2001: Schumacher's 50th GP victory

When the crucial moment came, Ralf Schumacher put together the sort of lap he had not quite been able to do a week earlier at the Nurburgring. "Ralf usually does a fantastic job in qualifying," said Gerhard Berger, "but last week, when you look at his sector times, I think you can see he could have been on pole." This time he was. Not starting from pole in Germany had ultimately decided his race; maybe that brought extra motivation in France. Certainly he was in scintillating form. His progress through the fast first chicane in particular was spellbinding.

As was the tense see-sawing battle between him and brother Michael. The McLarens were much better here than at the Nurburgring but, essentially, the fight was an all-Schumacher affair again.

Their cars were quick on different parts of the track. The Williams was all about brilliantly crisp direction changes, prodigious straight-line speed and acceleration. The Ferrari caressed the kerbs and was pressed down as if by an invisible hand through the long, fast Estoril corner. Over a lap there was nothing in it. BMW vs Ferrari, Patrick Head vs Ross Brawn, Ralf vs Michael and Michelin vs Bridgestone. All those variables and they were separated by one hundredth of a second.

Which, you sensed, rather took Michelin aback. It had a new tyre, with an extra square-shouldered construction. Tried and tested here, it was significantly quicker than the one that had given the Michelin teams an advantage in Germany. Surely that would swing the balance more in their favour? Bridgestone brought new tyres too, but they had not been tested. Illustrating the quality of this tyre war, though, the new Bridgestones seemed a Michelin match, at least in terms of speed.

Ralf set his best time on his second run, the track temperature a blistering 47C: Michelin territory. At the time it was 0.5sec quicker than anyone else. Michael came out and got to within a tenth with a great lap. Mika Hakkinen then got within two tenths. Not far in his wheeltracks David Coulthard looked set for a time at least as quick as Hakkinen's when he went wide at Turn 13, where Eddie Irvine and Luciano Burti had earlier been off. "I'd picked up some gravel that another car had brushed on to the track," he said, "but generally I didn't feel I was doing as good a job at judging the entry speed to the slow final corner as I had been this morning."

Regardless, the McLarens were back in the hunt. The front tyres were not graining in the way they had been at the Nurburgring as the team found a better set-up in the practices, aided, perhaps, by the new Bridgestone.

Michael came back out. He already had the fastest first sector time but beat this earlier marker by a whopping 0.3sec, finding much of that with his stunning speed through Estoril, the fast right-hander. Surely this was the pole lap? As he shot through the first chicane and headed towards 180°, Jarno Trulli lay ahead on his third run. Just as Michael was trying to judge if he could stay full on it, he was distracted; first by Trulli making a mistake and running wide and secondly by Ross Brawn coming on to the radio. He lost a vital couple of tenths. Now it all hung on the last run.

Ralf sat in his car, impassively watching the monitor, helmet off, balaclava on, to see if Michael could beat his time. Whether he felt it or not, this was a seminal career moment. This time Michael got to within 0.0lsec, with a lap less spectacular than his earlier effort.

"He could have been on pole by 0.3sec," said Ross Brawn. Similar claims could have been made for Ralf a week earlier. As it was, it gave the younger Schumacher his first pole, Michelin and BMW's first since their respective comebacks and Williams' first since Estoril 1997. "It's a pretty nice birthday present," said Ralf, 26 on the day.

Half an hour after the session ended, a press office staff member conscientiously removed the name of Nigel Mansell that for nine years had been displayed on the board of qualifying lap records, and replaced it with that of Ralf Schumacher.



After the race, Michael Schumacher came out with his usual remarks. Yes, this was a big step forward, and yes, 31 points was a big lead, but still there were 70 points at stake, and he was taking nothing for granted...

Well, maybe not, but for all those who savour a close-fought world championship, the 2001 season is already a virtually closed book. This latest win, Schumacher's sixth in 10 races this year, was also the 50th of his career, and moves him to within one victory of Alain Prost's record. At the moment, there is literally no stopping him.

