1998 San Marino F1 Grand Prix Race Report & Results

Event: San Marino Grand Prix
Track: Imola

Weather: sunny, mild, dry

David Coulthard won his 4th F1 World Championship race at the 1998 San Marino F1 GP today. The McLaren driver started from pole position and won on the Imola circuit for the first time. It was also his first win of the season and the 110th win for the McLaren F1 team.

Schumacher visits Turin, the directional brake gone

The Imola weekend arrived with the directional-brake controversy formally resolved: the FIA Court of Appeal had banned McLaren's second pedal in early April. The expected effect was that the McLarens would be marginally less dominant in corners; the actual effect, as Imola would demonstrate, was that the McLaren MP4/13 was simply a fundamentally better chassis than anything else in the field, with or without the disputed pedal.

The week before the race Schumacher had been the centre of attention at the Turin Auto Show, paid court by Fiat patriarch Gianni Agnelli, Cesare Romiti and Paolo Cantarella. The conversations had been about Schumacher's 1999-and-beyond Ferrari contract, but also about whether Maranello could close the gap on the McLaren. The Imola result would, by itself, suggest the answer was not yet.

Coulthard's first pole, McLaren ahead again

Saturday qualifying produced Coulthard's first pole of the season, with Häkkinen alongside on the front row. Schumacher placed the Ferrari third, a tenth of a second clear of Frentzen in the Williams. The McLaren-Mercedes pair were untouchable on outright pace; Schumacher's race-trim work over Friday and Saturday had produced a Ferrari that was racing-fast but not single-lap-fast.

At the green Coulthard launched cleanly, with Häkkinen tucked into second. Schumacher held third from Villeneuve, Irvine and Frentzen. The opening laps were a quiet McLaren-Ferrari demonstration; the field a half-second behind the leaders.

Häkkinen's gearbox failure

The first sign of trouble for Häkkinen came on lap 18, the second McLaren slowed, ran wide at the Variante Alta, and limped back to the pits. The gearbox had failed irretrievably. By the end of the lap he had retired. McLaren's championship lead, which had been an absolute certainty an hour earlier, was suddenly less certain.

Coulthard, with no team-mate behind him, controlled the race from the front. Schumacher, racing on a slightly different fuel strategy, climbed to within ten seconds at the first pit-stop cycle on laps 24-27. By half-distance the Scot's lead had been re-stretched to twenty seconds. The pit-stop calls Coulthard's crew made were impeccable; Schumacher's were merely competent. The race shape was effectively settled.

A McLaren win, a Ferrari second

Coulthard crossed the line 4.5 seconds ahead of Schumacher, with Irvine third for Ferrari to deliver Maranello a second-and-third finish. Villeneuve fourth in the Williams, his best result of the year so far; Frentzen fifth in the second Williams; Alesi sixth for Sauber after a quietly excellent drive. Häkkinen's DNF was the team's first of the season; the championship lead remained McLaren's, but only by ten points rather than twenty.

The result delivered Coulthard his fourth career F1 victory. The McLaren-Mercedes had now won three of the four 1998 races, with the only loss being to Schumacher's controversial Argentine pass. Häkkinen's lead in the drivers' championship had been cut from sixteen to ten over Coulthard.

Häkkinen 26, Coulthard 26, Schumacher 20

The championship table after four rounds read Häkkinen 26, Coulthard 26 (level after the Argentine result), Schumacher 20. The Ferrari was now genuinely competitive; the McLaren still had the chassis advantage but was no longer untouchable. The Spanish Grand Prix in two weeks at the Catalunya circuit, where the MP4/13 had been built for the kind of long, sustained corners, would be the next test.

Classification 1998 San Marino F1 GP

Pos	#	Driver	Team	Time	Laps	Grid	Pts
1	7	David Coulthard	McLaren	1:34:25.400	62	1	10
2	3	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1:34:29.954	62	3	6
3	4	Eddie Irvine	Ferrari	1:35:17.175	62	4	4
4	1	Jacques Villeneuve	Williams	1:35:19.990	62	6	3
5	2	Heinz-Harald Frentzen	Williams	1:35:42.876	62	8	2
6	14	Jean Alesi	Sauber	+1 lap	61	12	1
7	10	Ralf Schumacher	Jordan	+2 laps	60	9	0
8	23	Esteban Tuero	Minardi	+2 laps	60	19	0
9	17	Mika Salo	Arrows	+2 laps	60	14	0
10	9	Damon Hill	Jordan	Hydraulics	57	7	0
11	11	Olivier Panis	Prost	+6 laps	56	13	0
DNF	20	Ricardo Rosset	Tyrrell	Engine	48	22	0
DNF	21	Toranosuke Takagi	Tyrrell	Engine	40	15	0
DNF	12	Jarno Trulli	Prost	Throttle	34	16	0
DNF	22	Shinji Nakano	Minardi	Engine	27	21	0
DNF	16	Pedro Diniz	Arrows	Engine	18	18	0
DNF	8	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren	Gearbox	17	2	0
DNF	5	Giancarlo Fisichella	Benetton	Spun off	17	10	0
DNF	6	Alexander Wurz	Benetton	Engine	17	5	0
DNF	15	Johnny Herbert	Sauber	Puncture	12	11	0
DNF	19	Jan Magnussen	Stewart	Transmission	8	20	0
DNF	18	Rubens Barrichello	Stewart	Spun off	0	17	0

Fastest lap: 1:29.345 min by Michael Schumacher (Ferrari F300) in lap 48

✅ Check out 1998 F1 Championship Standings
✅ Check out 1998 F1 Teams & Drivers

✅ Check out All Time F1 Drivers Rankings
✅ Check out All Time F1 Driver Records
✅ Check out All Time F1 Teams Rankings

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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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