the grid and had to switch to the spare car. He then slammed into the back of Ralf Schumacher on the restart, retiring on the spot. Ralf Schumacher limped back to the pits, but was in for a long time replacing the rear wing; he later spun off when the track was wet. As Juan Pablo Montoya extended his lead, the stewards informed the Jaguar team that Eddie Irvine would be served with a 10-second stop-go penalty. Eddie Irvine took his penalty on Lap 6. By lap 39 Montoya was leading by more than 30 seconds over Michael Schumacher. However, he retired after a crash while he was lapping Jos Verstappen. Verstappen let Montoya by, but as he pulled in behind Montoya while braking for turn 4 his Arrows slammed violently into the back of Montoya's Williams and both men were out of the race. Soon after Montoya's retirement, a thunderstorm moved over the circuit and it began to rain heavily, which forced everyone to change tyres. Some went onto full-wet tyres, while others chose the intermediates. Michael Schumacher was fighting understeer all race, and despite planning to stop twice instead of once was only able to run at the pace of Montoya and Coulthard. However, he was right back in the hunt after he had pitted early. He still needed to pit again for fuel anyway but was able to change tyres as well. Coulthard, who had made his one and only stop, stayed out an extra lap which at that point looked costly. But then Schumacher, with a dry-weather set-up on his car, spun soon after exiting the pit lane, allowing Coulthard right back on his tail. This led to a second important overtaking move of the race, this one by David Coulthard. He passed Schumacher with the aid of a backmarker, rather similar to his teammate Mika Häkkinen's move on Schumacher at the Belgian Grand Prix the previous season. Coulthard went on to win, while Schumacher suffered another off on his way to second place. Nick Heidfeld took his first-ever podium driving for Sauber. It was also Sauber's first podium since Jean Alesi's at the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix. Race classification Drivers who scored championship points are denoted in bold. Championship standings after the race Drivers' Championship standings Constructors' Championship standings Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. References Brazilian Grand