of the field, increasing his lead by two-tenths of a second per lap. There were overtakes farther down the field. Montoya passed Fisichella for ninth, and Irvine overtook Verstappen and Alonso. Räikkönen passed Button for tenth place on lap 17. Button took his stop-and-go penalty on the next lap. He emerged at the back of the order, Michael Schumacher opened up a five-second lead over Häkkinen in second by lap 25. Häkkinen retired from the race for the third year in a row on lap 26 with a left-front suspension failure under braking at the end of the back straight sending him backwards into the tyre barrier at Ascari corner. Häkkinen exited his McLaren with a mild concussion from flying debris striking his helmet and went to the medical centre for a precautionary check-up. With Häkkinen's retirement, Michael Schumacher led his teammate Barrichello by ten seconds and pulled away. Coulthard started to draw closer to Barrichello albeit momentarily delayed by Fisichella's slower Benetton. On lap 31, Panis overtook Trulli for fourth as the latter slowed with a misfiring engine; Trulli soon retired. Three laps later, Alonso exited the pit lane following a pit stop and temporarily delayed Barrichello, unbalancing the Ferrari enough to allow Coulthard to stay in his slipstream into turn three. Coulthard steered left and overtook Barrichello into turn four. By this point, Michael Schumacher had extended his lead to 15 seconds and set the race's fastest lap of 1 minute 28.214 seconds on lap 34. He relinquished the lead to Coulthard on lap 37 with his only pit stop for fuel and tyres and rejoined in third. Barrichello made a pit stop from second two laps later, rejoining the track in fifth. A full tank of fuel and traffic meant Michael Schumacher fell 18.1 seconds behind Coulthard until the latter entered the pit lane at the end of lap 41. Coulthard rejoined the race in second, behind Michael Schumacher. After the pit stops, Michael Schumacher led Coulthard by 10.5 seconds. He, in turn, was 10 seconds in front of Barrichello. Panis in fourth pulled away from Heidfeld in fifth. Montoya stopped on the circuit due to an engine failure caused by a broken oil pipe on lap 41, prematurely ending his maiden Grand Prix. His retirement promoted Frentzen to sixth. Following a period of stability throughout the field, Verstappen passed Alesi for tenth on the 49th lap.