The '2001 Formula One season' was the 52nd
FIA Formula One World Championship season. It commenced on
March 4,
2001, and ended on
October 14 after seventeen races.
Michael Schumacher won the title with a record margin of 58 points, after getting 9 victories and 5 second places.
This season saw the multiple tyres suppliers since
1998. The new
Michelin tyres joined the season with
Bridgestone tyres. The
Michelin tyres supplied 5 teams and the
Bridgestone tyres supplied 6 teams.
The
Renault power engine returned to Formula One racing since
1997. It supplied the
Benetton team.
This was
Mika Häkkinen's last season in F1. Outgoing world champion
Mika Häkkinen ended the season with 2 race victories in the
2001 British Grand Prix and
2001 United States Grand Prix. He could have been won in
2001 Spanish Grand Prix. However, he had a hydraulic failure on the last lap and conceded the victory to
Michael Schumacher. Meanwhile, his teammate
David Coulthard also took 2 race victories in the
2001 Brazilian Grand Prix and
2001 Austrian Grand Prix. As the conclusion, the
McLaren team had 4 race victories of the season. Also, this was the last season that the
McLaren team used
Bridgestone tyres.
The
Williams team had a very competitve season. The team saw 4 race victories for the team, including 3 from
Ralf Schumacher and 1 from
Juan Pablo Montoya.
This was also veteran driver
Jean Alesi's last season in F1. He had a good season, far better than
2000. He scored his first point for the
Prost team at the
2001 Monaco Grand Prix since
1999. Then, he added more points in the
2001 Canadian Grand Prix and
2001 German Grand Prix.
During the middle of the season,
Heinz-Harald Frentzen was sacked by the
Jordan team after the
2001 British Grand Prix. He missed the
German Grand Prix and being replaced by
Ricardo Zonta.
Zonta was once stepped up for him for the
Canadian Grand Prix as well due to his crash.
However,
Heinz-Harald Frentzen returned to the action with the
Prost team. This made
Jean Alesi forced to leave his original team and switch to
Jordan team and take his place for the remainder of the season, which meant that they had simply swapped drivers mid-season. Also, the car number was being changed too.
Jarno Trulli promoted to No.11 car from No.12. The original No.12 car from
Trulli gave to
Jean Alesi starting the
2001 Hungarian Grand Prix.
After the switching action,
Jean Alesi was able to hold off
Ralf Schumacher and scored his first point for the
Jordan team at the
2001 Belgian Grand Prix.
Luciano Burti had a very tough debut season, he first raced with the
Jaguar team. After 3 races, he switched to the
Prost team to replace
Gaston Mazzacane because the management at the
Prost team quickly reached the conclusion that
Mazzacane was not right for their team and he was released. When he moved to
Prost, Spanish driver
Pedro de la Rosa took his place at the
Jaguar team and just in time to start his home race for the
2001 Spanish Grand Prix. During his racing times with the
Prost team, he had a massive crash in the
2001 German Grand Prix. And for the
2001 Belgian Grand Prix, he had a high-speed crash and forced to miss the rest of the season. Czech driver
Tomáš Enge replaced him.
As the conclusion, This left the
Prost with none of their starting drivers from the season opener. Also, with the replacement from
Burti to
Enge, this left the
Prost team in the incredible position of having 5 starting drivers during 2001.
Tarso Marques did not race for the whole season for the
Minardi team.
Alex Yoong replaced him for the rest of the season starting the
2001 Italian Grand Prix.
This season was
Prost and
Benetton team last season in F1. The
Prost team ran out of money and closed down after this season. The
Benetton team renamed to new
Renault team soon after this season was ended.
The
2001 United States Grand Prix was
Murray Walker's last race commentary for Formula One. After the race, he was presented with a brick from the original Brick Yard as a retirement present.
Drivers and constructors
The following
teams and
drivers competed in the
2001 FIA Formula One World Championship.
Driver changes
The 2001 season featured several driver lineup changes prior to the season, and more changes during the season proper.
Before the season opener in Australia, the following lineup changes had occurred:
★ Olivier Panis left his test position with McLaren to take up a full time drive with BAR.
★ Ricardo Zonta lost his BAR drive to Panis, and took up the position of test driver with Jordan.
★ Although still on contract to Williams, Jenson Button was "loaned" to Benetton for the 2001 season.
★ Button replaced Alexander Wurz at Benetton. Wurz had fallen out of favour with team boss Flavio Briatore and moved on to become test driver at McLaren.
