For the 14th round of the season in Europe, Frentzen took his first pole in 2 years, ahead of Coulthard and Häkkinen. At the start, Frentzen led Häkkinen and Coulthard into the first corner, but at the back Damon Hill suffered an electrical failure, causing Alexander Wurz to hit Pedro Diniz, which caused his Sauber to flip. There was a slight drizzle after 15 laps, and unlike others, Häkkinen pitted for wets. This was too early, and he lost a lot of time and had to pit again for dries. He rejoined a lap down. Irvine was stuck for 30 seconds on three wheels during his fuel stop, when his team couldn't find the fourth wheel. With a half of the race gone, Frentzen was leading Coulthard and Ralf. Frentzen's race cruelly ended with an electrical failure after his first stop. It started raining by then, and new leader Coulthard spun off and retired. This gave the lead to Ralf until he suffered a puncture, which dropped him to fifth. On the wet track, Fisichella inherited the lead, only to spin off himself and retire. The next leader was Johnny Herbert in the Stewart. The track dried out and Herbert won, ahead of Jarno Trulli's Prost and Rubens Barrichello's second Stewart. Late in the race, Irvine made a mistake while running sixth, and gave sixth to Häkkinen, who then went on to pass Marc Gené for fifth. Gené's teammate Luca Badoer was running 4th with 13 laps to go but had a gearbox failure, thus denying him of a points finish. Häkkinen thus took a two-point lead over Irvine going into the last two races.