Timothy Collings' Race Report - Hungarian GP

Defending world champion Mika Hakkinen took over as championship leader for the first time this season on Sunday when he outpaced Michael Schumacher to win the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Finn, seeking his third consecutive title, grabbed the lead in his Mercedes Benz-powered McLaren with a daring move down the inside at the first corner of the tight Hungaroring circuit and remained in charge to the finish of the 77-laps race.

He came home eight seconds ahead of Schumacher after easing off, with his McLaren teammate, Briton David Coulthard, in third, half a second behind Schumacher's Ferrari.

His win, in temperatures which rose to 47 degrees Celsius on the circuit, sent 20,000 Finnish travelling fans home happy and set up a thrilling finale to the season, with five races remaining.

Hakkinen now has 64 points, Schumacher has 62 and Coulthard 58. Schumacher's Ferrari teammate Brazilian Rubens Barrichello is fourth with 49 after finishing fourth.

In the constructors' championship the battle is even closer, with McLaren on 112 points to Ferrari's 111.

"I think I said in Hockenheim (after the German Grand Prix) that you can make a start like that probably only once a year," said a delighted Hakkinen. "But it's not true. I have done it twice in a year.

"Again, I had a fantastic start and I was able to overtake Michael and David before the first corner, even though it was very close with Michael.

"But I must say again, that is what racing is supposed to be...we came round that corner in one piece. When things like this happen, you need two drivers who know what they are doing and do the right thing."

The Finn, almost a second slower than Schumacher in the race warm-up, said of his sudden improvement: "It was a combination of things with the engine and chassis.

"I'm not going to tell you exactly what we did but the car went very fast."

The victory was Hakkinen's third this season to Schumacher's five and the 17th of his 140-race career.

Perfect Day

The first-corner move by Hakkinen swept him from third on the grid and into the lead as Schumacher, who had taken control of the drivers' championship by winning the first three races of the season, battled to defend his postion. Coulthard, meanwhile, scrambled to fight off a challenge from Ralf Schumacher's Williams.

The younger Schumacher finished fifth behind Barrichello and ahead of compatriot Heinz-Harald Frentzen as the three Germans in the race made up for their disappointments in their home event two weeks ago.

Once ahead, Hakkinen was able to control the race and was only briefly out of the leading position when he pitted for the first time on his way to building up a commanding 26-seconds advantage.

Asked how he had found the performance in his car to out- pace everyone so comprehensively in what turned into a procession, Hakkinen paused while Schumacher responded with a grin. "Do you expect him to tell us?" he asked.

Hakkinen said: "It was a combination of some fantastic teamwork between the chassis people, the engine people and my engineers. We made some modifications to the chassist...as we saw, it was a fantastic thing to happen."

Schumacher, so dominant as he took pole on Saturday but who had only finished one of the previous five races, admitted: "You have to say today that we were not fast enough to win this race.

"Not only did I lose the start against Mika, which was a tight battle, but when you see his pace you have to accept that if he hadn't overtaken me at the start, he would probably have done it later on.

"He was simply the fastest man out there today. That's why I was not too unhappy to have been in second position, because even then there was a tight battle with David. But we managed our pit stops for the right times."

Hakkinen's win also meant that he and Coulthard have now equalled the record total of a team drivers' partnership of 25 wins, established by Brazilian Ayrton Sennna and Frenchman Alain Prost when they were also with McLaren.

It was a perfect way for them to mark their record 77th race as a pairing.

Coulthard was unhappy with the balance of his car early on and blamed the two Minardi drivers for slowing him down after failing to spot him in their mirrors. "I lost a lot of time behind the four Minardis that seemed to be out there," he said. "I was falling away at quite a rate of knots. Michael took the traffic well, I lost a lot of time."

Coulthard looked set to overtake Schumacher after his second pit stop, on lap 51 of 77, but the tactic failed as the Scot rejoined the race in the Ferrari driver's slipstream.

"But I started third and finished third and that's all I deserved," Coulthard added.

McLaren team boss Ron Dennis, asked if the team had blundered by calling Coulthard in too early when he was going well, seemed to agree when he said: "It wasn't a perfect race -- we're disappointed we did not come first and second. But, it's nice to lead both the drivers' and the constructors' championship."