2001 French Grand Prix

The 2001 French Grand Prix (officially the Mobil 1 Grand Prix de France 2001 ) [ 3 ] was a Formula One motor race held at the Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours , Magny-Cours , France on 1 July 2001 before a crowd of 120,717 people. It was the tenth race of the 2001 Formula One World Championship and the 51st French Grand Prix as part of the series. Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher won the 72-lap race starting from second position. Ralf Schumacher finished second for the Williams team with Rubens Ba...

Ralf Schumacher led the opening 23 laps before he made his first pit stop and Michael Schumacher assumed the lead after the first round of pit stops. His nearest championship rival David Coulthard of the McLaren outfit served a ten-second stop-and-go penalty on lap 32 for an earlier transgression of speeding at the pit lane exit. Michael Schumacher pulled away from the slower car of Ralf Schumacher who baulked his teammate Juan Pablo Montoya , until his second pit stop on the 44th lap. Montoya l...

The result enabled Michael Schumacher to increase his Drivers' Championship lead over Coulthard in second to 31 points. Ralf Schumacher's second-place finish moved him past Barrichello for third. Although he retired from the event, Montoya kept fifth. Ferrari further extended their Constructors' Championship advantage to 52 points over the McLaren team in second. Williams remained in third place with 43 points while Sauber broke its tie with Jordan to move into a clear fourth with seven rounds l...

In preparation for the Grand Prix, the Ferrari team tested its chassis, the F2001 , the only constructor to do so. The outfit conducted a six-hour and 45-minute shakedown session on 28 June at the Fiorano Circuit with their test driver, Luca Badoer , who drove 45 km (28 mi) to test the functionality of the car electrical system and also concentrated on launch control system practice starts. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] After an FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting in Paris on 27 June 2001, all of the eleven tea...

Coulthard had won the 2000 French Grand Prix and spoke of his anticipation that McLaren would be within four-tenths of a second of Ferrari depending on the amount of tyre degradation, "So, in qualifying, again, unless the tyre that we have available to us works well on our car there, I don't think we have something in the set-up that we can change. It's probably something a bit more fundamental." [ 10 ] He said that he did not want to be drawn into discussion over the Drivers' Championship and s...

A total of 11 teams (each representing a different constructors ) entered two drivers each for the event. [ 1 ] Some teams made modifications to their cars for the race. The Renault engine manufacturer débuted a revised specification of its V10 power unit in the Benetton B201s of Giancarlo Fisichella and Jenson Button . This however did not increase the overall top speed of the cars and they remained slow throughout the race meeting. [ 14 ] All of the primary teams did not bring any major aerody...

A handling balance problem that made his car anxious under braking and launched over the kerbs at the turn 13/14 chicane restricted Barrichello to eighth. [ 25 ] [ 27 ] Heidfeld made minor adjustments to improve the vehicle's balance and took ninth. Villeneuve used the first half an hour to adjust his front and rear flaps and took tenth, although he lost time through turn one. Panis took 11th after heavy traffic slowed his final timed lap. Irvine, 12th, spun twice during the session and Räikköne...

The drivers took to the track at 09:30 Central European Summer Time ( UTC+2 ) for a 30-minute warm-up session in warm and dry weather conditions. [ 15 ] [ 31 ] All drivers fine-tuned their race set-ups against the weather conditions of the time, undertook laps in their spare cars and Barrichello changed the setting of his rear wing. [ 31 ] Although he spun towards the conclusion of the session, [ 31 ] Häkkinen drove better than in qualifying and he was fastest with a lap of 1 minute and 15.428 s...

Barrichello had a fast gateway, rising from eighth to fifth by the end of the first lap. Räikkönen moved up four positions over the same distance. [ 45 ] Montoya passed Trulli and the manoeuvre caused the latter to lose momentum and allow Barrichello to overtake him. [ 43 ] At the end of the first lap, Ralf Schumacher led by 0.3 seconds from Michael Schumacher, who was in turn was followed by Coulthard, Montoya, Barrichello, Trulli, Frentzen, Villeneuve, Räikkönen, Heidfeld, Irvine, Panis, Burti...

That lap, Bernoldi retired with an engine failure. [ 40 ] Irvine was challenging Panis for ninth though he was not able to pass and he fell back slightly before the first round of pit stops. [ 47 ] In the meantime, the top five drivers were covered by a gap of ten seconds as all of them lapped in the 1 minute and 16 second range and began to lap slower drivers for the first time. [ 34 ] [ 48 ] Barrichello was the first lead driver to make a pit stop on the 21st lap. He rejoined the track in seve...

After the pit stops, Michael Schumacher led Ralf Schumacher by 7.2 seconds, who in turn, was 1.1 seconds ahead of the third-placed Coulthard. Barrichello was another two seconds behind in fourth and the rest of the top six was completed by Montoya and Trulli. [ 46 ] On lap 31, [ 48 ] the stewards informed the McLaren team that Coulthard had incurred a ten-second stop-and-go penalty because he was observed going 5 km/h (3.1 mph) above the 80 km/h (50 mph) pit lane speed limit because he disengage...

At the end of lap 42, Irvine drew to the right of Frentzen and out-braked him at the Imola chicane as Frentzen cut the corner to retain eighth. Irvine gesticulated at the Jaguar gantry on the pit lane to signal that Frentzen performed an illegal manoeuvre. Frentzen then ceded the position to Irvine to avoid incurring a penalty. [ 34 ] [ 41 ] On lap 44, the technical director of the Williams team Patrick Head went to his outfit's gantry on the pit wall to instruct Ralf Schumacher to enter the pit...

Coulthard drew close to Barrichello at the Adelaide hairpin on lap 58 after the latter ran wide. He dropped back from Barrichello through Estroil corner three laps later. Button pirouetted through 720 degrees into the gravel trap at the Adelaide hairpin because he pushed too hard and had oversteer on the 63rd lap though he continued. [ 28 ] [ 41 ] [ 42 ] [ 47 ] He consequently had too deal with heavy vibrations at high speeds from flat-spotting a tyre after locking the wheels for a long period o...

The top three drivers appeared on the podium to collect their trophies and spoke to the media in a later press conference. [ 15 ] Michael Schumacher said he was delighted to take the 50th victory of his career though he explained his priority was to win the race and focus on securing the Drivers' Championship, "People seem to misunderstand my feeling about these statistics – I always said they were second priority but they do mean something to me." [ 53 ] Ralf Schumacher expressed his happiness ...

Coulthard learned about his ten-second stop-and-go penalty over the radio and admitted his surprise and disappointment over incurring it as he believed he had exited the pit lane, "The fact is the penalty for speeding cost me points. I was just a bit too keen with the button. It has cost me dearly", and, "I knew I had a penalty, at first I didn't know what for. Then the team explained it to me. I wasn't gutted because you never know what can happen during the rest of the race. I knew I had to ke...

The result enabled Michael Schumacher (on 78 points) to increase his Drivers' Championship lead over Coulthard in second to 31 points. Ralf Schumacher's second-place finish moved him past Barrichello for third. Montoya remained in fifth place despite he retirement. [ 6 ] Ferrari further extended its advantage in the Constructors' Championship to 52 points over the McLaren team in second. Williams remained in third place with 43 points while Heidfeld's sixth-place finish meant Sauber broke its ti...

Drivers who scored championship points are denoted in bold .