Button, Alesi, Alonso and Burti. Fisichella's right-front suspension was broken and he drove into the pit lane to retire. On lap two, Irvine made contact with one of Heidfeld's rear tyres going into turn three and both drivers spun into the grass. Both drivers retired from the race because of the amount of damage to their cars. Marques was passed by Button for fifteenth on the same lap. Barrichello slipstreamed Coulthard and he overtook him around the inside for third at the end of the third lap. That same lap, Ralf Schumacher set the fastest lap of the race at that point at one minute and 20.797 seconds, until Barrichello bettered it by eight-tenths of a second on lap four to draw closer to him. In the meantime, Marques fell behind Alesi and Alonso. By the start of lap five, Michael Schumacher established a lead of a 1.1 seconds over Ralf Schumacher who was still being put under pressure by Barrichello. Barrichello switched off his traction control system two laps earlier because it caused his engine to misfire. On the sixth lap, the lack of traction control caused