He was optimistic about his prospects of equalling Graham Hill's record of five Monaco Grand Prix victories, "Traditionally, I have always gone well in Monte Carlo.

"[8] Coulthard, the 2000 Monaco race winner, said he wanted to repeat his success from the year before and saw an opportunity to take the lead of the World Drivers' Championship.

"[9] Following the Austrian Grand Prix two weeks prior, where four cars stalled at the start because of electronic launch control systems failures, concerns were voiced by the technical director of Williams Patrick Head and Jordan's Jarno Trulli over driver safety because of the possibility of stranded vehicles and a major accident.

[12] Max Mosley, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA; Formula One's governing body) president, advised teams to switch off their launch control systems if they expressed concerns over its reliability; he ruled out banning the aid for the Monaco race.

[10] Jordan subsequently deactivated launch control on their EJ11s and opted for a manual system due to the Circuit de Monaco's narrow characteristic.

[14][15] Due to the configuration of the Circuit de Monaco, with its low average speed and abundance of low-speed corners, allied to the low-grip nature of the public road surface, the teams all set their cars up to produce the maximum amount of downforce and mechanical grip possible.

The devices were examined after Thursday's practice sessions by the FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer, who believed they were an infringement of Formula One regulations.

[17][18] Jordan and Arrows were required to remove the devices for safety reasons, and the stewards warned the two teams that they risked exclusion from the Grand Prix if they were used again.

The two Jordan cars of Trulli and Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Barrichello, Häkkinen, Olivier Panis of British American Racing (BAR), Ralf Schumacher, Irvine and Alesi followed in the top ten.

[16] Fernando Alonso spun his Minardi into a wall at La Rascasse turn and damaged its rear suspension, curtailing his session.

Two track marshals retrieving Schumacher's front wing narrowly avoided being hit by Enrique Bernoldi's Arrows car.

[23] After taking Friday off—a feature of the event timetable unique to Monaco—[21][n 1] the drivers returned to action on Saturday morning in clear weather.

Ralf Schumacher complained of head and neck pain following his crash in the second session and was treated by his team's physiotherapist before being ordered to rest until Saturday.

[25] Nevertheless, he lapped quickest in the third practice session at 1:21.036, ahead of Villeneuve, Coulthard, Michael Schumacher, Sauber's Kimi Räikkönen, Irvine, Alesi, Frentzen, Panis and Trulli.

[26] After 13 minutes, Verstappen's engine failed, and laid oil at La Rascasse corner,[26] prompting a quarter of an hour stoppage for marshals to clear it with sand.

[27] Luciano Burti's Prost car had a mechanical failure that sent him veering into the Sainte Devote tyre wall and narrowly avoided hitting multiple stationary recovery vehicles with three minutes remaining.

[31] Coulthard broke the unofficial track lap record set by Frentzen in 1997, and took his second pole position of the season, and the 12th of his career with a time of 1:17.430.

[33][34] Häkkinen changed his car's set-up for a final timed run but it gave him excess understeer and a lack of front grip, leaving him third.

[33] Fourth-placed Barrichello worked with his engineers following the final practice session to improve his car's performance; he flat-spotted his front-right tyre at Sainte Devote turn.

[35] Frentzen in 13th spun at Portier corner before the entrance of the tunnel, and he abandoned his car because the constricting barriers left him with little room to recover.

His Sauber teammate Heidfeld had an unrectifiable electronic throttle problem on his second timed lap and he took the team's spare car to qualify 16th.

[43][48] Bernoldi was able to remain close behind teammate Verstappen until an issue forced him to change onto a conservative fuel map and lose a small amount of pace.

[46] On lap 31, Trulli retired from fifth at La Rascasse turn with flames coming from the rear of his car due to a loss of engine hydraulic pressure.

[48] On lap 43,[45] Fisichella had an hydraulic failure that caused his gearbox to fail,[47][2] and he crashed into the tyre wall at Sainte Devote, removing the front left wheel from his car.

[n 2][44][49] Irvine achieved Jaguar's first podium finish since its debut in Formula One and its first points score of the season in third,[37][53] ahead of the faster Villeneuve in fourth.

[1] Räikkönen was five laps down and the last finisher in tenth after an early race pit stop to rectify a wheel sensor failure and he had no traction control.

[3] Michael Schumacher said he felt little emotion on the podium because he took "a very straightforward win" and that finishing the race was the most important aspect because the circuit is narrow, "Although it was an easy drive, it was still hard to some degree, because we were still doing reasonably fast lap times.

"[56] Irvine spoke of his delight to finish third and stated his hope to continue Jaguar's form into the Canadian Grand Prix, "It's good for all the guys in the team.

"[57] An audio tape released to the press by McLaren on 11 June vindicated Dennis; according to transcribers he said to Bernoldi, "that was not sporting and you shouldn't carry on like that.

[60] Jackie Stewart, the three-time Formula One World Champion and Jaguar team founder, praised Irvine's performance and the driver's maturity, "He practised well, he qualified well and he raced well.