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A glorious victory for Schumacher and the Scuderia


Hungaroring, August 16, 1998

An exciting race
Results

Prior to the Hungarian Grand Prix hosted at the Hungaroring near Budapest, the situation seemed to have been unchanged: the two McLaren-Mercedes of Häkkinen and Culthard had again made their way through qualifying to the front row on the grid while Schumacher had to start from the 3rd position, his teammate Eddie Irvine was right behind the German on 5th.

After the start, Irvine manged to gain the 4th position, but in lap 14, his race was over due to a broken gearbox which had lost its 4th and 5th gear. The situation of the three leading cars in front remained unchanged - Schumacher could keep the pace of the McLarens this time, probably due to some improvements made on his Ferrari F300 as well as due to the narrow corners and turns of the Hungarian track.

The second pitstop of Coulthard was the turnpoint of the race: Schumacher passed him while the McLaren was in the pits. In the 46th lap, Schumacher was even able to repeat this action, but this time the - up to that point - leading Häkkinen was the one to be passed! As soon as he was leading the race, Schumacher drove extremely hard on the very limit and managed to open a gap between him and Häkkinen that grew larger and larger. In the end, 16 laps prior to the end of the race, Schumacher had even enough time for a third pitstop. Meanwhile Häkkinen had come into trouble, his McLaren-Mercedes losing much of its performance what forced him to slow down. In the final lap, Schumacher even lapped the unlucky driver from Finland, who eventually came in on 6th position.

The great job Schumacher and the Scuderia did in Hungary was rewarded by a glorious victory, and many thousands of tifosi praised Schumacher for both providing Ferrari with such a glorious victory and making the 1998 Formula One Championship thrilling again - Häkkinen's lead in the overall score has shrunk to 7 points.