page_title: 1998 British Grand Prix
section_title: Race
hierarchical_section_title: 1998 British Grand Prix / Report / Race
caption_attribution_description: David Coulthard retiring from the 1998 British Grand Prix at Silverstone
context_page_description: The 1998 British Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at the Silverstone Circuit, England on 12 July 1998. It was the ninth race of the 1998 FIA Formula One World Championship. The 60-lap race was won by Michael Schumacher driving a Ferrari car after starting from second position. Mika Häkkinen, who started from pole position, finished second with Eddie Irvine third in the other Ferrari. Schumacher's victory was his fourth of the season, and his third consecutive victory having won both the preceding Canadian and French Grand Prix, but was under controversial circumstances: there was dispute whether he had avoided a stop-and-go penalty by entering the pit lane to serve it on the final lap, crossing the finish line in the pit lane to win the race before reaching his pit box, although the penalty, which was actually merely a time penalty, was later rescinded. This race was held the same day as the 1998 FIFA World Cup Final in Saint-Denis, France, but that event took place later in the day from this Grand Prix.
context_section_description: Heavy rain fell during the morning prior to the race. Although the rain stopped before the start, there was a mixture of wet and dry parts on the circuit and as a result all but two cars started on intermediate compound tyres. The two Stewart-Fords decided to start on dry weather tyres. The first retirement came after 13 laps, when Damon Hill lost control on the damp track whilst battling with Villeneuve for 7th place. After 16 laps, it began to rain again, and many drivers switched to a full wet weather tyre. Johnny Herbert spun and regained the track, but had damaged his car and retired on reaching the pits.
  David Coulthard, driving on intermediates, spun out on lap 38 whilst passing a backmarker. Jarno Trulli spun out on the same lap as Coulthard as Barrichello spun out and hit the wall at Club on lap 40. His McLaren-Mercedes team-mate Mika Häkkinen had built up a lead of 49 seconds over second place driver Michael Schumacher when four laps later he went off the track, did a complete 360 degrees turn before continuing. The incident damaged the front wing of his car and cost him 10 seconds of his lead but following numerous other spins caused by the worsening conditions the safety car was deployed which slowed the cars down, and removed Häkkinen's advantage over Schumacher altogether.
  The race restarted on lap 50 and it took only two laps for Häkkinen to make another mistake, which put Schumacher in the lead. The German quickly pulled away from his rival, who was now nursing his McLaren home.
  However, two laps from the finish, Schumacher was issued with a 10-second penalty for passing Alexander Wurz under the safety car on lap 43. Unsure whether the handwritten notification declared that Schumacher would see 10 seconds being added to his race time or had to serve a 10-second stop-and-go penalty, his team decided to call in him into the pits out of precaution to serve a stop-and-go penalty at the end of the last lap of the race. However, in doing so Schumacher crossed the finish line in the pit lane before reaching the Ferrari garage resulting in a dispute on whether he had actually served a stop and go penalty.
caption: David Coulthard retires from the race
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