Of late, the only true opposition to Michael's Ferrari has come from his brother's Williams-BMW, and in France, for the first time, Ralf took pole position, squarely beating Michael. In the race, too, he confidently led the early laps, albeit never by much, but a slow pit stop -and, more importantly, a duff second set of tyres - put the issue beyond doubt. Simply, everyone was out-performed by Ferrari at Magny-Cours. Not least McLaren-Mercedes, who, by their own exalted standards, were a shambles in this race. David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen qualified well enough, third and fourth, but at the start of the formation lap, Mika's car failed to move - again! This time it was a gearbox problem, which prevented his engine from being started. "How do I feel?" he said. "I don't feel anything..."

DC fared somewhat better, salvaging a hard-fought fourth place, despite suffering a stop/go penalty, but if his world championship chances are not mathematically done, in reality only an act of God - several of them, in fact - is going to take him to Suzuka, three months hence, still in with a shout.

After starting only eighth, following a dreadful time in qualifying, Rubens Barrichello drove a really excellent race to third, holding off Coulthard in the late stages, and Jarno Trulli ended Jordan-Honda's dismal run with a disciplined drive to fifth, ahead of Nick Heidfeld's Sauber.

Not in any way a memorable French Grand Prix, this, save for the manner of Schumacher's domination, which was absolute. That fourth world championship is probably but a few weeks away. In qualifying a pattern seems to be emerging. At Montreal and the Nurburgring, the front row was all Schumacher, and in Magny-Cours the story was the same, the only difference being that this time Ralf, rather than Michael, took pole.

He did it with surprising ease, what's more. There may have been only a hundredth of a second between them, but the impression was that Michael was driving out of his skin, but that Ralf always had something in hand, and could respond, if the need arose.

He set his best time on his second run, with 28 minutes of the session to go, and gave the impression he could do anything with the Williams-BMW By contrast, on Michael's last couple of runs, the Ferrari was visibly at the limit, even over it, and although on each occasion he shaved the gap to his brother, this time there was no catching him.

It put one in mind of the Williams-Honda turbo days in the mid-late 1980s, when Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet had a considerable power advantage, and thus could always run more wing than the opposition, without being compromised in a straight line. At present BMW have the most powerful engine in Formula 1, and Williams are able to capitalise on it in exactly the same way. "Tell you what, though," said a team insider, "even so, we've got less total downforce than Ferrari..."

Ralf's first pole position, then, and on his 26th birthday too. Although obviously delighted, he played it all down: "It's nice to be on pole, but Saturday doesn't count." Well, perhaps not, but in this case it did mean that he would start from the front, and that, in light of what befell him - at Michael's hand - at the Nurburgring, was not be sniffed at.

Having been left with a choice between backing off and hitting the pit wall, Ralf went for the former, but after the race he declined to congratulate Michael on his victory, and was plainly not amused. Was he anticipating something similar here? "Well," he grinned, "my mother has warned him this time..."

Would he, now the pole man, adopt a similar tactic to keep Michael back, if necessary? Again the smile: "I have to protect my position, as he has."

Jacques Villeneuve, who knows all about running with Schumacher Sr at close quarters, just shrugged when asked his opinion of the start at the Nurburgring. "I just saw pictures, but, seeing the positions of the two cars, I can imagine how the rest of the start went. If I was surprised, it was only because it was against Ralf - but that's how we've seen Michael do most of his starts for the last three or four years, and nobody seems to think it's bad, so... fine!

"Has it been brought up at the drivers' meeting? No, it hasn't, actually. Last year we brought it up at nearly every race, so I guess we got bored with bringing it up..."

A Williams-BMW and a Ferrari on the front row, then, followed by the two McLaren-Mercedes, Coulthard once again quicker than Hakkinen. "My third run would have been my quickest," David said, "but there was gravel at one corner, where someone [Luciano Burti] had gone off. My last run was neater and quieter - and quicker. It's difficult to know exactly where we stand - because Williams are on different tyres - but I think we can take heart because we certainly could have been quicker. And generally we tend to be better in the race than in qualifying."

