Big brother surrenders centre stage to Williams

The Schumacher brothers grabbed the formula one headlines yesterday for the second time in a fortnight when they both appeared on the victory rostrum after a gripping Malaysian grand prix held here in sweltering conditions which saw track temperatures top the 40-degree mark.

This time it was the younger Ralf who stormed to victory driving the same Williams-BMW FW24 in which he vaulted out of the Australian grand prix over the back of Rubens Barrichello's Ferrari in the opening round of the world championship.

In scoring his fourth career formula one victory Schumacher finished 30.7sec ahead of his team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya to record the first Williams grand slam since Jacques Villeneuve and Damon Hill finished first and second in the 1996 Portuguese grand prix at Estoril.

Michael Schumacher had been tipped as the likely winner in Malaysia but became embroiled in a first-corner tangle with Montoya which dislodged the nose section of the world champion's Ferrari, which had started from pole position, and forced him to make an unscheduled pit stop for repairs.

The official stewards blamed Montoya for the first-corner collision and imposed a "drive through" penalty, a new punishment which has been introduced this year which requires the transgressor to motor gently through the pit lane and back on to the circuit again at the regulation 50mph. That dropped him from sixth to ninth place.

Yet it was a measure of Michael Schumacher's maturity and respect for Montoya that he agreed with the Colombian that this was an unfair penalty for what was little more than a touch in the cut-and-thrust of racing rivalry.

Most racing insiders also saw Schumacher's conciliatory approach as an acknowledgement of the fact that he will have to face plenty more wheel-to-wheel competition with Montoya in the future and consequently has to cultivate a civilised relationship with the man many increasingly regard as his strongest rival.

Asked if he felt that Montoya had been dealt with harshly, the Ferrari team leader replied: "To be honest, yes. I think we have seen more extreme situations where nothing has happened and today, a little touch and something was done.

"We don't seem to have a very consistent situation. That is something we may all want to improve in future."

Montoya's criticism of the officials' decision was more outspoken. "I think it was very unfair," he said. "I had to go round the outside of Michael because he moved to the right. We got to the corner, I gave him enough room. He touched me and that was it. "To me it was a race incident. I was a bit pissed off because I thought he understeered into me which is why I went like that [gestured] to him, but that was it. It was a bit frustrating because the car was very good."

Thereafter the elder Schumacher climbed doggedly back through the field from 19th place and seemed on course to finish a strong fourth behind Jenson Button's Renault R202. But on the last lap Button slowed dramatically with a suspension problem, caused by a broken rollbar bracket, allowing Schumacher to slip through to claim third place.

"I felt a problem with the suspension two laps from the end and the car began run- ning on three wheels. Obviously I'm disappointed not to get my first podium but it is still a good result," said Button, whose promise had at last been borne out in convincing style.

The first-corner collision had allowed Barrichello's Ferrari to establish an early lead but his strategy of two refuelling stops was not quick enough to get the upper hand over Ralf Schumacher's Williams, as shown when the Brazilian came into the pits for his first 6.6sec stop at the end of lap 21.

This left Ralf 21.4sec ahead of Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren-Mercedes, though that did not last long as the young Finn's hopes were dashed with a major engine failure.

The McLaren-Mercedes drivers had qualified on the third row of the grid, Raikkonen in fifth place ahead of his team-mate David Coulthard who also succumbed to an engine breakage which left his world championship points score at zero after his second successive retirement.

This was a crushing blow for the McLaren-Mercedes alliance, particularly on a day when their rival Anglo-German partnership, the BMW-Williams team, mopped up the trophies.

There was to be no consolation for Barrichello either, for his Ferrari suffered a rare engine failure while running second with 17 laps to go.

Fifth and sixth places were taken by the impressive Sauber C21s of Nick Heidfeld and Felipe Massa, the 19-year-old Brazilian recruit just getting past a disappointed Allan McNish in the Toyota to claim the final point of the afternoon. The Scot lost his chance of a top-six finish with a bungled pit stop with 16 laps left to run.

Such placings could just as well have included one of the promising Jordan-Honda EJ-12s had not another new boy Takuma Sato run up the back of his team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella early on.

They both made it to the finish, out of the points after repairs, and Sato apologised abjectly to his colleague. For the Irish team owner Eddie Jordan it was not quite the way he had expected to celebrate St Patrick's Day.

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