The Qualifying session opened with the new pilot, Marques, just a few minutes after start, and Trulli had a slight contact with the grass during his fast lap. Coulthard came out after 14 minutes and took a temporarily pole with 1 min. 37,12 sec, but was quickly beaten by Ralf Schumacher with -0,74 sec faster. Häkkinen's first fast lap came after 21 minutes but he didn't manage to get a better lap time than for 5th position. Barrichello set a slower time than Ralf through out most of his fast lap, until the last turn where he found caught up with valueable time and took pole! Schumi came on the track first time after 26 minutes and did really well, but came too fast in one sharp corner making a driving mistake, but he still managed to take pole with -0,03! Coulthard made a second attempt three minutes later, but didn't improve.
Ralf re-gained the pole, and Rubens once again tried to get it from him, didn't succed, but DID beat his Team Mate's lap time and pushed Schumi down on third grid position. With 24 minutes left of the session we still saw McLaren do major changes to Mika's car... Schumi made a second attempt but didn't beat neither his brother, nor his Team Mate. Finally when Mika came back on the track, he didn't improve at all and kept his 5th place. Also David's 3rd fast lap failed terribly with +0,72. Schumi's third; no luck. Rubens finally succeede in taking pole from Ralf, but was quickly beaten by Schumi, and Ralf obviously didn't want to stand in his brother's shadow, so shortly after he took the pole again. At this point Villeneuve AND Panis had improved their lap time and passed both McLaren on the grid! With 9 minutes left came Mika back out, but still struggled with problems and didn't have a good run. Schumi's 4th and final attempt succeeded with excellency. He took pole with an improvement on -0,29 and the TV shootage showed Ralf, shaking his head in frustration...  With only a few minutes left of the session we saw all the cars coming out for a last try. Both McLarens were over one minute slower than Schumi, and one has to wonder what went wrong in the West McLaren Mercedes Team today. Mika, however, did improve his own time a bit and starts from grid 4 tomorrow. David from grid 8, Rubens on 2nd and the other Finnish driver, Kimi, on a 14th.

Mika Häkkinen's comment after the qualifying session: "Obviously I’m disappointed to be on the second row. We have a problem, which affects us in the last sector – we know what the problem is, but we just haven’t been able to solve it yet. I’m looking forward to tomorrow and finishing my first race of the 2001 season."

When the race started, Mika Häkkinen was passed by several cars during the first two corners. Trulli, Coulthard, Frentzen, Verstappen and Villeneuve all got passed when he was stuck in traffic and had to make some pretty hard breaks to avoid getting involved in the crash between Ralf Schumacher and the other Finnish driver, Kimi Räikkönen. This unfortunate situation put Mika in 8th position. Panis retired due to an engine failure already in lap two, and soon after it started to rain heavily, causing BOTH of the red Ferrari cars to drive off the track in the very same corner, even the very same lap. What's the chances, one gotta ask?! First Schumi, then Rubens, but both managed to continue. Obviously the track was already so wet that all the drivers were forced to pit, despite of the fact that the pit teams weren't ready to take them. This was proven when we saw the Ferrari Team running all over like mad men, looking for Rubens' front tyre. They seemed very confused, especially because their Star Driver, Michael Schumacher was losing valueable seconds, waiting behind Rubens for his pit turn! This placed the Ferrari Team Mates on 10th and 11th position, but the other drivers hadn't been pitting yet, and so the positions improved naturally! Jarno Trulli was leading the race at this point but it didn't last long. Perhaps the guy got over excited by this fact, 'cause not much later he went off the track, followed by one of the new pilots this season, Juan Pablo Montoya (driving for Williams). Trulli managed to continue, though, but found now himself on 5th position. Because of all the cars running off the track and rain still falling, the Safty Car came on and didn't leave before lap 10.
Frentzen was leading for a few laps, but suddenly he seemed to have car problems, when Verstappen passed him, quickly followed by Mika and finally also Ralf. But not surprisingly passed Schumi all three later one, with a speed that had to amaze all the Teams, the other drivers and the viewers. In lap 14 Schumi was leading, David 2nd, Verstappen 3rd, Rubens 4th and Mika 5th. One had to wonder what kind of trick Ferrari had pulled, like the illegal wing trick last year... Oh, anyway, Schumi was so much faster than the other drivers that soon the classification only had his name on it, and disappeared from the screen before David managed to pass the check point!
As always, Mika was pitting before both David and Schumi, which still amazes me. His pit stop went fine, but his Team Mate and worst rival could continue for many laps on less fuel, and the track was wet enough for them to have good use of their wet tyres, so they made quite a lead. When Mika was passing Mazzacane, he lost time because Mazzacane hadn't seem him or...? Since Mika was a whole lap in front of him, he couldn't possibly gain anything by not latting him pass, but nevertheless it happened this way. When Mika finally got passed, it was clear that something was seriously wrong with his car, and Ralf easily overtook him. During the corners Mika could catch up with the others and almost pass them, but then the long straight came and the others drove off like he wasn't moving at all; unbelievable frustrating!

Mika Häkkinen's comment after the race: "I got stuck at the first corner when Ralf Schumacher spun in front of me and lost four positions. After the safety car phase was over, I didn’t seem to be able to make any considerable progress up the field. I was caught behind Verstappen, which lost me valuable time. After my last pit stop, I was able to attack again and set a number of fastest race laps. I caught Ralf Schumacher in fifth during the closing stages but it’s easier to catch than it is to pass. At least I have scored my first point of 2001."

Ron Dennis: "The decision by the team to put both drivers on full wet tyres was the only responsible option to take when faced with the severity of the downpour. This was confirmed by David, who reported to us that he was aquaplaning at 100 km/h behind the safety car. However ultimately when the safety car pulled in, conditions had significantly improved resulting in a performance advantage being passed to our main competitors who had fitted intermediate tyres. Off course the result of the race was unsatisfactory but Mika’s fastest lap demonstrates our potential."

Norbert Haug: "Mika was really fast after his third pit stop doing a great job and setting the fastest lap time. Our engines ran reliably. The basis for better results are there and we will work hard to further improve." [What relieable engines is he talking about?]

An interesting fact: The Malaysian track holds the largest grandstand in Formula One, with a capacity of 30,000 spectators.

Map of Sepang

Australia 4.3.     Malaysia 18.3.    Brazil 1.4.     San Marino 15.4.     Spain 29.4.     Austria 13.5.    Monaco 27.5.     Canada 10.6.     Europe 24.6.    France 1.7.     Great Britain 15.7.     Germany 29.7.     Hungary 19.8.    Belgium 2.9.     Italy 16.9.     USA 30.9.    Japan 14.10.
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