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The weekend started off with controversy. The financial problems at Arrows continued on from Silverstone. On Friday, none of the cars were there for serious business and the crew was kept unemployed and watching the others do their stuff. When qualifying started on Saturday afternoon, Enrique Bernoldi was the surprising first to make his run, closely followed by team leader and 1999 winner Heinz-Harald Frentzen. What briefly looked to be a serious attempt to qualify turned out to be an attempt to escape the $500,000 fine per car given to a team for not appearing. Team boss Tom Walkinshaw might think he can get away with it but the FIA still can fine him for discrediting the sport. When deals get so complex that the cars don't even appear on the grid then everyone is the loser. Apart from the Arrows team, there was another non-starter. Fisichella had a miraculous escape from a 250 km/h crash with a 34G impact on Saturday morning and was taken away to the hospital. He was checked and found okay, but Sid Watkins decided that it was not a good idea for him to start the Grand Prix so only 19 cars qualified. There could have been one more but Eddie Jordan's attempts to get Frentzen in his car failed to materialize for yet more legal reasons. Qualifying became a close fight between Montoya's Williams and the two Ferrari drivers, which the Colombian won when the flag dropped with a difference of only 0.023 second to Michael Schumacher. With three cars out of competition Minardis' Alex Yoong managed to score his best qualifying result to date by taking 19th place (!). As usual no other car would start behind him. His team mate Mark Webber qualified one place better and together they were the only two drivers not to qualify within two seconds of pole position. The gap seems to be getting closer. Moral winner of qualifying could have been the Jaguar team with Irvine 9th on the grid. Sunday's race turned out to be eventful . Michael opted for his T-car prior to the race. When the parade lap was about to start Barrichello put his hands in the air with his car still jacked up. When the field went away, the Brazilian's car was pushed back to the pit and that was the last we saw of him at Magny-Cours. So the race had not even begun and already four cars were out of competition, one of them being a title candidate. Montoya had made the most of his pole position and was leading the race when he came in for his first pit stop. All front-runners had the same race strategy and pitted in the same framework. McLaren newbee Kimi Raikkonen suddenly found himself leading the race, when Michael Schumacher pitted. It was a clean stop that ultimately saw him taking the lead in the race. Unfortunately for him, he also crossed the white line at the pit exit and was penalized with a drive-thru. When he took this penalty he felt back from a 7.5 second lead to third place a few seconds behind the leader. The leading cars stayed close together without any overtaking. The second pit stops of the front-runners then turned the table. Montoya had trouble with his rear wheel and lost a few seconds. Coulthard had a great stop but also forgot to stay left of the infamous white line. Michael again had a Finn in a McLaren in front of him. Raikkonen was leading the race and as laps went by he was looking good to score his maiden Grand Prix victory. By doing so, he could have made sure Ferrari's star driver was not yet on championship route, since Montoya was running fourth at the time. Unfortunately for the young Finn it was not going to happen. In the closing stages of the race, Allan McNish's Toyota had an engine failure in the Adelaide Hairpin. A yellow flag was shown at the spot but under braking Raikkonen lost control a little over some oil that was left there. He ran wide and Michael was through in the lead. Now everything had changed. Montoya still was running fourth, but with
Michael in the lead this was enough for the Championship . He made no
mistake and took his 8th win of the season. With two second places and
one third place, he is unreachable in the Championship. All they can do
is fight for the consolation prize and title vice-world champion. This
battle can go down to the wire since Montoya, Barrichello, Ralf and Coulthard
are all within four points of each other. With one goal already reached,
will Ferrari lead Barrichello to second place in the points standing? Michael Schumacher: “ The start was very exciting. We were all faster than Montoya. I tried to go down the outside of him and Kimi went up the inside, so all three of us went down to the chicane together. It was very enjoyable. Then I made the mistake with the white line and I thought it was all over. After the second stop, I took it a bit easy and then started to push with ten laps to go. I don't think I would have passed Kimi if it had not been for the oil as he drove a fantastic race. Once I was in the lead, it was really the worst five laps of my life as I realised the championship was again in my pocket. I had a weight on my shoulders and felt enormous pressure not too make a mistake. Those laps went on forever. We can now concentrate on each event as it comes and hopefully have some exciting racing" Rubens Barrichello: "After what happened to me at the start, I had left the circuit. I was on the plane ready to go when I heard that Michael had won. I felt I had to return to the track, because we are a family and we stick together through thick and thin. As for my afternoon, I don’t know what happened. The engine never fired up, even though we tried everything we could. We changed the steering wheel, tried all the buttons but there was nothing we could do. We will have to investigate the problem to find the cause, but in my opinion it was a different problem to the one I experienced at Silverstone.“ RACE RESULTS French GP 72 laps. Weather: dry, warm Classified: Pos Driver Team Time 1. M.Schumacher Ferrari (B) 1h32:09.837 2. Raikkonen McLaren (M) + 0:01.105 3. Coulthard McLaren (M) + 0:31.976 4. Montoya Williams (M) + 0:40.676 5. R. Schumacher Williams (M) + 0:41.773 6. Button Renault (M) + 1 Lap 7. Heidfeld Sauber (B) + 1 Lap 8. Webber Minardi (M) + 1 Lap 9. de la Rosa Jaguar (M) + 2 Laps World Championship Standing, Round 11: Drivers: Constructors: 1. M.Schumacher 96 1. Ferrari 128 2. Montoya 34 2. Williams 66 =3. Barrichello 32 3. McLaren 47 =3. R.Schumacher 32 4. Renault 15 5. Coulthard 30 5. Sauber 10 6. Raikkonen 17 6. Jordan Honda 6 7. Button 11 7. BAR Honda 5 8. Fisichella 6 8. Jaguar 3 = 8. Heidfeld 6 =9. Minardi 2 10. Trulli 4 =9. Toyota 2 =10. Massa 4 =9. Arrows 2 12. Irvine 3 =12. Villeneuve 3 =14. Frentzen 2 =14. Panis 2 =14. Salo 2 =14. Webber 2 Click here to return to the Ferrari Happenings page.
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At
Magny-Cours, Michael Schumacher had the chance to clinch the title with
six races still to go. However, it all depended on the result of four
others - Barrichello, the two Williams boys and David Coulthard. Mathematically
it was possible but not many people in the paddock believed it would happen
this weekend, including the reigning World Champion himself. 
