The 2000 San Marino Grand Prix (formally the 20 Gran Premio Warsteiner di San Marino) was a Formula One motor race held at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, Emilia-Romagna, Italy on 9 April 2000. It was the third race of the 2000 Formula One World Championship and the season's first European event. Ferrari's Michael Schumacher won the 62-lap race after starting in second. McLaren's Mika Häkkinen finished second, while teammate David Coulthard finished third.
Before the race, Schumacher led the World Drivers' Championship while Ferrari led the World Constructors' Championship. Häkkinen qualified on pole position after recording the quickest lap time in the one-hour qualifying session. He led the first 44 laps before Michael Schumacher overtook him during the second round of pit stops, through a strategy devised by Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn that allowed Schumacher to run four laps longer than Häkkinen and overtook him for the race lead. Schumacher held off Häkkinen for the final 18 laps to win his third successive race and 38th overall, by 1.1 seconds.
Schumacher's victory extended his World Drivers' Championship lead to 21 championship points over Ferrari teammate Rubens Barrichello and 22 championship points over Benetton's Giancarlo Fisichella. In the World Constructors' Championship, McLaren scored their first championship points of the season, moving into second place with 10 championship points, 29 championship points behind Ferrari with 14 races remaining.
Background
The 2000 San Marino Grand Prix was the event's 20th running, the third of seventeen races in the 2000 Formula One World Championship and the season's first of eleven races in Europe. It was held over 62 laps on 9 April 2000 at the 17-turn, anti-clockwise Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, outside of San Marino, which lacked international standard racing tracks. The Grand Prix featured eleven teams of two drivers (each representing a different constructor), with no changes to the season entry list. Sole tyre supplier Bridgestone brought the soft and medium dry and wet-weather compound tyres to the race.
Before the race, Ferrari's Michael Schumacher led the World Drivers' Championship with 20 championship points, followed by Benetton's Giancarlo Fisichella with 8 championship points, and Schumacher's teammate Rubens Barrichello and Williams' Ralf Schumacher with 6 apiece. Ferrari led the World Constructors' Championship with 26 championship points, while Benetton was second with 8 championship points. Jordan in third and Williams in fourth had scored 7 championship points each.
Several teams tested their cars, setups and components on European racing tracks for the San Marino Grand Prix. Arrows, Benetton, British American Racing (BAR), Jaguar, Jordan, McLaren, Prost and Williams tested at the Silverstone Circuit in England in mixed weather conditions from 28 to 30 March 2000. Benetton also spent a day at Santa Pod Raceway's dragstrip, where their drivers tested a new clutch and practiced starts to determine how durable the clutch was. Ferrari's test driver, Luca Badoer, examined mechanical components on an F399 chassis for use in the F1-2000 car and performed standing starts for four days at Ferrari's private Fiorano Circuit. Michael Schumacher also spent three days testing car aerodynamics and setup on the track, before Badoer shookdown three F1-2000 cars for the Grand Prix on 6 April. The Minardi team did not test, instead focusing on chassis construction and establishing a research and development department.
Ferrari began the season with Michael Schumacher winning the first two Grands Prix in Australia and Brazil. McLaren, meanwhile, scored no points due to their unreliable car, and their driver David Coulthard was disqualified from second place in Brazil for a technical infringement. Despite the strong start to the season, Michael Schumacher said, "Twenty points from two races is ideal, but I want to ask everybody to stay quiet. The championship has only just started and it would be wrong to believe that we've won it already. It's a long season." However, improvements to his Ferrari meant he saw another victory at Imola. Coulthard felt confident in catching Ferrari and wanted to demonstrate McLaren had the fastest car, saying, "They have not won the championship yet and we are not going to give it to them. We are going to fight hard all the way. We can turn things around and that is what we are going to do." Häkkinen said that his season had started slowly but he wanted to do well at Imola.
Some teams modified their cars for the Grand Prix, focusing on braking systems to cope with the Imola circuit's demands. Ferrari used lightweight brake discs just for Saturday morning practice sessions, while Michael Schumacher drove with a new engine for qualifying only and a new rear wing specification. Sauber changed its rear wing specification following car component issues that forced the team to withdraw from the previous Brazilian Grand Prix. The Impact Protection Safety barrier system was installed along a section of tyre barrier outside the Rivazza turn for the race.
Practice The race was preceded by four practice sessions, two one-hour sessions on Friday and two 45-minute sessions on Saturday. Conditions were damp and overcast at the start of the first practice due to overnight rain, but the track dried and the skies cleared, allowing lap times to gradually improve. Michael Schumacher set the session's fastest time of 1:27.270, almost a second faster than the 1999 pole lap. Coulthard, Jaguar's Eddie Irvine, Häkkinen, Jordan's Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Ralf Schumacher, Fisichella, Sauber's Pedro Diniz, Arrows's Pedro de la Rosa and Barrichello completed the top ten. Several drivers reported car problems to their teams and some competitors went off the track during the session, prompting the waving of yellow flags.