★ Button's place in the Williams was taken over by Juan Pablo Montoya. (Montoya had been in a relationship with Williams since 1998, and had been "farmed out" to the
CART series in 1999, where he took the title in his first attempt, and also a victory in the
2000 Indianapolis 500.)
★ Marc Gené lost his seat at Minardi due to sponsorship problems. (
Telefonica had been backing Gené financially and therefore helped fund the struggling Minardi team.) Gené signed a contract to become test driver at Williams where he remained until the end of
2004.
★ Gaston Mazzacane also moved away from Minardi for 2001, and started the season with the Prost team where he took over for the Sauber-bound Nick Heidfeld.
★ Minardi's first signing of the new season was Fernando Alonso, who took over from Marc Gené.
★ Tarso Marques returned to Minardi to fill the second seat there after several seasons racing in America. (Marques had driven for Minardi in 1996 and 1997.)
★ Nick Heidfeld left Prost to join the Sauber team for 2001. He replaced Mika Salo who signed up with the Toyota team to perform development work.
★ Pedro Diniz did not return as a driver for Sauber, but instead purchased 40% of the Prost team and served in a management role there in 2001. (Diniz and Alain Prost had a major falling out during the season. Diniz then sold his share of Prost and returned to South America where he became a motorsport promoter.)
★ Kimi Räikkönen was signed to Sauber for a full drive from near obscurity. He had performed some testing for Sauber in late 2000 after dominating the British Formula Renault series, and so impressed Peter Sauber that he was given the full time drive next to Nick Heidfeld. (There were concerns that Räikkönen was too inexperienced for F1, and his superlicence granting was somewhat controversial during the off season.)
★ Johnny Herbert decided to leave the Jaguar team in an attempt to secure a drive in American Champ Cars. The deal did not work out, and he was forced to sign on with Arrows as a test driver for 2001.
★ Luciano Burti stepped up from test driver to fill Herbert's slot at Jaguar.
★ Pedro de la Rosa lost his drive at Arrows to Enrique Bernoldi and signed on as a reserve drive with Prost.
During the season even more changes occurred:
★ Management at Prost quickly reached the conclusion that Gaston Mazzacane was not right for their team and he was released.
★ Luciano Burti left Jaguar to take over Mazzacane's seat at Prost.
★ Pedro de la Rosa then left his reserve seat at Prost for a full drive at Jaguar.
★ Jean Alesi quit his Prost drive. This left Prost with none of their starting drivers from the season opener.
★ Heinz-Harald Frentzen suffered injuries after a crash and was replaced for the Canadian GP by reserve driver Ricardo Zonta.
★ After returning from his injuries, Frentzen's contract was terminated by Jordan after the French GP. The split was not a happy one, and the matter ended in court before the season's end. Zonta took over Frentzen's drive for the German GP.
★ Frentzen was then signed to Prost to take over from Alesi.
★ Alesi was also signed by Jordan to take over from Frentzen. This meant the Prost and Jordan had simply swapped drivers mid-season.
★ Alex Yoong was granted his FIA super-licence during the 2001 season, and replaced Tarso Marques in the Minardi starting lineup. Marques moved into a reserve/test role for the rest of the season.
★ Luciano Burti suffered serious injuries during a crash in the Belgian GP. He was forced to sit out the rest of the 2001 season and was replaced by Czech driver Tomáš Enge for the remaining races. This left Prost in the incredible position of having ''five'' starting drivers during 2001.
★ Tomas Scheckter was sensationally fired from his testing position at Jaguar after being convicted on charges of "
kerb crawling"
[1]. This left Jaguar with no test drivers for 2001 after Burti's earlier departure.
Team changes
There were no team changes from 2000.
