After a delay of more than an hour to clear the track, a second attempt was made to start the race, albeit without four of the drivers involved in the incident.

At the restart, championship leader and polesitter Mika Häkkinen spun his McLaren at the first corner and was hit by the Sauber of Johnny Herbert, forcing them both to retire from the race.

Coulthard initially retired due to damage on his own car but eventually rejoined the race and finished seventh.

Häkkinen's teammate David Coulthard was in third position on 48 points, making these three the only drivers who could mathematically win the title.

Sauber and Minardi opted to join Ferrari at Fiorano, whilst the Benetton and Prost teams travelled to Magny-Cours, France, and Barcelona, Spain, respectively, to conduct private testing.

Villeneuve was involved in an incident when he lost control of his car at 290 km/h whilst negotiating the Eau Rouge corner.

During the session, Mika Salo crashed heavily at Eau Rouge, and was taken to hospital as a precaution but was cleared to take part in qualifying.

McLaren teammate Coulthard joined him on the front row, with a best time just under two-tenths of second slower than that of Häkkinen, the two drivers both having held the fastest lap at different points throughout the session.

Hill qualified in third position, his highest of the season, with a time that was over a second slower than that of Häkkinen but three tenths faster than Schumacher.

[4] Schumacher, Häkkinen's main rival for the championship, qualified in fourth position despite having his fastest laptime deleted, as the stewards decided he failed to slow down sufficiently when passing a yellow flag, which indicates a hazard on the track.

Behind them, David Coulthard suddenly emerged from the opaque spray at a right angle to the racing line and hit the trackside wall.

At the time, Coulthard claimed he had made contact with Eddie Irvine but has since said "the reality is I just dropped a wheel onto the metal grille".

[15] Some drivers, including the Jordans of Damon Hill and Ralf Schumacher and Esteban Tuero of Minardi, managed to get through unscathed.

Drivers involved in the crash along with Coulthard included Eddie Irvine (Ferrari), Alexander Wurz (Benetton), Rubens Barrichello (Stewart), Johnny Herbert (Sauber), Olivier Panis (Prost), Jarno Trulli (Prost), Mika Salo (Arrows), Pedro Diniz (Arrows), Toranosuke Takagi (Tyrrell), Ricardo Rosset (Tyrrell) and Shinji Nakano (Minardi).

[5] The race start's pile up was the biggest first lap incident since the 1973 British Grand Prix caused eleven cars to retire.

The safety car was withdrawn at the end of the second lap, with Hill continuing to lead from Schumacher after the resumption of the race.

Irvine then lost his front wing in an off-track excursion, dropping him from third to eleventh place as he pitted for repairs.

In the other race-defining moment,[18] Coulthard did not let Schumacher by immediately, causing the Ferrari driver to shake his fist at the Scot.

Both drivers were unharmed but the incident resulted in the safety car again being deployed, and Hill immediately made his second pitstop to take advantage, retaining his lead.

This led to both Coulthard and Nakano rejoining the race after lengthy repairs to their cars in a bid to get a world championship point should there be any further retirements.

When Heinz-Harald Frentzen recorded Jordan's second win at the 1999 French Grand Prix, the Irish anthem was played.

[35] Following the revelation that Eddie Jordan had ordered Ralf Schumacher not to overtake Damon Hill, amid the post-race celebrations his brother Michael Schumacher angrily confronted Jordan in his motorhome, telling him that his brother would not race for his team again and bought out his contract for £2 million.

[32] One week after the race, Schumacher and Coulthard had a one and a half-hour private meeting and emerged shaking hands vowing to join up to combat for clearer guidelines when lapping and overtaking.