2002 Brazilian F1 Grand Prix Race Report & Results

Event: Brazilian Grand Prix
Track: Autodromo Interlagos

Weather: dry, warm, part cloudy

Michael Schumacher won his 55th F1 World Championship race at the 2002 Brazilian F1 GP. The Ferrari driver started from 2nd on the grid and won at Interlagos by 0.588 seconds from Ralf Schumacher. It was the 149th win for the Ferrari F1 team, Schumachers 2nd win of the season.

Montoya pole, Schumacher hunts

Interlagos on 31 March 2002 opened with Juan-Pablo Montoya taking a home-crowd-pleasing pole in the Williams-BMW at 1:13.114, Michael Schumacher 0.127 seconds back. Ralf Schumacher was third, Coulthard fourth, Raikkonen fifth. Rubens Barrichellos challenge for his home Grand Prix pole was undone by traffic at the wrong moment, leaving him fifth on the grid.

Race day: chaos at the start, Schumacher takes over

Schumacher passed Montoya at the start and led the first 13 laps. Barrichello worked his way to the front and took the lead on lap 14 (leading laps 14 to 16) during pit stops, but a Ferrari hydraulic failure ended his weekend on lap 47. Meanwhile the front of the race became a Michael Schumacher vs Ralf Schumacher fight, with Michael holding a small pace advantage on old tyres and Ralf pressing on fresh ones.

Photo finish for the brothers, 0.588 seconds

The two Schumachers ran nose-to-tail through the final laps. Ralf had the newer rubber, Michael had the racecraft, and it came down to how much of Ralfs pace advantage would materialise in the last five laps. Michael held him off through the Senna S and along the pit straight, taking the win by just 0.588 seconds, the closest brothers finish in F1 history. David Coulthard took third for McLaren, Jenson Button an excellent fourth for Renault, Juan-Pablo Montoya fifth after fighting through from a compromised race, and Mika Salo sixth for Toyota. Montoya set fastest lap on lap 60 with a 1:16.079.

Championship: Ferrari lead, but Williams-BMW have the pace

After three rounds Schumacher led with 24 points, Montoya 14, Ralf Schumacher 16, Coulthard 8. Ferrari had won two out of three, and Michaels 24-point lead was already meaningful. But Williams-BMW had matched Ferrari at Sepang and pushed them all the way at Interlagos. The season was competitive at the front, and everyone in the paddock knew Melbourne, Sepang and Interlagos had all been unusually action-packed openers.

Classification 2002 Brazilian F1 GP

Fastest lap: 1:16.079 min. by Juan-Pablo Montoya

About the author

Leopold

Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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