In the second lap, Heidfeld continued his performance and extended his lead slow but save, Salo's engine now got the same problems than the both other Ferrari pilots, missed the Ferradura-corner. This corner seemed to be a key-position in this race. The competition between Verstappen and Schumacher for the third rank was also decided there, while the Tyrell again had the better end by his side and the Williams missed the third curve. All three Tyrells was in the points at this time. For the 1 point worth 6th place there was a hard fight between Hill, Frentzen and Zanardi. The Tyrell at the front finished the 2nd lap in 12 moves with only 1 gear and 2 tires lost meanwhile. Salo had to pit and lost his last chance to beat Heidfeld in this grand-prix. The first victim of the frequently engine-checks was the brave Williams-pilot Schumacheron 4th place at this moment, one move away from the pits, where he could have repair his damaged engine. The cars 5, 9, 1, 2 and 7 was pitting this lap.

On move #34, with the fresh engines, Hill and Frentzen could overtake Zanardi on the counter-straight and knocked him out of the points, but were not fast enough to reach Verstappen. At the next turn Zanardi failed the 2nd corner, while the cars 1, 2 and 5 was close-up to each other in this curve. Villeneuve had to take 5 spaces with oil-spots and body-parts in the first corner, to much to survive.  One move further, Hill could overtake Verstappen on the way to the Ferradura-corner, Frentzen on the other side missed again. Eddie Irvine finished his second lap in this move, 9 stops behind the leader. On the next turn he took to much hazards in the first corner and must drop out. At this time there were about 30 hazards (!) over the track, 8 of them in the 1st curve. While Heidfeld easily won the race in front of Mika Salo, Jenson Button must pay a tribute to his high-speed-drive on third position and blew up his engine at the beginning of the finish-straight. Out of the last corner, Damon Hill pushed his Ferrari as fast as possible, but not fast enough today, for Jos Verstappen could close-up and use the slipstream to overtake him. By doing so, he risked a drop-out because he had to take on of the many many hazards on the way. The second duel Tyrell-Ferrari in this grand-prix also went to Tyrell. The triple-combat about the fifth place between Frentzen, Zanardi and Berger ended on the way to Juncao-corner, where all three drove in fifth gear but the Ferrari again failed by one space. The Jaguar speeded up better than the Williams out of the last corner, therefore fifth place went to Alex Zanardi and one point (the first in the current season) was left to Williams. At the end of the field, Mika Hakkinen had ruined his tires in the 2nd corner and finished the race with 12 moves behind the winner. As the best lap was 12 moves two times, on a 4-lap race he maybe would have been laped out.