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Lap 66 Herbert wins the race. Trulli is second, Barrichello is third Ralf is fourth, Hakkinen 5th, Gene 6th Lap 66 Barrichello is still challenging Trulli for second. Lap 65 Hakkinen passes Gene to take 5th position. Lap 65 Trulli is fending off Barrichello brilliantly. Real wheel to wheel racing. Lap 64 Barrichello challenges Trulli again. Lap 63 Hakkinen challenges Irvine, Irvine makes a mistake and goes across the chichane and Hakkinen is in sixth. Lap 63 Villeneuve blows his engine - what a shame - his potential first points. Irvine is in the points. Lap 61 Barrichello is challenging Trulli but its so difficult to pass. Lap 60 Herbert is leading at the moment 20 seconds ahead. Lap 60 Barrichello in 3rd is right up behind Trulli. Lap 59 Hakkinen weaves all over the back of Irvine. Lap 59 Hakkinen is getting close to Irvine again. Zonta goes off the track, he should keep going. Lap 58 Hakkinen is really close to Irvine. Challenges but not successfully and has to run wide on the grass. Lap 57 Irvine is 10 seconds behind Gene, Hakkinen is just over two seconds behind Irvine. Lap 56 Badoer is balling his eyes out! Hakkinen is 3 seconds behind Irvine. Lap 55 One Minardi is out from fourth place, but the other one, Gene, is now in sixth! Lap 55 Badoer blows his engine from fourth. He motors into the pits. Lap 54 Gene is currently in 7th place!. Top six are: Herbert, 17 seconds ahead of Trulli, then Barrichello, Badoer, Ralf, Villeneuve Lap 53 Hakkinen unlaps himself from Herbert. Lap 52 Herbert has stopped twice but Barrichello only once. Hakkinen in 9th is eight seconds behind Irvine who is currently 8th. Lap 51 Ralf is out of the pits, we think in fifth position. Lap 50 Irvine pits again. There are two Stewarts in the top three. Irvine is now out of the points as a results of his pit stop. Lap 50 Herbert leads the race, but Ralf is labouring to the pits. Lap 49 Ralf has a puncture! Lap 49 Fisichella spun across the track onto the grass and stalls. Fisichella looks like he is weeping. Lap 49 Fisichella is out of the race. The crowd roars for Ralf. Lap 48 13 seconds spans the first three: Fisichella, Ralf and Herbert. Fisichella laps Irvine. Lap 48 Herbert is in the pits. They are putting slicks on. He maintains his position. Lap 47 Ralf is challenging Herbert. Salo has retired in the pits. Lap 46 Frentzen says he lost all power after coming out of the pits. Lap 45 Takagi touches the wall, loses a wheel and is out of the race. Lap 45 Ralf comes out of the pits in third position behind Herbert. Lap 44 Williams mechanics look ready for a pitstop - Ralf pits. Lap 43 Ralf laps Villeneuve who is in sixth position. Lap 43 Trulli in 4th laps Hakkinen in 10th. Lap 42 Fisichella goes off, but manages to regain the track and his second position. The gap between him and Herbert has come down to 3 seconds. Lap 42 The sky looks like it is clearing. Does Irvine have the wrong tyres. Barrichello laps Hakkinen. Lap 41 The Ferrari mechanics are prepared for another pit stop. Irvine comes in for wet tyres. Lap 39 Race order - Ralf, Fisichella, Herbert, Trulli, Barrichello, Villeneuve. Could this be BARs first points? Lap 39 Two Supertec engined cars lead the race. Fisichella is 19 secs behind Ralf. Lap 39 Diniz, who crashed badly on the first lap is fine. Lap 38 There are two Stewarts in the points. Lap 38 Barrichello is in the pits. Lap 38 Coulthard crashes - Ralf leads, Irvine is in the points. Lap 38 Zonta is on the gravel. Lap 37 Irvine is currently 7th. Fisichella passes Barrichello. Lap 37 Alesi pulls off the circuit. Takagi spins onto the grass. Lap 36 Herbert pits from 5th position. Lap 36 Its raining again. Quite heavily. Lap 35 Ralf Schumacher is more than six seconds behind Coulthard. Salo spins on the grass. Lap 33 So Frentzen is out, leaving DC on a potential 10 points with Irvine and Hakkinen currently out of the points. DC's championship challenge is now alive! Lap 32 Frentzen is out - car stopped on turn 3 shortly after exiting the pit! Lap 32 Both Frentzen and DC pit at the same time. Lap 32 DC is really close to Frentzen. Lap 30 Frentzen took a shortcut when he couldn't make