Mika's comment at the arrival to Italy: "I like the high-speed challenge provided by the lay out of the Monza track. The circuit is tricky and one of the most important places to get it right, if you are to record a competitive lap time, is at the Parabolica corner".

The Qualifying Session: Eleven minutes went with no action at all. Finally Villeneuve opened the session and obviously took a temporarily pole position. Later Button took the pole from Villeneuve, but he had to pass it on to Ralf Schumacher. His older brother, Michael, came on the track after 23 minutes but he screwed up his first fast lap when he cut off a corner. David took the pole from Ralf, but Schumi continued immediately with another fast lap and took the pole from David with -0,372 despite of having to pass Fisichella too. Both Finnish pilots came out at the same time but Häkkinen didn't succeed in taking pole and had to settle for a temporarily second place. Barrichello came out just seconds later and took unfortunately the second place from Mika. 34 minutes after the session's start Mika was fourth and David was fifth. Schumi's third try improved his pole position but his Team Mate made a great fast lap and took pole with an incredibly small margen -0,014. Mika Häkkinen's second try gave him the third place back and Schumi regained his pole a few minutes later. With Mika's third try he did improve his lap time but not enough to win the second place from Rubens, and in the final minutes of the session we saw Häkkinen, David and Rubens out, Schumi had used all his chances, but he didn't have to worry, he kept his pole with his Team Mate next to him. Häkkinen starts from Grid three, Villeneuve from Grid four and David from Grid five. A sad outcome... The Italian tv also chose to show their own drivers and cars more than the really GOOD drivers, including the World Champion, so we didn't really see much of Mika during this qualification. *sigh sigh sigh*

Mika's comment after the qualifying: "Obviously I would have liked to be on the front row but I'm not too worried. I wasn't completely happy with the handling of the car, and we experienced a few technical problems, which disturbed our concentration. However tomorrow is another day, and I'm confident as I believe we have a strong race set-up".

The race: The Italian Grand Prix must be described as a very unique one. Not only did we see Michael Schumacher breaking down overwhelmed of happiness in front of International television, just like we saw Mika Häkkinen break down last year of frustration and disappointment, ironically also here at Monza, but we also experienced the sadness of a human loss. A 30-year-old man was killed today at the very beginning of the race due to a heavy crash involving six cars altogether, and though he wasn't a pilot but a standby fireman, this is still a terrible event that does happen in Formula One. I'm sure none of us have forgotten Ayrton Senna, who was killed in a massive crash in San Marino, May 1st 1994.

Just before the safty car went away Schumacher made a strange stunt to, I believe, warm up his tyres one last time (or test his breaks?) when he hit his breaks very hard. Apparently the pilots behind him weren't very prepared for this, except for Mika, and several of them almost hit each other trying to prevent passing anyone which gives penalty. Button eventually ended on the grass and finally had to retire. I believe what Michael did was a bit dangerous and really unnecessary and one would hope that he might get some sort of penalty later, if Williams decides to file a complaint. *crossing fingers* Villeneuve had to retire due to engineproblems, Heidfeld spund off and retired too. Schumi increased his lead slowly but Häkkinen never let him run away for good. Schumi went first in to the pit of the two, it took 7,2 seconds, Mika's pit stop took 6,6 sec. Verstappen ignored the blue flags when Mika wanted to pass him, which unfortunately cost Mika 2-3valuable seconds. Fisichella went to the pit but got problems with his back tyres and smoke coming from his breaks. Finally after more than one whole minute the pit crew was able to push him out and he could continue. With five laps left of the race and seven seconds behind Schumi, Mika drove faster than anyone and catched up with Schumi but not enough. Schumi won the Italian Grand Prix only 3,8 seconds before Mika. Ralf Schumacher came in third almost one minute later, Verstappen came in fourth, Wurz as fifth and Zonta as sixth. Only 12 cars made it to finishing line. Schumi was in a surprisingly good mood after today's race, he even kissed one camera lense!!!  Obviously he too had realized that losing today's GP would have meant almost for sure World Champion victory to Mika Häkkinen, since Schumi would have had to win the rest of this season's races to beat him. But he DID win today, and his happiness resulted in tears during the interview afterwards. Mika Häkkinen reached a supporting hand out to Schumi and told the interviewer to give them a short break. When the interviewer ignored this request he got very annoyed and said that they had to question Ralf Schumacher instead  :-)

Mika's comment after the race: "I made an OK start and managed to get by Barrichello and then I was lucky not to be affected by the accident at the second chicane. Initially I wasn't happy with the balance of the car but we made a few adjustments during the pitstop which improved matters, However despite a great pitstop from the team and the fact that I could go much quicker I was unable to catch Michael ? also as was the case in the last race I lost too much time lapping the Minardis. All in all, it would have been nice to win but I scored some important points".

Last year: Mika took the pole position and led the race with 7 seconds to Frentzen, but ran off the track in lap 30 when he chose first gear instead of second in a turn.