Barrichello to lose control of his car and spin leaving the L'Epingle chicane. He fell to fourteenth and his spin Coulthard returned to third place. Burti got ahead of Marques for nineteenth on that lap. Button was issued a ten-second stop-and-go penalty on lap seven because he was adjudged to have jumped the start. He took the penalty on the next lap. Alonso pulled off to the side of the circuit in the third sector with a broken driveshaft CV joint on lap eight. Bernoldi made the first pit stop of the Grand Prix on the ninth lap per the instruction of his team to remove a paper bag from his radiator to stop his engine from overheating. On the eleventh and twelve laps, Barrichello got past Villeneuve and de la Rosa to move into eleventh. At the front of the field, Ralf Schumacher lowered Michael Schumacher's advantage to less than a second when his tyres reached their optimum operating temperatures and he further reduced his brother's lead to four-tenths of a second on lap fifteen. He continued to push hard to remain close by Michael Schumacher, hoping the latter would make a driver error. Button retired in the pit lane with an oil leak on lap 18. The safety car was deployed on lap twenty when Montoya lost control of the rear of his car over a kerb and crashed into the wall at turn four alongside the circuit. Barrichello was close behind Montoya and his attempt to swerve to avoid hitting his car caused him to oversteer into the inside barrier after appearing to lock his brakes heavily. The safety car was withdrawn at the end of lap 23 and Michael Schumacher maintained his lead over Ralf Schumacher at the rolling restart. Michael Schumacher opened out a lead of 2.6 seconds over Ralf Schumacher who could not match his pace due to extra tyre rubber he picked up under the safety car. Bernoldi retired on lap 25 because of an overheating engine. The following lap, Verstappen passed Marques for thirteenth. De La Rosa attempted to overtake Häkkinen for eighth on the approach to the final corner on lap 27 but Häkkinen repelled the manoeuvre. Ralf Schumacher reduced Michael Schumacher's lead to one-and-a-half seconds by lap thirty and he further lowered it to 0.521 seconds two laps later. Further back on lap 34, Zonta and Räikkönen made contact on