Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen qualified on pole position, ahead of the Mercedes team's cars of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.

The result allowed Red Bull and Verstappen to extend their respective leads in the Constructors' and Drivers' Championships over Mercedes and Hamilton.

This allowed the team to move up into third in the Constructors' Championship standings, passing Scuderia Ferrari, whose drivers both finished outside of the top ten points-scoring positions following issues with tyre wear.

The event, officially known as the Formula 1 Emirates Grand Prix de France 2021,[10] took place at the Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet, Var on the weekend of 18–20 June.

[18] As a result of these changes, the French Grand Prix formed the first of three races on consecutive weekends, with the next two taking place at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria.

[24] It had been planned that Romain Grosjean, who had suffered injuries at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix, would make a demonstration run for the Mercedes team at the event, and then test for them on the Tuesday after.

[25] The former was cancelled because the rescheduled race clashed with his Indycar Series commitments at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin;[26] while the latter was postponed due to unfavourable quarantine requirements.

[49][50] Branding relating to tobacco company Phillip Morris International (which had featured on Ferrari's cars at previous races in the season) was removed, starting from this Grand Prix, for the remaining European rounds of the championship.

[57] McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo expressed optimism for the race, believing that the track layout would help him adapt to driving for a new team after he was significantly slower than his teammate Lando Norris at the previous two rounds.

[66] Ex-driver and BBC Sport pundit Jolyon Palmer argued that the fact they caused minor damage helped to enforce track limits, and that it is what fans wanted.

[68] The front wing on Verstappen's car was damaged when he hit a kerb, prompting Red Bull to lodge a complaint about its location.

[69] A virtual safety car period was called, with drivers required to slow down so marshals could safely recover the debris, which Red Bull wanted returned to them.

[70] Michael Masi (Formula One's race director) noted that teams have requested measures such as kerbs to be put in place to stop drivers from gaining an advantage by leaving the track.

[78] The first part of qualifying (Q1) was paused after AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda lost control of his car and hit a barrier, and then stopped with half a minute remaining on the clock when Schumacher crashed.

[79] His crash prevented some other drivers from having an opportunity to set a faster lap than him, allowing him to qualify fifteenth, the best result of his career up to that point.

[79] The soft tyres used in Q3 were prone to overheating through the final sector, and the Red Bull car's better ability to handle this problem gave them an advantage over Mercedes.

[81][89] Hamilton was glad, as he felt the result disproved claims that a chassis swap with teammate Bottas was negatively affecting his performance.

[93] Sainz qualified fifth and Leclerc seventh, with both Ferrari drivers reporting difficulties keeping the front tyres of their cars to a suitable temperature.

[108] The 2016 Formula One world champion Nico Rosberg said that the error may have occurred because Verstappen "took a bit of unnecessary risk" in the 40-kilometre-per-hour (25 mph) tailwinds.

[120] With the advantage of fresh tyres established, Hamilton was keen to beat Verstappen to making a second stop once the end of the race was close enough.

[123] Gasly felt he had raced Norris fairly, and noted that the wind and high tyre wear made his car difficult to drive.

[127] Mercedes had used a comparable strategy at the 2021 Spanish Grand Prix, but on that occasion the circumstances were more favourable to the team making the second pit stop.

[106][137] Hamilton did not want to drive onto the dirty part of the track to defend from Verstappen, who was able to use the drag reduction system to go much faster down the straight.

[113] Red Bull team principal Christian Horner described the result as "a little bit of payback for Barcelona earlier in the year", in reference to the strategy Mercedes had used to win there.

[87][132] Gasly felt he had maximised his AlphaTauri's potential,[153] as he remained within one second of Ricciardo (close enough for him to use the drag reduction system) en route to a seventh-place finish.

[115] Senior Alpine figure Alain Prost felt Alonso was adapting well after returning from a sabbatical, and that he might have finished in a higher position if his pit stop had been quicker.

[154] Vettel finished ninth while his teammate Stroll gained nine positions to claim the final point in tenth,[155] having passed Sainz on the 48th lap.

[151] Aston Martin boss Otmar Szafnauer felt his team's performance showed they had not been negatively affected by the new protocols on tyre usage.

[158][159] Ferrari had been relatively competitive on the medium tyres in the first stint, but lost a lot of pace compared to their rivals when they changed to the hards.

[113] Following the result, the team made efforts to rectify the tyre-wear issue,[161] concluding that the car setups they were using had caused wear-inducing understeer.