in contact at the second turn. That allowed Verstappen to challenge Barrichello; he could not overtake him. On lap seven, Panis passed Irvine for seventh and stopped a counterattack from the latter. Two laps later, Ralf Schumacher began to lose pressure in his rear brakes and fell back from his teammate Montoya; he struggled against Michael Schumacher and Barrichello. Bernoldi passed Irvine and Villeneuve on the same lap. On lap 10, Villeneuve lined up a pass on Irvine for 10th and the two made contact halfway through the first corner, causing Villeneuve to spin and relinquish 11th place to de la Rosa. Ralf Schumacher fell to seventh before he entered the pit lane at the end of the lap to retire. This promoted Michael Schumacher into second, his teammate Barrichello third and Verstappen fourth. At this point, a higher rate of tyre degradation of his Michelin compounds slowed Montoya, allowing Michael Schumacher to close up and forming a group of cars composed of Schumacher, Barrichello, Verstappen, Coulthard and Räikkönen. Over the next four laps, Montoya held off attempts from Michael Schumacher to overtake. On the 14th lap, Trulli was shown a black flag to inform him he had been disqualified from the race because he ignored the red light to indicate that the pit lane was closed. The top six drivers were covered by two seconds at the start of lap 16. As the field drove towards turn two, Michael Schumacher drew alongside Montoya on the right going into the turn and then steered left for the corner itself. Montoya braked later than Michael Schumacher and went off the racing line to block on the dirty part of the circuit, causing him to run into the gravel trap with the latter trapped to his left. Michael Schumacher ran wide onto some grass; he dropped to sixth and Montoya seventh. Barrichello took the lead with Verstappen second and Coulthard third. Bernoldi retired in the garage with a hydraulic system failure on lap 17 as Burti was overtaken by his teammate Alesi for 12th. Six laps later, after dropping away from Barrichello, Verstappen made the first of two pit stops, rejoining the circuit in seventh. In the meantime, Michael Schumacher set a series of fast lap times to get closer to Panis. He overtook Panis around the inside for fourth on lap 25. On lap 26, Marques pulled off to the side