Michael Schumacher completed a hat trick of victories in today's Austrian Grand Prix, the World Champion overcoming a refuelling fire during his first pit stop to regain the lead by overtaking rival Kimi Raikkonen and benefitting from the retirement of Juan Pablo Montoya.  Schumacher was in dominate form, winning comfortably, while behind him Raikkonen claimed second after battling to the line against the second Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello.

For Jordan Ford the race brought a finish, in 11th place, for Ralf Firman while team mate Giancarlo Fisichella retired with a suspected fuel system problem.  The two Jordan Fords raced together for the majority of the race, involved in a series of battles for 9th and 10th places throughout.  This is Firman's third race finish and for the second race in succession he had a BAR right behind him at the finish, former World Champion Jacques Villeneuve pushing him to the line after the Canadian earlier lost time on his second pit stop when the engine stalled.

The two Jordan's made good starts and, after the Safety Car period, Firman overtook David Coulthard to hold 12th behind Fisichella and Villeneuve.  Both drivers made pit stops after 14 and 15 laps, light rain making the track slippery at the time and Firman losing around 4 seconds after sliding wide at one of the corners, but he regained ground and overtook Pizzonia's Jaguar to hold station behind Fisichella.

Fisichella had a major mid-race battle for 9th, with Villeneuve, Coulthard and Webber right behind him and Firman closing on that battle with Trulli staying close to the Jordan.  Prior to their second pit stops the Jordans were together, behind Heidfeld and chased hard by Trulli and Pizzonia.  Firman stopped on L43 and Fisichella on L46 but the Italian was out of luck, his car pulling off the track at the hairpin after 62 laps with a fuel system fault.  Firman raced on, Villeneuve attacking him to the end, but he held on to 11th.

"We were a bit worried about the temperature build up with the two aborted starts," said Firman," as the clutch can get too hot, but it was all ok with no problems.  The car was quite good in the race and I managed to get past Coulthard at the safety car restart, although my out laps after the stops were not good.  It rained on my first one and on cold tyres the car locked the rears when I downshifted and I nearly spun.  On the second out-lap Da Matta got on the inside of me and pushed me wide, but the car was not too bad after that.  It's a shame we weren't able to score points."

For his part Fisichella was naturally disappointed: "I'm not happy at the moment.  That was another disappointing race and my third retirement in three.  We had a very difficult race, with extremely low grip levels.  It is not good at all and we need something for the future.  I know the team are working really hard and I hope we can find some improvements quite quickly."

The race start was aborted twice, both times caused by Christiano da Matta's Toyota stalling on the grid, but at the third attempt the field got away smoothly only for Jos Verstappen's Minardi to pull off at Turn 1 and cause the Safety Car to be called out for four laps.  Michael Schumacher held the lead at the restart from Montoya's Williams, Raikkonen, Barrichello, Nick Heidfeld's Sauber and Antonio Pizzonia's fast-starting Jaguar.

Schumacher led until his first pit stop, when the refuelling rig appeared to leak fuel over the car which then caught fire, causing the mechanics to let the fire extinguishers off.  Schumacher, though, calmly waited until the fire was out and then rejoined the race after the lengthy 20 second stop.  This dropped him to third, behind Montoya and Raikkonen, but when a few laps later the Williams suddenly pulled to the side with smoke pouring from its engine Schumacher managed to nip past the McLaren driver and retake the lead.  From then on he was never headed and, with the second stop going perfectly, he took a well earned win.

Rubens Barrichello pressured Raikkonen to the line, the two passing and repassing during the closing laps, but the Finn managed to hold on to score a valuable 8 points.  Fourth place went to Jensen Button's BAR after a solid performance from the Englishman while David Coulthard had a rather quiet race to finish 5th well ahead of Ralf Schumacher's Williams. Mark Webber made three stops en route to a good 7th for Jaguar while Jarno Trulli took the final point for Renault, team mate Fernando Alonso spinning off with oil pouring from his Renault.