Tyres were obviously going to be a crucial factor, and although some Bridgestone teams were heard to murmur that the company's efforts were aimed too much towards the interests of Ferrari, all were well pleased with its latest offering. In the very high temperatures at Magny-Cours - 32C on Saturday afternoon -Michelin, whose tyres excel when it's hot, might have been expected to have the upper hand, but Schuey Sr confirmed that the latest Bridgestone was unaffected by heat. "No worries about temperature now," he said.

All the Bridgestone runners opted for the harder compound on offer, but R Schumacher's pole-sitting Williams was on the softer Michelins. Juan Pablo Montoya, however, had firmly decided on hard Michelins, and if this inevitably cost him in qualifying - he was sixth, seven-tenths slower than Ralf - it might pay dividends in the race. The soft tyres are obviously quicker initially," a team member said, "but later on they do have to be babied a bit more. Juan Pablo might have made a smart choice..."

He had, as it turned out, although unfortunately it was to avail him nothing. Later Ralf admitted that he had taken it very easy in the race morning warm-up: "I was frightened to give my tyres too hard a time."

When they ran the warm-up laps, half an hour before the start, a clutch problem was detected on Michaels Ferrari, and although it was thought that the problem had been fixed, on the grid it was found to be still there. A mechanical problem for Schumacher M? Surely not.

"It was OK," he said. "There was no problem during the pit stops, where you just dump the clutch as you get away, and the one time you need it to give real performance - at the start -it worked well enough for me to keep in second place."

Only just, though. While Ralf vaulted away in the lead, Coulthard got a run at his brother into the first turn, and nearly made it by.

At the Adelaide hairpin, Schumacher Jr missed his braking point, and ran wide, jinking back into line just in time to prevent Michael from going by. "The brake balance was difficult to find in the first few laps," he said, "and I went wide there a couple of times, fortunately without losing the lead."

Michael put him under the fiercest pressure in the early stages - indeed it was not until lap six that the lead reached an even second, and thereafter it grew only minimally. Coulthard, meanwhile, was staying within a second or so of the Ferrari, with Montoya a couple of seconds further back, tailed by Barrichello.

Already, though, Hakkinen was changing into civvies, his nightmare season unrelieved, his race - for the third time this season - over before it had started. "Mika's problem was caused by an incorrectly assembled component in the gearbox," said Ron Dennis, in explanation of his driver's failure to start the formation lap. "At times like this, it's important to remember that, through thick and thin, we are a team, and we all make mistakes."

Hakkinen seemed to have a problem thinking in those terms just at that moment. "How do I feel?" he said. "Well, if I'd been leading, and then retired, I'd probably have felt quite a lot. As it is, I feel nothing."

Mika apart, the first significant retirement was that of Jacques Villeneuve, whose BAR-Honda pulled off on lap six, engine dead. As he stalked away from the car, ripping off his gloves Jacques' body language was eloquent: too much more of this, it said, and I'm off.

"It seems to have been some kind of electrical problem," he said, "because the engine just cut. I'm extremely disappointed, because it felt like we had a really good car today, and I thought we could finish well."

After 10 laps, Ralf led Michael by 1.4 seconds, with Coulthard a further second behind, then Montoya, Barrichello, Trulli, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, and the Saubers of Kimi Raikkonen and Heidfeld. By lap 20, the brothers were still only two seconds apart, so it really was nip-and-tuck. The stops would be crucial.

Ralf came in at the end of lap 24, and his stop - at 10.3 seconds - was a long one. "There seemed to be a problem with the right rear wheel," he said, and indeed there was - but only because the driver had engaged first gear too early.

In fact, he had a far worse problem to come. The following lap, Michael made his first stop, and, at 7.7 seconds, it was quick enough to get him out again in front of his brother - who now found himself with a very different car to drive.

"In the first stint, it was very easy to drive," Ralf said, "but after the stop, it became very difficult, sliding everywhere. I was really slow - almost parking, it felt. My second set of tyres was terrible."

