David Coulthard was the surprise winner of yesterday's Italian Grand Prix, the McLaren driver crossing the finish line ahead of a gaggle of cars - the top six were separated by less than 10 seconds after an hour and a quarter of high-speed, if processional racing.
Giancarlo Fisichella's maiden victory will have to wait for another day, the Jordan driver taking fourth place, while the other darling of the Tifosi, Michael Schumacher, struggled to bring his Ferrari home in sixth place immediately behind championship rival Jacques Villeneuve.
Jean Alesi pipped Heinz Harald Frentzen to finish in runner-up spot in an unusually unexciting and uneventful race.
Italian Fisichella has been catapulted into the limelight in his home country and has been spoken of as a potential successor to Alberto Ascari, the last Italian driver to win a world championship back in 1953. Before yesterday's race, Fisichella had stayed at a villa above Lake Como and in O'Sullivan's bar on the lake shore, the Irish fans enthused about the prospect of him taking the race for Jordan from his second-row starting slot, but it was not to be.
Fisichella held fourth place to the first corner, but could not make an impression on the top three. "I could stay with the cars ahead, but I could not close up and get past them," explained the 24-year-old Roman in the Jordan garage afterwards. "I was under a lot of pressure and I am exhausted after the race. I think fourth place is a good result today. We were only six seconds behind the winner. I would have liked to finish on the podium, but fourth is okay."
Jordan designer Gary Anderson explained the race: "Today everyone was on the same strategy and had similar amounts of fuel on board. There is very little difference in the performance of the cars. They can keep up with one another, but if they get too close to the guy in front, they lose down-force and grip. It didn't make for an exciting race today."
Coulthard made a fantastic start in his McLaren Mercedes to grab third place at the first corner and give chase to Jean Alesi and Heinz Harold Frentzen. Remarkably, the top 10 positions stayed exactly the same until after the halfway point race when the pit stops began. This was to be the making of Coulthard, as he explained later. "When Frentzen pitted, I had a chance to close on Jean Alesi. I was right behind him into the pits, but my boys did a fantastic job to get me out ahead of him."
Coulthard drove a strong and steady race thereafter to take the chequered flag ahead of Alesi, thus recording his second victory of the year.
The huge German contingent were disappointed with their idols' uncharacteristically off-the-pace weekend.
Schumacher said: "It wasn't our weekend. It was a worst qualifying of the season and the cars were all so closely matched today we could not make up the gap". He is now 10 points ahead of Villeneuve in the drivers' championship.
Ralph Schumacher also struggled and after a 30-lap battle with Johnny Herbert, the pair touched. Herbert careered backwards off the track at high speed and counted himself lucky to have suffered no more than whiplash after he hit the tyre wall hard. Schumacher also retired after the incident saying his car was "unstable".
Yesterday's result brought Jordan's points tally to its best ever with four races to go. They are now 10 points behind McLaren in the battle for fourth place in the constructors' championship.
Italian Grand Prix (Monza): 1 D Coulthard (Brit) McLaren-Mercedes 1hr 17mins 04.609secs, 2 J Alesi (Fra) Benetton-Renault 1.937 seconds behind, 3 H-H Frentzen (Ger) Williams-Renault at 4.343 secs, 4 G Fisichella (Ita) Jordan-Peugeot at 5.871, 5 J Villeneuve (Can) at Williams-Renault at 6.416, 6 M Schumacher (Ger) Ferrari at 11.481, 7 G Berger (Aut) Benetton-Renault at 12.471, 8 E Irvine (Irl) Ferrari at 17.639. Drivers' World Championship: 1 M Schumacher 67pts, 2 Villeneuve 57, 3 Alesi 28, 4 Frentzen 27, 5 Coulthard 24, 6 Berger 21, 7 Irvine 18; 10 Herbert 14; 13 Hill 7.
Constructors' Championship: 1 Ferrari 85, 2 Williams-Renault 84, 3 BenettonRenault 53, 4 McLaren-Mercedes 38, 5 JordanPeugeot 28, 6 Prost-Mugen Honda 20.
