Monaco GP 2002: Coulthard keeps Michael Schumacher at bay

David Coulthard won the 2002 Monaco Grand Prix for McLaren. Starting from grid position 2, he took the lead into the first corner and held it all the way to the chequered flag. Michael Schumacher finished second in the Ferrari, with Ralf Schumacher third for Williams. The race was decided at the start: on the tight Circuit de Monaco, nobody could get past the Scot after that.

Juan Pablo Montoya had taken pole position in the Williams-BMW. At the start, however, Coulthard got away much better from the outside and was ahead into Sainte Dévote. According to Wikipedia, Montoya had trouble shifting from first to second gear.

Michael and Ralf Schumacher slotted in behind the pair. Jarno Trulli shot up from 7th on the grid to 5th in the Renault. Rubens Barrichello, by contrast, made a poor start and dropped behind Kimi Räikkönen.

The start went wrong for two drivers:

• Jenson Button moved off too early because the clutch on his Renault was slipping. He was handed a drive-through penalty and was at the very back of the field after just a few laps.
• Jacques Villeneuve stalled his BAR on the starting grid. He was pushed into the pit lane and started a lap down.

In the opening laps, Coulthard, Montoya and the two Schumachers ran close together. As so often in Monaco, overtaking was virtually impossible. Around lap 30, McLaren had a scare: blue smoke kept puffing out of the left-hand exhaust of Coulthard's car. Coulthard radioed the pits. The team gave the all-clear, though, after the Mercedes engineers had analysed the telemetry. According to Atlas F1, the smoke stopped a few laps later.

The battle for 3rd place was settled in the pit stops. Michael Schumacher came in on lap 44, and his stop took 8.5 seconds. Shortly afterwards, Montoya let his team-mate Ralf through because his BMW engine was fading, and then retired. Ralf Schumacher pitted on lap 50 and stayed third. Coulthard didn't come in until lap 51. McLaren needed 6.9 seconds, and the Scot rejoined just ahead of Michael Schumacher.

From then on, the world champion followed the McLaren almost all the way to the flag, around a second behind. But Coulthard didn't put a foot wrong, and Schumacher couldn't find a way past. At the finish, according to Crash.net, 1.050 seconds separated the two. Ralf Schumacher had to pit once more on lap 65 after a problem with the tread on his left-rear tyre. That didn't cost him third place, but he finished more than a minute behind. It was his first finish in Monaco.

Only 12 of the 22 starters saw the chequered flag. The key retirements:

• Allan McNish (Toyota, after 15 laps, accident): He locked up at Sainte Dévote, hit the kerb and crashed into the tyre barrier. He took the blame afterwards.
• Takuma Sato (Jordan, after 22 laps, spin): Under team orders, he was supposed to let his team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella through. In doing so, he went onto the dirty part of the track and slammed hard into the wall in the tunnel. He was unhurt.
• Alex Yoong (Minardi, after 29 laps, accident): He ran over debris at Casino and ended up in the wall.
• Kimi Räikkönen (McLaren, after 41 laps, collision): On lap 40, Barrichello ran into the back of him at the chicane after the tunnel. Because of the damage to the rear, the Finn had to retire shortly afterwards.
• Jacques Villeneuve (BAR, after 44 laps): Technical failure.
• Juan Pablo Montoya (Williams, after 46 laps): Engine failure. The polesitter came away empty-handed.
• Jenson Button and Olivier Panis (after 51 laps, collision): Button tried to pass Panis at Sainte Dévote. The two touched, and the race was over for both of them.
• Felipe Massa (Sauber, after 63 laps, accident): His brakes failed on the approach to Sainte Dévote and he crashed heavily into the tyre barrier. The Brazilian was unhurt.
• Mika Salo (Toyota, after 69 laps, brakes): He hit the barriers at Massenet.

Penalties: Button received a drive-through penalty for his jump start. Massa also had to serve a drive-through for colliding with Enrique Bernoldi. Bernoldi was later penalised for cutting the chicane. Barrichello was hit twice: he received a 10-second stop-go penalty for the accident with Räikkönen, plus a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Even so, he salvaged 7th place, a lap down. Notably, according to Wikipedia, the Safety Car never came out despite the crashes involving Massa and Salo.

Winners:

• David Coulthard celebrated his second win in Monaco, according to Wikipedia. It was McLaren's first victory of the 2002 season.
• Eddie Irvine gained the most places. He started 19th in the Jaguar and finished ninth, a gain of ten positions.
• Nick Heidfeld (Sauber, from 15 to 8) and Pedro de la Rosa (Jaguar, from 17 to 10) each gained seven places.
• Giancarlo Fisichella and Heinz-Harald Frentzen scored points for the midfield teams: Fisichella finished fifth for Jordan, Frentzen sixth for Arrows. Both gained six places. Frentzen even had to pit twice because of a fault with the refuelling rig.
• Jarno Trulli scored his first points of the season with 4th place. After the race, a seal was found to be missing from one of his engine's control units. However, an inspection by the FIA at the Renault factory found nothing illegal, and the result stood.
• Mark Webber took the Minardi from grid position 20 to 11th.

Losers:

• Juan Pablo Montoya lost 16 positions: he started from pole and retired with engine failure.
• Kimi Räikkönen dropped 13 places. He lost any chance of points because another driver ran into the back of him.
• Allan McNish fell victim to his own mistake and was the first to retire.
• Rubens Barrichello collected two penalties and came away without points.

Michael Schumacher remained comfortably at the top of the drivers' championship with 60 points. Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya followed on 27 points each, with Ralf moving up to 2nd. Coulthard climbed to 4th with 20 points. In the constructors' championship, Ferrari led with 72 points ahead of Williams on 54 and McLaren on 24. You can find the full 2002 standings in our archive.

The race mattered for more than the four extra points Coulthard took over Schumacher that day. Until then, only Michael and Ralf Schumacher had won that season. With Coulthard, a different driver stood on the top step for the first time. For the Scot, it was his first win since the 2001 Austrian GP. Coulthard used the moment to send a clear message to the opposition: “We all know both the Ferraris and Williams can be beaten.” (quoted by Wikipedia)

The day did little to change Ferrari's dominance, though. Michael Schumacher played it safe in Monaco and still extended his lead, because Montoya failed to score. You can find all the results and data from the race on the 2002 Monaco GP race page.