It remained dry and clear for the second practice session. Michael Schumacher set the fastest lap of the day, 1:26.944, ahead of his teammate Barrichello. The top ten included Coulthard, Jordan's Frenzen and Jarno Trulli, Häkkinen, Jaguar's Johnny Herbert, Fisichella, Ralf Schumacher, and De la Rosa. Some entrants made driver errors and ended up off the track in the gravel trap. The engine in Jacques Villeneuve's BAR car failed due to a failed fuel pipeline, dropping oil over the track that he and other drivers struggled on. Jenson Button's Williams car suffered an engine failure on the start/finish straight late in the session, and he abandoned it beside the barrier.
The first Saturday morning practice session was chilly and bright. The dry track allowed teams to finish setting up their cars for qualifying later that afternoon. Michael Schumacher led with a time of 1:25.085, followed by the McLaren duo of Häkkinen and Coulthard, Frentzen, Barrichello, Trulli, Sauber's Mika Salo, Herbert, Ralf Schumacher, and Villeneuve. Prost's Nick Heidfeld ran into the gravel trap at the Tamburello chicane but returned to the track surface. A brake problem meant Ralf Schumacher went across a gravel trap and damaged his front wing.
The final practice session took place in warmer weather. Häkkinen set the fastest time of 1:24.973, 0.112 seconds faster than Michael Schumacher, who went sideways at the Variante Alta turn. They were ahead of Coulthard, Trulli, Frentzen, Barrichello, Salo, Villeneuve, Irvine and Diniz in positions three through ten. Ralf Schumacher abandoned his car at the side of the track with a throttle butterfly mechanism fault that forced him to switch off the engine. Marc Gené heavily damaged the front of his Minardi car against the tyre wall at Piratella corner after running wide with ten minutes left. Gené was unhurt but the heavy accident required him to go to the medical centre for checks. Villeneuve changed to a new set of tyres but drove too fast and spun into the Aqua Minerale corner gravel trap, ending his session early.
Qualifying
Each driver was limited to twelve laps during Saturday's one-hour qualifying session, with the starting order determined by their fastest laps. The 107% rule was in force during this session, which required each driver to set a time within 107% of the fastest lap to qualify for the race. The session was held in bright, sunny weather, and drivers drove their cars hard, with no qualifying stoppages. Grip was low on the circuit, with cars using both soft and medium tyre compounds. Häkkinen claimed his third pole position of the season and the 24th of his career with a lap time of 1:24.714. He used soft compound tyres and a detuned engine for better reliability. Häkkinen was slower than provisional pole sitter Michael Schumacher in the first two sectors on his fastest lap set late in qualifying, and made driving errors exiting both the Variante Alta corner and the final chicane on his best lap. Michael Schumacher, who was second by 0.091 seconds, veered wide leaving the left-hand Rivazza corner after unintentionally pressing the speed limiter button into the turn on his final run, losing four-tenths of a second. Coulthard qualified third but could not lap faster due to a driver error leaving the second Rivazza turn and into the last chicane. Barrichello overcame handling troubles that caused severe understeer on his Ferrari to claim fourth. Ralf Schumacher, fifth, suffered an engine issue and pulled off the track at the exit of Piratella turn with three minutes to go while he was lapping quicker. Frentzen took sixth, followed by Irvine in seventh, who on the soft compound tyres made two driver errors and slowed for yellow flags.
Trulli, eighth, reported good car balance despite slower cars on his penultimate run and yellow flags on his final run. Villeneuve took ninth on soft compound tyres after race engineer Jock Clear improved his car's balance during qualifying, after losing four tenths of a second owing to yellow flags. Diniz, tenth, raced with greater car traction and reached sixth before other drivers lapped faster late in the session. Benetton's Alexander Wurz took 11th due to car grip issues. Salo, 12th, hit the kerbing too hard at the final chicane, exacerbating his traction troubles. De la Rosa in 13th was satisfied with his car's balance. BAR's Ricardo Zonta had a new engine in his car due to motion valve issues and lacked time to find a fast way around the circuit en route to 14th. Prost's Jean Alesi experienced gear selection issues and qualified 15th. Arrows' Jos Verstappen took 16th due to a right-rear wheel failure on his quickest run. Herbert in 17th could not extract more performance from the medium compound tyres owing to degradation, and his exhaust was broken, draining power from the engine. Button, 18th, used the medium compound tyres for the final 15 minutes. He was unacquainted with the track following hydraulic issues earlier in the day. Button forced himself to mount the kerbs. The medium compound tyres, car setup problems, a lack of traction and handing issues left Fisichella in 19th, eight positions behind teammate Wurz. Minardi's Gastón Mazzacane was the faster driver in his team in 20th. Gené in 21st, had to wait until Mazzacane finished all of his assigned laps with 15 minutes remaining before driving his teammate's car, which was altered to suit him after the third Minardi car suffered a problem on the circuit. Heidfeld completed the starting order in 22nd, driving the spare Prost AP03 car that was set up for his teammate Alesi after his race car's engine failed to start after a pit stop.
Qualifying classification