Moving from seventh to sixth at the start, Trulli ran a strong sixth place for the majority of his race and was looking good for a points finish. After thirty five laps, his engineers noticed a loss of pressure with his EJ11's gearbox, which ultimately ended his race on lap 44. The Italian ran competitive lap times right up until his retirement and was comfortably hanging on to the back of Hakkinen's McLaren, albeit on a different pit strategy.

"I made a very good start and moved up to sixth by the end of the first lap," commented Jarno. "The early part of the race was going very well and I was trying hard to overtake Hakkinen. I was able to keep pace very well with the leading pack and although I did experience a problem downshifting, I was still pulling away from the group behind me. The car felt very well balanced so I could continue to push hard after my pit stop and achieve some very good lap times. Unfortunately on lap forty four, a lack of gearbox oil pressure which my engineers had been aware of for some laps but were unable to rectify, caused the gearbox to seize so I had to retire. It's a great shame as l was looking very strong in the race with the chance to score some points. We have been very unlucky this year and lost a lot of points as a result."

Frentzen had a slow start, being passed by the two Sauber but he maintained tenth position for the opening stages of the race until his pit stop on lap 29. He was running in eighth when a sudden failure with his traction control caused him to spin at the exit of the hairpin with just nineteen laps of the race remaining.

"I didn't have a good start and lost three places before the first corner," explained Heinz-Harald, "but moved back up to run in tenth for a good part of the race. After the pit stop, with new tyres I was able to do quite a few quick laps but I then had a problem with my rear tyres and couldn't maintain my good lap times. As I accelerated out of the hairpin, the traction control suddenly failed which meant I had excessive wheel spin causing me to spin off the track."