Going into the race Mika Häkkinen, Eddie Irvine, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and David Coulthard were all harbouring World Championship aspirations.

In the previous round at Monza, Häkkinen had made an unforced error while leading, Coulthard and Irvine finished only fifth and sixth and Frentzen took his second race win of the season.

In the race, a high number of retirements saw Marc Gené take sixth place for the Minardi team, their first points since Pedro Lamy's at the 1995 Australian Grand Prix.

As a consequence of the race, Häkkinen moved into the lead in the World Drivers' Championship, two points ahead of Irvine, with Frentzen a further twelve behind.

On race day the track was dry but the start was delayed when Alessandro Zanardi and Marc Gené lined up out of sequence on the grid, necessitating another formation lap.

Damon Hill's Jordan suffered an electrical failure in the middle of the pack which caused Alexander Wurz to swerve into Pedro Diniz, sending the Sauber into a barrel roll.

Whilst further back Zanardi was an unfortunate victim to the collision between Diniz and Wurz as his car was damaged from this incident earlier on and would eventually retire on lap 11 when his Supertec engine stalled.

At the end of lap 20, Häkkinen pitted for wet tyres, which proved to be premature as the rain quickly blew over and the track dried.

Team mate Mika Salo had damaged his wing the previous lap leaving the Ferrari pitcrew unprepared for Irvine.

At the end of lap 32 both Frentzen and Coulthard pitted for their first scheduled stops with both Jordan and McLaren mechanics impeccably turning their cars around in seven seconds, and both returning comfortably ahead of Schumacher.

Coulthard chose to stay out on dry tyres while most pitted for wets, which ultimately proved to be a costly mistake, as he slid off the road and out of the race on the 38th lap as the conditions worsened.

Further back the Minardis were taking full advantage of the unpredictable nature of the race with Luca Badoer in fourth and Gené in seventh.

But with just 13 laps to go, Badoer's gearbox failed, denying the Ferrari test driver his first ever Formula One points and leaving him in tears.

Gené was promoted to sixth, which became fifth when Jacques Villeneuve's car failed with a broken clutch, robbing the BAR team of a chance to get their first-ever point before 2000.

After cruising for most of the race, Häkkinen turned up the pressure, eventually forcing Irvine into a mistake and taking sixth place.