a corner. He might be penalised. Lap 30 Fisichella laps Mika Hakkinen! He seems to lapping more than 2 seconds slower than DC. Lap 29 Current order is Frentzen, DC, Fisichella, Ralf, Barrichello, Trulli. Lap 29 Panis pits from 16th position. Lap 28 Is Frentzen on a one stop strategy? Coulthard is second and closing on Frentzen, now that Ralf has pitted. Lap 27 Ralf Schumacher rejoins with fresh tyres, behind Trulli. Lap 27 Williams mechanics are getting ready for Ralf - his first of two stops. Lap 27 There is a very short gap between the first three cars - only 1.3 seconds Lap 25 Hakkine is coming into the pits for slicks. The wet tyre call had been made by Dennis. Ralf is really close to Frenzen. Lap 24 Irvine passes Hakkinen who is now down in 13th. He has been passed by Gene! Lap 23 Looks like Hakkinen has the wrong tyres on. At least Irvine has slicks on. Lap 23 Current order is Frentzen, Ralf, DC, Fisi, Barrichello, Trulli. Hakkinen is down in 10th, Irvine is in 13th. Lap 21 Irvine comes in - no tyres ready for right rear. Disaster! They are putting more slicks on. They have blown it for Irvine. A 28.2 second stop. Awful. Lap 21 Looks like the rain has stopped. Salo has a 37.9 second pit stop. Maybe they changed back to slicks. Lap 20 Salo is getting wet tyres at the moment. Lap 20 Hakkinen is in the pits. It looks really wet. Lap 19 Ralf passes DC and challenges Hakkinen. Lap 19 Its raining and Frenzen is pulling away. Hakkinen is holding them back. Ralf challenges DC again. Lap 18 Ralf challenges Coultahrd. Its really close but DC keeps his position. Lap 18 Umbrellas are out! Now it comes down to strategy. Lap 17 The front four are so unusually close to each other - Fisichella makes a mistake when Irvine challenges, touches the grass and Irvine is past. Lap 16 Irvine is still really close behind Fisichella, looking for his opportunity. Lap 15 Fisichella is more than 7 seconds behind Ralf whereas the front four cars only have 1.6 seconds between them. Lap 15 Salo is up into 9th position at the moment. Lap 14 Irvine is challenging Fisichella again. Lap 12 They have managed to roll Zanardi's car to the side of the track. Lap 12 There are Marshalls around the Zanardi car in the middle of the track! Lap 11 Zanardi has contact with an Arrows and stalls his car on the circuit. Lap 11 Fisichella is losing time to the front four so Irvine needs to pass. Lap 10 Irvine is trying to get closer to Fisichella again. It was really close last time. Lap 9 Irvine is having a go at Fisichella - its a real scrap but Fisichella holds position. Lap 8 Hakkinen is looking to see if he can gets past Frentzen. he doesn't. Lap 8 Irvine passes Panis into 6th position - into the points Lap 7 Frentzen leads the race again, DC has a look. Lap 6 Safety car lights are out. Lap 5 Safety car is coming in soon. Lap 4 Wurz said that Hill seemed to lose all drive and hence Wurz hit him. But it looked like possibly Hill was avoiding Alesi. Lap 4 Safety car is still out. Order is Frentzen, Hakkinen, DC, Ralf, Fisichella, Panis. Lap 3 Safety car is still out. Diniz's, roll bar broke. The car landed upside down. Lap 2 In the first lap incident, the 2 Ferrari's touched. Irvine is up into 7th place. Lap 2 Diniz is being carried away. Lap 1 Wurz and Hill are out. Wurz hit Damon Hill and as a result Diniz had his accident. Lap 1 Safety car. One of the Saubers went over on its head. Its Diniz. Restart First corner is Frenzen Hakkinen and DC. Big shunt with Sauber. Lap 0 The second formation lap is in progress. Lap 0 Mark Gene had a problem and has moved to the back. Lap 0 The race will be one lap shorter - 66 laps. There are no jump start penalties in an aborted start. Lap 0 This is only Frentzen's second pole position in his career. Will this make him particularly nervous? Lap 0 Official restart 9 mins past the hour. Lap 0 The red lights were on for a very long time, most of the grid moved forward before the green light went on. Lap 0 Jump start! Restart. Lap 0 The warm up lap is in progress. Pre Race Eddie Irvine is on the hard compound tyres. Pre Race It's currently dry at the Nurburgring. Humidity 77% track temperature 15 degrees. Strong possibility of rain.