At the same time, Michael was now on to his best set of tyres in the race, and the gap between them grew accordingly, sometimes by more than a second a lap.

As the Schumachers and Coulthard had made their stops, so Montoya moved into the lead, staying out for five laps longer, thanks to his hard-compound Michelins, and a bigger fuelload, of course. On lap 30Juan was in, and although he resumed back in fourth place, behind Barrichello, he became for a while the fastest man on the circuit, lapping more swiftly even than Michael.

It was at around this time that notice was given of a 10-second stop/go penalty for Coulthard, who had marginally exceeded the pit lane speed limit after his stop. In he came again to serve it, on lap 32, and now he was back in fifth, his race ruined.

At halfway, 36 laps, Schuey Sr was 12.2 seconds ahead of Ralf, with Barrichello third, Montoya closing on him, then Coulthard, Trulli, Heidfeld and Frentzen.

Ross Brawn had suggested to Barrichello that maybe a three-stop strategy might be the way for him, and Rubens agreed. "I'd had a terrible time in qualifying - oversteer into fast corners, and understeer into slow -but in the warm-up the car felt much better. During the first part of the race, I was going very well, making places, and also saving fuel. When Ross radioed me, suggesting three stops, I went along with it - the idea was that I would be running quickly all the time, and it worked very well."

Barrichello's second stop allowed Montoya into third place, and, once there, he began quickly to close on Ralf - who promptly ducked into the pits for his second stop. "It was getting to the point that I was going to be holding him up, so it seemed a good idea to come in early, and change this terrible set of tyres. Juan was on a later stop than I was, anyway, but he definitely made the better choice of tyre today. If he hadn't had his problem, he would definitely have beaten me today..."

When Ralf, and then Michael, made their second stops, Montoya once more took over the lead, and in those five laps succeeded in pulling away from the Ferrari, before himself coming in on lap 50. He rejoined in third place, but only a couple of laps later slowed suddenly, his engine sounding terrible, and then pulled off. "It started losing power the lap before," he said, "and then just died completely. I'm a bit frustrated, because - choosing the hard tyre - we sacrificed qualifying performance for the race, and it was beginning to pay off. I was pleased with the performance of the car today."

As Montoya retired, so Coulthard, in his efforts to catch Barrichello for third place, set what was to prove the fastest lap of the race. He would chase Rubens all the way to the flag, and a couple of times got almost alongside him, but if DC was superb under braking, in the end the Ferrari's superior horsepower proved too much for him.

Into the closing laps, then. By now Ralf, on his third set of tyres, was much happier with his Williams, and began to close slightly on Michael, but it was all academic: towards the end, indeed, Ferrari hung out a 'Cut Revs' board, and Michael duly complied.

Not too much happened in the late stages, save that Eddie Irvine - after a fine drive in the Jaguar, which could have yielded a championship point -pulled off with a blown engine.

At the flag the Schumachers were a little over 10 seconds apart, and Michael, whether he admitted it or not, surely knew that now the world title was effectively his. "I have to be honest," he allowed, "and say that 31 points is a very comfortable lead."

As throughout the weekend, his voice was quieter, weaker, than usual. "I still have a bit of flu, picked up at the Nurburgring," he said, "and I feel a bit more tired than usual after a race." Maybe so, but after 72 laps, in searing heat, there was still not a bead of sweat on his brow.

It was pointed out to Ralf that his six points had taken him into third place in the world championship, one ahead of Barrichello. Could he now move up to second? "Mmmm, second, third... it doesn't really matter, does it?" he said. "It's winning that counts. Michael's done it this year, hasn't he? Maybe I'll do it next year."

In the McLaren motorhome, meantime, Sid Watkins and other medical men were looking after the unfortunate Coulthard, who had succumbed perhaps to a mix of heat, fatigue and food poisoning, and was lying on the floor of the McLaren motorhome, shivering uncontrollably, after throwing up several times. This should have been David's best shot at the world championship, and he remains Michael's closest rival. In reality, though, the thing is as good as over.