2002 Australian Grand Prix
The 2002 Australian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race contested on 3 March 2002 at the Albert Park Circuit, Albert Park, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The race, which drew 127,000 spectators, was the first of the 2002 Formula One World Championship and the 18th Formula One Australian Grand Prix. Ferrari's Michael Schumacher won the 58-lap race after starting second. Williams' Juan Pablo Montoya finished second, and McLaren's Kimi Räikkönen took third, his maiden podium finish.
Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello took pole position after setting the best qualifying lap. He retired at the start of the race after braking too early for the first corner, catching Williams driver Ralf Schumacher, who collided with the rear of Barrichello's car. Six drivers were involved in a separate incident. The safety car was deployed for four laps to clear the track. McLaren's David Coulthard led the first ten laps before a mistake on lap eleven allowed Michael Schumacher to pass him. Montoya then passed Schumacher for first place on lap twelve. He maintained the lead until he ran wide and Michael Schumacher passed him to retake it. He led the rest of the race to claim his 54th career victory.
Following this, the season's opening round, Michael Schumacher left Australia leading the World Drivers' Championship with ten championship points. Montoya was four championship points behind in second with Räikkönen third. With sixteen races left in the season, Ferrari led the World Constructors' Championship from Williams and McLaren.
Background
The event's planning began in January 2002. Due to the death of marshal Graham Beveridge in an accident in the 2001 race, it was only on the 2002 Formula One World Championship's provisional calendar. Formula One's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, later confirmed it would be held following the publication of a coroner's report ruling Beveridge's death "avoidable". It was the first of 17 races of 2002 and the 18th Formula One World Championship Australian race. It occurred at the Albert Park Circuit in the Melbourne suburb of Albert Park in Victoria on 3 March. To improve safety, the height of the safety fences was raised to, cages to safeguard race officials were installed and the size of access openings reduced.Several teams retained their 2001 lineups for the 2002 season, while others changed drivers. The Benetton team was renamed Renault, ending its 16-year involvement in Formula One, and Toyota debuted with drivers Allan McNish and Mika Salo after the Japanese car maker spent 2001 developing the TF102. The Prost team was liquidated in January 2002 after failing to find funding from sponsors or a buyer. The double world champion Mika Häkkinen took a sabbatical and fellow Finn Kimi Räikkönen replaced him at McLaren, whose Sauber car was driven by Felipe Massa, the 2001 Euro Formula 3000 champion. At the Jordan team, the 2001 British Formula Three champion Takuma Sato paired with Giancarlo Fisichella, whom Jarno Trulli replaced at Renault. Former Prost driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen drove Jos Verstappen's Arrows car, and Fernando Alonso left Minardi to become Renault's test driver; he was replaced by International Formula 3000 competitor Mark Webber.
At the front of the field, the press and bookmakers tipped Ferrari's Michael Schumacher to win his fifth World Drivers' Championship, with Williams's Juan Pablo Montoya as his main rival. Schumacher stated that his goal for the season was to win the championship and tie Juan Manuel Fangio's all-time record of five titles, "Our motivation is still unchanged, our target and goals are still the same. We want to once again win both world championships and there is nothing nicer than winning with Ferrari." Montoya stated that he felt more relaxed than in 2001 since he knew his team better, "I think I showed everyone out there that I am competitive and that's the important thing. It was a lot harder to win in Formula One than in CART because it took longer to understand the car, but now that's done I'm looking to do better in 2002." Former driver Derek Warwick believed Michael Schumacher was the best driver in Formula One and suspected Montoya lacked emotional maturity.
Due to performance and reliability issues, Ferrari brought the F2001B to Australia instead of the F2002. According to Ferrari team principal Jean Todt, the F2002 was fast in pre-season testing, but the team did not have enough time to ensure that it would be reliable in Australia, "We think it will be able to bring home valuable points for the championship. Next week, we will continue our on-track development of the F2002, as well as fine-tuning the F2001 for the first race." During the first two practice sessions, the F2001 was fitted with a rear wing used on the F2002 in testing; both Michael Schumacher and his teammate Rubens Barrichello opted for one seen at the 2001 Japanese Grand Prix. The McLaren MP4-17 car had an attachment to its lower front suspension frame split to promote airflow beneath the front wing, as well as altered ailerons in the front and back. The Jordan, Arrows and Sauber teams copied the design.
Practice
The race was preceded by four practice sessions, two one-hour sessions on Friday and two 45-minute sessions on Saturday. The first session, which was held in changing weather, resulted in the fastest times late on. Michael Schumacher lapped fastest at 1:28.804, 0.363 seconds faster than his teammate Barrichello in second. Fisichella, Ralf Schumacher, Massa, the Jaguar duo of Pedro de la Rosa and Eddie Irvine, Frentzen, Salo and Renault's Jenson Button followed in third through tenth.File:Takuma Sato.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Takuma Sato crashed in the third practice session and drove the spare Jordan EJ12 car for qualifying.
