It's fast becoming the championship no one wants to win. Four title contenders arrived at the Nurburgring on Thursday talking tough and pushing for a win that would put them in pole position as the circuit accelerates towards its conclusion in the Far East.

By the end of yesterday's surreal European Grand Prix, only defending champion Mika Hakkinen left Germany with anything like the remotest glimmer of satisfaction, claiming fifth place to move into a two-point lead over Eddie Irvine.

That the McLaren number one survived to claim those two points was down to a mixture of resilience, fortitude and huge slices of luck.

The chief beneficiary of Hakkinen's Italian slip was Heinz-Harald Frentzen, whose win at Monza put him to within 10 points of the championship lead, and yesterday the driver whom Eddie Jordan called his "dark horse coming up on the rails" had all the characteristics of a thoroughbred as he maintained his hard won front of grid position in the face of first a restart and then a heart-stopping accident involving Sauber's Pedro Diniz, the Brazilian's car skidding sickeningly on its back after being struck by Alex Wurz's Benetton. The 29-year-old was ferried to the medical centre and later released. Up ahead, Frentzen patiently held station behind the safety car and when the race resumed fought off the repeated assaults of second-placed Hakkinen.

Then, as if the German had proved enough of a point about his ability to lead from the start, the rains that had threatened since early morning finally came and washed away the Jordan driver's main adversaries as a series of tactical blunders eliminated both Hakkinen and Eddie Irvine from contention until the last few laps of the 66 lap race.

While the meteorlogical debates began on the Jordan pitwall and it was decided to let Frentzen battle it out with the elements, McLaren immediately brought Hakkinen in for wet tyres.

As the Finn dived in and out, the response from Ferrari was immediate and doubly disastrous as Salo, and a lap later, Irvine suffered at the hand of the normally razor sharp Ferrari crew. As the team fumbled with tyres and Salo had a nosecone fitted, both drivers were left languishing in front of the garage for nearly 30 seconds, bungles which dropped both from contention.

We should have been attacking ahead instead of covering Hakkinen but there were too many mistakes. Even so I got off lightly as I am still only two points behind the championship leader.

At McLaren, the joy was palpable. But on a rollercoaster day the next bend brought an equal measure of despair as Jordan's gamble on the elements paid off. Frentzen, fighting the drenched circuit on the normal grooved tyres suddenly sailed into bright sunshine and the beginnings of a dry line. Hakkinen, dropped back to 11th by his stop and then to a hopeless 14th by the underperfomance of his tyres, spiralled into the nether regions of the order to which Irvine had been banished by his own team's haplessness.

Frentzen, in command of a more than 20-second lead over the championship leaders, and with only the second McLaren of David Coulthard for company, looked certain to move to within at least four points of Hakkinen and Irvine.

But the thought was no sooner framed than he was out, his Jordan spluttering to a halt at the first corner, crippled by the same electrical problem that had caused Damon Hill to virtually stand still at the same spot on lap one, a power loss that resulted in Wurz's collision with Diniz.

"Today was a huge disappointment," said a dismayed Frentzen. "It feels awful to drop out of the race when you're leading. Everything had gone so well for the first half of the race and the team did a fantastic job to get me out ahead of Coulthard, but as I came out it seems I had an electrical problem. We're not sure what it was."

Despite the massive setback, the Jordan number one still believes he has a chance in the championship. "Theoretcially the championship door is still open," he said. "Now I just have to hope and I'll be trying hard again in Malaysia."

With Frentzen removed from the equation the way was left open for David Coulthard to stake his oft-repeated claim to the title but what should have been a triumphant parade to the chequered flag was almost instantly rained out as the heavens opened again and the Scot lost control entering the Ford curve, bundling his McLaren through the gravel, into the tyre wall and out of the race.

With two title contenders down and two bustling around in the middle of a rapidly thinning pack, it was left to the wannabes to clean up but even they failed to take the golden opportunity being presented. Ex-Jordan drivers Ralf Schumacher and Giancarlo Fisichella both had their chance but while Schumacher, stunning in the wet on grooved tyres, was defeated by a puncture, Fisichella couldn't adequately combat the conditions and slid off at the Dunlop curve.

In the end the profiteers were Stewart, with Johnny Herbert, who has been on the receiving end of horrendous luck all season, taking only his third grand prix victory, and team-mate Rubens Barrichello grabbing third behind new Jordan signing Jarno Trulli.

However, the Nurburgring had one last surreal vignette to play out. As Stewart swept to their maiden win, a country mile further back and behind the normally multiply-lapped Minardi of Marc Gene were Irvine and Hakkinen, scrapping for sixth, a single point and outright lead of the championship.

Irvine, battling an unbalanced car bravely held off his arch-enemy for eight laps but was eventually forced into error and Hakkinen untroubled by his cars performance swept past to reel in an eventually pass Gene to grab two precious points.