Michael Schumacher completed a hat-trick of wins as he snatched victory in the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola today. The German triumphed after overtaking world champion Mika Hakkinen during a decisive second round of pit stops. Schumacher won by just 1.1 seconds from Hakkinen to equal Ferrari's best start to the season since they won the opening three rounds in 1976. David Coulthard was well adrift in third in the other McLaren after he overtook the Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello in the pits to claim his first points of the season.
Schumacher now leads the championship by a massive 21 points from team-mate Barrichello with Hakkinen three points further back heading into the British Grand Prix in two weeks time. The 31-year-old, who broke his leg after crashing at Silverstone last year, will then bid to match his run of four straight victories at the start of the season he set with Benetton when he won the title in 1994.
Former champion Jacques Villeneuve was fifth for British American Racing, only his second points finish in 19 starts with the team, with Sauber's Mika Salo sixth. Eddie Irvine finished eighth while fellow Jaguar Racing driver Johnny Herbert, whose place with the team is rumoured to be under threat, was 10th.
Jenson Button's race ended on the sixth lap of the 62-lap encounter when his Williams BMW seemingly suffered an engine failure. That was just one lap after the Jordan of Heinz Harald Frentzen retired with an all-in-all bad day for the Jordan's culminating when Jarno Trulli was forced out when in 7th position with only a number of laps remaining.
Hakkinen, who had failed to finish the opening two races in Australia and Brazil, had led what turned into a personal duel with Schumacher for the first 44 laps. However Schumacher's devastating spurt when he carved three seconds out of Hakkinen's advantage around the time of the second pit-stop allowed him to take the lead which he comfortably held for the remaining 18 laps.
