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.

Williams remained in third place with 43 points while Sauber broke its tie with Jordan to move into a clear fourth with seven rounds left in the season.

The 2001 French Grand Prix was the tenth of seventeen scheduled single seater races of the 2001 Formula One World Championship and the 51st running of the event as part of the series.

The rule was revised to state that any switch into the spare car could only be undertaken fifteen seconds before the commencement of the formation lap and it would avoid any driver incurring a pit lane start.

"[9] He said that he did not want to be drawn into discussion over the Drivers' Championship and sought to extract his best performance over the rest of the season, " I concentrate on the future because you can't change the past.

"[10] Michael Schumacher stated his acknowledgement that Coulthard was his main rival for the Drivers' Championship,[11] and took a race-by-race approach, "The year is long and there are still eight races to go and I still have to calculate for David in particular.

The Renault engine manufacturer débuted a revised specification of its V10 power unit in the Benetton B201s of Giancarlo Fisichella and Jenson Button.

[13] All of the primary teams did not bring any major aerodynamic improvements to the Magny-Cours track as the Prost outfit installed revised its suspension geometry and modified the bodywork of the AP04 chassis.

[16] Ralf Schumacher's running ended early due to a water leak that was possibly caused by a damaged pipe in the car's sidepod from hitting debris off Kimi Räikkönen's Sauber.

Montoya was seventh-fastest, Sauber's Nick Heidfeld placed eighth, Irvine came ninth and Räikkönen duplicated his third practice session result in tenth ahead of qualifying.

During this session, the 107% rule was in effect, which necessitated each driver to set a time within 107 per cent of the quickest lap to qualify for the race.

[24][25] Coulthard qualified third on his fourth timed run with three minutes left and spoke of his feeling he could have improved further as he ran over gravel scattered by Luciano Burti's Prost at turn 13 causing him to make a minor mistake.

Trulli was pleased with the balance of his car and later apologised to Michael Schumacher for slowing the Ferrari driver while Frentzen was baulked by Panis.

[22][24] 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.

[22] 14th-placed De La Rosa was kept from the circuit due to an electrical fault at his part of the garage and engine overheating and driver errors affected his on-track running.

[22][26] The two Minardis qualified at the rear of the field in 21st and 22nd places: Fernando Alonso was slowed on his final timed lap by Bernoldi, and his teammate Tarso Marques had a large amount of understeer that affected the handling of his chassis, which could not be rectified.

[28] 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.

[14][30] 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.

[41] Michael Schumacher in second was slower off the line due to a minor glitch between the launch control system and clutch that was changed after the warm-up session though he held off Coultard on the first lap.

[44] Villeneuve in eighth became the Grand Prix's first retirement when his engine lost power and he went into the gravel trap at Estroil corner on lap six.

[45] Barrichello made his second pit stop one lap later in Ferrari's aim to get him in clean air and move past Ralf Schumacher.

[40] Montoya increased his pace to hold a five-second advantage when he entered the pit lane for his second scheduled stop on the 50th lap.

[46] On lap 56, Irvine stopped on the grass at the right-hand side of the Adelaide hairpin with a pneumatic valve system failure.

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.

[27][40][41][46] He consequently had too deal with heavy vibrations at high speeds from flat-spotting a tyre after locking the wheels for a long period of time under braking.

[33][43] On lap 71, an oversteer and a rear tyre lock sent Button into a spin through 180 degrees into a gravel trap and retired with a fuel pressure pick-up problem.

[39][41][50] Upfront, Michael Schumacher was told over the radio to reduce his pace to avoid excessive strain on his car,[42] and he maintained the lead to take his sixth victory of the season and the 50th of his career.

"[52] Ralf Schumacher expressed his happiness to finish second after his pit stop fumble, "If I would have come out in front of Michael I think it would have been difficult to hold him behind me.

"[54] According to Trulli, who finished in fifth, the Jordan team required additional work to increase the EJ11's pace, "I knew that today was going to be a good chance to score points and I kept pushing hard.

Williams remained in third place with 43 points while Heidfeld's sixth-place finish meant Sauber broke its tie with Jordan to move into a clear fourth position with seven rounds left in the season.