Results and standings
Grands Prix
Drivers
| Pos | Driver | AUS | MAL | BRA | SMR | ESP | AUT | MON | CAN | EUR | FRA | GBR | GER | HUN | BEL | ITA | USA | JPN | Points |
|---|
| 1 | M.Schumacher | 1 | 1 | 2 | Ret | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Ret | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 1 | '123' |
|---|
| 2 | Coulthard | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 5 | Ret | 3 | 4 | Ret | Ret | 3 | 2 | Ret | 3 | 3 | '65' |
|---|
| 3 | Barrichello | 3 | 2 | Ret | 3 | Ret | 3 | 2 | Ret | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 15 | 5 | '56' |
|---|
| 4 | R.Schumacher | Ret | 5 | Ret | 1 | Ret | Ret | Ret | 1 | 4 | 2 | Ret | 1 | 4 | 7 | 3 | Ret | 6 | '49' |
|---|
| 5 | Häkkinen | Ret | 6 | Ret | 4 | 9 | Ret | Ret | 3 | 6 | DNS | 1 | Ret | 5 | 4 | Ret | 1 | 4 | '37' |
|---|
| 6 | Montoya | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | 2 | Ret | Ret | Ret | 2 | Ret | 4 | Ret | 8 | Ret | 1 | Ret | 2 | '31' |
|---|
| 7 | Villeneuve | Ret | Ret | 7 | Ret | 3 | 8 | 4 | Ret | 9 | Ret | 8 | 3 | 9 | 8 | 6 | Ret | 10 | '12' |
|---|
| 8 | Heidfeld | 4 | Ret | 3 | 7 | 6 | 9 | Ret | Ret | Ret | 6 | 6 | Ret | 6 | Ret | 11 | 6 | 9 | '12' |
|---|
| 9 | Trulli | Ret | 8 | 5 | 5 | 4 | DSQ | Ret | 11 | Ret | 5 | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | 4 | 8 | '12' |
|---|
| 10 | Räikkönen | 6 | Ret | Ret | Ret | 8 | 4 | 10 | 4 | 10 | 7 | 5 | Ret | 7 | Ret | 7 | Ret | Ret | '9' |
|---|
| 11 | Fisichella | 13 | Ret | 6 | Ret | 14 | Ret | Ret | Ret | 11 | 11 | 13 | 4 | Ret | 3 | 10 | 8 | Ret | '8' |
|---|
| 12 | Irvine | 10 | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | 7 | 3 | Ret | 7 | Ret | 9 | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | 5 | Ret | '6' |
|---|
| 13 | Frentzen | 5 | 4 | 11 | 6 | Ret | Ret | Ret | | Ret | 8 | 7 | | Ret | 9 | Ret | 10 | 12 | '6' |
|---|
| 14 | Panis | 7 | Ret | 4 | 8 | 7 | 5 | Ret | Ret | Ret | 9 | Ret | 7 | Ret | 11 | 9 | 11 | 13 | '5' |
|---|
| 15 | Alesi | 9 | 9 | 7 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 6 | 5 | 15 | 12 | 11 | 6 | 10 | 6 | 8 | 7 | Ret | '5' |
|---|
| 16 | de la Rosa | | | | | Ret | Ret | Ret | 6 | 8 | 14 | 12 | Ret | 11 | Ret | 5 | 12 | Ret | '3' |
|---|
| 17 | Button | 14 | 11 | 10 | 12 | 15 | Ret | 7 | Ret | 13 | 16 | 15 | 5 | Ret | Ret | Ret | 9 | 7 | '2' |
|---|
| 18 | Verstappen | 11 | 7 | Ret | Ret | 12 | 6 | 8 | 10 | Ret | 13 | 10 | 9 | 12 | 10 | Ret | Ret | 14 | '1' |
|---|
| 19 | Zonta | | | | | | | | 7 | | | | Ret | | | | | | '0' |
|---|
| 20 | Burti | 8 | 10 | Ret | 11 | 11 | 11 | Ret | 8 | 12 | 10 | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | | | | '0' |
|---|
| 21 | Bernoldi | Ret | Ret | Ret | 10 | Ret | Ret | 9 | Ret | Ret | Ret | 14 | 8 | Ret | 12 | Ret | 13 | 15 | '0' |
|---|
| 22 | Marques | Ret | 14 | 9 | Ret | 16 | Ret | Ret | 9 | Ret | 15 | DNQ | Ret | Ret | 13 | | | | '0' |
|---|
| 23 | Alonso | 12 | 13 | Ret | Ret | 13 | Ret | Ret | Ret | 14 | 17 | 16 | 10 | Ret | Ret | 13 | Ret | 11 | '0' |
|---|
| 24 | Enge | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 12 | 14 | Ret | '0' |
|---|
| 25 | Mazzacane | Ret | 12 | Ret | Ret | | | | | | | | | | | | | | '0' |
|---|
| 26 | Yoong | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ret | Ret | 16 | '0' |
|---|
| Pos | Driver | AUS | MAL | BRA | SMR | ESP | AUT | MON | CAN | EUR | FRA | GBR | GER | HUN | BEL | ITA | USA | JPN | Points |
|---|
| |
Constructors
Qualifying results
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