Michael Schumacher set the day's fastest lap of 1:27.276 in the second session. His teammate Barrichello was 0.523 seconds slower in second. The two Williams cars of Ralf Schumacher and Montoya, Sauber's Nick Heidfeld, Salo, Räikkönen, Massa, Fisichella and Trulli were in positions three to ten. During the session, Enrique Bernoldi stopped his Arrows A23 car with a broken gearbox. Barrichello spun through 360 degrees across the grass and reemerged onto the circuit soon after. Montoya braked too late and returned to the track via an escape road and a gravel trap. A short light rain shower made the circuit slippery and caught out Alex Yoong; he beached his Minardi car in the turn one gravel trap. An engine failure ended Fisichella's session early and his teammate Sato ran across a gravel trap.
The weather for the third session was cool, damp and overcast. Michael Schumacher's updated unofficial lap record of 1:26.177 maintained Ferrari's lead. Barrichello was 0.321 seconds slower in second. McLaren's Coulthard and Räikkönen, Williams' Ralf Schumacher and Montoya, British American Racing driver Olivier Panis, Sauber teammates Heidfeld and Massa along with Trulli followed in the top ten. Sato lost control of his Jordan EJ12 car's rear on the entry to Stewart turn with 13 minutes and 34 seconds remaining and crashed into the left-hand side tyre barrier at. Sato was unhurt; practice was stopped for nine minutes to allow marshals to clean the track. Since spare cars could not be used in free practice, Sato missed the fourth session since his car required repairs.
A brief rain shower saturated the racetrack during the fourth session, preventing lap times from improving as some drivers drove off the track.Hence, no driver bettered Michael Schumacher's fastest time, as Barrichello in second halved the gap to his teammate. The Williams duo of Montoya and Ralf Schumacher improved to third and fourth and the McLaren pair of Coulthard and Räikkönen fell to fifth and sixth. Heidfeld, the BAR duo of Jacques Villeneuve and Panis and Fisichella were seventh to tenth.
Qualifying
During Saturday's one-hour qualifying session, each racer was limited to twelve laps, with the starting position set by their fastest laps. The 107% rule was in force during this session, requiring each driver to achieve a time within 107% of the fastest lap to qualify for the race. The session began on a dry track until a heavy rainstorm fell halfway through, making the circuit slippery and prevented any improvement in lap time. Barrichello completed two laps before it rained ; he took the fourth career pole position and his first since the 2000 British Grand Prix with a time of 1:25.843. He was joined on the grid's front row by Michael Schumacher, who made an error on a kerb in the first sector. Third-placed Ralf Schumacher stayed in the garage for the opening three minutes to avoid slower traffic. Fourth-placed Coulthard attempted to pass an unsighted Villeneuve on the outside of the final turn, but they collided. Coulthard's right-rear wheel hit the wall and he spun onto a run-off area. An error put his teammate Räikkönen fifth. Montoya in sixth lost six-tenths of a second after Fisichella slowed his first timed lap. Trulli in seventh was slowed by a Jaguar car on his first lap. Fisichella in eighth expressed satisfaction with his car's balance and performance. Massa was the highest-placed rookie in ninth after two errors. His teammate Heidfeld qualified tenth.Button was the fastest driver who did not qualify in the top ten after being fourth early on. Panis completed one timed lap as he could not extract more performance from his BAR 004 and took 12th. Excess oversteer slowed his teammate Villeneuve in 13th. Salo, 14th, drove cautiously on his first timed lap. A minor fuel pressure fault limited Frentzen in 15th to one untroubled lap. McNish, 16th, had a set of tyres deducted from his qualifying allocation because Toyota erroneously used one set designated for Friday's practice sessions on Saturday. A stoppage caught out Bernoldi at the start of his first timed lap and he qualified 17th. Webber took 18th and used wet-weather tyres. The two Jaguar R3 cars had a major aerodynamic deficiency and were 19th and 20th: A rear brake balance slowed Irvine and a handling deficiency saw de la Rosa drive the spare Jaguar. Yoong completed one timed lap for 21st. Five minutes in Sato's spare Jordan EJ12 car stopped before Stewart turn with a hydraulic clutch problem that automatically selected third gear. The session was stopped for eight minutes to allow marshals to move his car. Sato returned to his garage and drove Fisichella's race car but the rain made him more than 107 per cent slower than Barrichello.