Mika Hakkinen led the 1999 World Championship by two points from Ulsterman Eddie Irvine going into the penultimate round at the brand new Sepang circuit in Malaysia, but it wasn’t this closely-fought championship battle that courted the majority of attention that weekend. Michael Schumacher, who had missed six races after breaking his leg at the British Grand Prix, made an eagerly-awaited return to Formula 1, and immediately showed none of his talent had been lost with a staggering pole position almost a whole second quicker than team-mate Irvine in second place. The McLarens made-up the second row with Coulthard narrowly out-qualifying Hakkinen, and the Stewarts of Johnny Herbert and Rubens Barrichello filling row three.
1999 Malaysian Grand Prix: Ferrari “barge” past McLaren
At the start, Schumacher led away from Irvine with the McLarens following behind. The German soon opened-up a three second led, but began to back off the pace, letting his team-mate through into the lead and then began to bunch-up the McLarens behind him, but his tactic did not work for too long, as Coulthard aggressively muscled past him on turn two on the next lap. Schumacher held off Hakkinen with more success, and was back in second place 12 laps later when Coulthard retired with a fuel pressure problem.
The Ferraris were able to increase the gap on the sole McLaren of Hakkinen and Schumacher’s one-stop strategy enabled him to get back in front of Irvine, but duly let him through again late in the race to give him his fourth win of the season, with Hakkinen completing the podium, narrowly ahead of Herbert and Barrichello. If the alleged stories of Schumacher deliberately delaying his comeback due to his hesitation of aiding Irvine to Ferrari’s first title in two decades were true, then it was never shown on the track, with a selfless attitude and professional performance to help Irvine take the Championship down to the last race in Japan, but there was another twist in the tale.
Ferrari ran with barge boards that had debuted at the previous race at the Nurburgring, but because neither Ferrari had finished in a points-scoring position there, the cars were not inspected, but after the routine FIA inspection, it was found that a regulation reference plane measuring 100 milimetres was missing from both cars, leading to immediate disqualification, seemingly giving Hakkinen an unassailable lead in the championship, handing him the title. Ferrari quickly lodged an appeal with the FIA, and soon after, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone waded his opinion into the issue, hinting that fans would prefer to see the championship conclude at the final round. Despite McLarens protest over not only the barge boards, but the smoother condition of Ferrari’s grooved tyres, the appeal was upheld, giving Ferrari back the win, leaving Irvine a six point lead in the Championship going to the final round at Suzuka.
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