The final race itself proved to be less eventful after Hakkinen monstered past Schumacher when the red lights went out. Irvine also got past Frentzen and Coulthard, but made little progress beyond that. Coulthard (Cool-THUD!) skidded into a barrier, destoyed his nose cone, but managed to get his McLaren into the pits for a replacement. Coming out ahead of Michael Schumacher, he seemed to deliberately slow his Ferrari rival down despite the waving of a number of blue ‘let the car a lap ahead of you by’ flags. Schumacher was unable to close in on Hakkinen after that, and the Finnish driver retained the lead to take both the chequered flag and drivers title.

A dissapointing end to Irvine’s drivers championship hopes, but as he said himself, Ferrari did get a ‘consolation prize’ - the constructors title - due to their cars finishing in second and third positions. Irvine showed his professionalism by offering a congratulatory hug to Hakkinen after the race, while McLaren’s David Coulthard got a roasting from Schumacher in the press conference afterwards for his blocking manoeuvre [ironic considering Schuie was caught on film at the McLaren celebratory party later on that night]. So, everyone got something!

Overall, Hakkinen deserved to win. Even though it was close, Irvine would have needed to be number one driver for the full season to have won comfortably, and going on the last few races it seems that Schumacher would have won had he not gone out in Silverstone. The big surprise of the season was Heinz-Harald Frentzen coming third in the drivers championship, a great result for Jordan who also came third in the constructors championship.

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