A mistake by Michael Schumacher, apparently concentrating on keeping position over Coulthard, resulted in him touching Trulli and the ensuing mess affected Montoya too leaving Raikkonen, Alonso and Coulthard to race off.

Montoya had to pit for a new rear wing leaving him a lap and a half behind the race while Schumacher senior had to get a new nose cone, effectively putting him out of the running. He was further hindered by the stewards’ decision to impose a drive through penalty on the German for his early mistake.

Previous trauma for Villeneuve left both him and Fisichella as none-runners. The Canadian’s car stalled on the grid and the ill-fated Villeneuve had to run back to the pits for the spare in the sweltering Malaysian heat. Jacques’ luck was completely out as the spare BAR developed gear box problems and he was forced to retire.

Villeneuve’s bail-out from the grid left Fisichella confused and the Italian pulled into the wrong start place on the grid after the parade lap. After pulling across to the correct side of the track and reverse parking into position the Italian stalled and Jordan were down to one driver before the lights had even gone out.

With several influential drivers out of contention, and the terrible qualifying of Ralf Schumacher, McLaren were looking very strong but an early engine failure for Coulthard left the Scotsman fuming about the lack of reliability of the McLaren.

Trulli was truly thwarted by the earlier incident and both Renaults came in for fuel early in the race. Tracking position was not easy as the Renaults were completely out of synchronisation with the other teams and it wasn’t until late in the race that the positioning became clear.

Rubens, Kimi and Fernando all led the pack for a while but these were the top three drivers of the day and no-one looked able to challenge them.

Further back ex-team mates, Button and Trulli were battling it out for position with Button appearing to be getting the better of the Italian. Despite three visits to the pits – nose cone, fuel and drive through penalty – Michael Schumacher caught up with their battle and overtook both of them leaving him in fifth, until a final fuel stop lost him all the ground he had made up.

However, the German got right back up to the battling pair and almost stole position from Trulli when he spun, a small piece of luck finally went the way of Trulli and he managed to regain control of the car and keep ahead of the man who had ruind his race at the second turn.

The hapless Button was not so lucky losing track position to both his former team mate and the reigning world champion.

Wilson was forced to retire his Minardi, probably due to exhaustion as he was the only driver not using power steering and in the humidity of Malaysia that would be a truly draining experience. Even the legendary fittest driver, Michael Schumacher, was caught raising his visor and undoing his overalls to feel a little air in the difficult conditions.

Firman managed to finish his first grand prix in the Jordan while Webber and his Jaguar were amongst the non-finishers.

The lead of Raikkonen was a very comfortable half a minute and the young Finn was advised to slack off and coast home with eight laps to go. Barrichello was behind and in third the young Spaniard was fighting fever and a missing fifth gear to complete the race.

Finally Raikkonen scored his first GP victory and Alonso was the first Spaniard to ever stand on the podium.

Ralf Schumacher drove a steady and quiet race to finish in a comfortable fourth despite his appalling qualifying performance and the pressures of the German media campaign against the younger Schumacher brother.

Trulli clung on to fifth and the elder Schumacher managed to score points with a sixth place finish.

The day belonged to the young guns though, with a 23-year-old on top and a 21-year-old in third.

Result: Raikkonen, Barrichello, Alonso, R Schumacher, Trulli, M Schumacher, Button, Heidfeld

Article by: Dawn Barnes