Race report: Hakkinen holds on

The day had started badly for Hakkinen when he was heavily penalised for an error in the morning warm-up. He was dumped from second on the grid to fourth for jumping the red light at the end of the pitlane as the session was restarted after Juan Pablo Montoya's BMW engine had dropped oil on to the track.

Hakkinen was furious about the decision ( click here for separate story), but could only sit back and watch as Ferrari and Williams made the early running at the Brickyard. Poleman Michael Schumacher fended off Montoya into the first turn, but it was the Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello that was the car to watch in those opening laps. Having jumped up to third from his fifth place on the grid, the Brazilian went round the outside of Montoya into Turn 1 and was then handed the lead by Schumacher. His car was clearly faster than his team mate's and Michael was happy to let him go.

The reason for Barrichello's greater speed soon became clear. He was on a two-stop strategy - on paper the quickest way to complete this race, but a risk nonetheless. He opened up a 12.5 second lead over Schumacher before pitting on lap 27 and rejoined fifth. At this point his chances of victory were looking slim.

That was because the Williams of Montoya had stayed in closer range of the Ferraris than Barrichello had been hoping for. In fact Montoya was monstering Schumacher and brilliantly took the lead into Turn 1 on lap 34. "There were not many exciting moments, except the one with Montoya when he overtook me," Schumacher shrugged . "I don't know where he came from because he was quite far away when I left turn 11. Then I saw came flying down the straight, I tried to make difficult as possible but our tyres were not as good as their tyres and he got me. Except for that it was pretty boring."

Montoya's Williams team mate Ralf Schumacher had chosen a two-stop strategy, but the Colombian was only on one. A second consecutive win looked on the cards. But having made his pitstop, Montoya suddenly slowed and stopped on the pit straight with a suspected hydraulics failure. "It's a bit disappointing because I could have got a win," said Montoya with a serious amount of understatement. "Back-to-back wins would have been nice, but the move on Schumacher was fun. I was just going for it completely."

It ended a bad day for Williams because Ralf Schumacher had spun out just a lap before. With two no-scores, the team also lost its bid to steal second in the constructors' championship from McLaren.

With Michael Schumacher having made his stop, that left Hakkinen and McLaren team mate David Coulthard in first and second. The team had decided to stay out as long as possible before making its single stops and the McLarens were now flying. In fact when Hakkinen stopped, he had opened up a big enough gap to Schumacher to get back out still in front of the world champion.

Barrichello now led again, but he still had to make his second stop. He came in on lap 49 and rejoined second, just over six seconds down on Hakkinen. Maybe that two-stop strategy was the right way to go after all. Rubens did everything he could to prove that to be the case as he slashed into the McLaren's lead. But he only got to within two seconds of Hakkinen before the gap began to stabilise. Was he in trouble? Unfortunately, the answer was yes (click here for Barrichello's reaction). The large American crowd was robbed of a grandstand finish as Barrichello's Ferrari suffered a rare engine problem. It finally gave up the ghost on the penultimate lap, cruelly robbing the Brazilian of at least a podium finish and probably second in the championship ( click here for separate story).

That left Hakkinen in the clear, ahead of a satisfied Schumacher ( click here for separate story) and Coulthard. Jarno Trulli drove a canny race to rise to fourth, but lost his points in the stewards room thanks to a worn skid block ( click here for details).

The decision promoted Eddie Irvine to fourth, giving Jaguar its second consecutive points finish (