French GP: Schuey's fab four

Once again Ferrari's race strategy - the team's most renowned and successful tool - ensured Schumacher sprinted to victory ruining Renault's home race with Alonso having to settle for second spot.

Yet it seemed the Spaniard had the race in the bag after leading for 32 of the 70-lap race. A dream start once again from the 'Rocket Renault' ensured Alonso got in front of Schumacher as the lights went out and by lap four he already had 1.4s in hand over the chasing German.

Schumacher responded setting the fastest laps of the race reducing the gap to just 0.6s by lap 10 in the oppressively quick Ferrari. And then we knew why as Schumacher filtered into the pits on lap 11 for his first pitstop.

Alonso pitted three laps later making his pole position on Saturday even more impressive considering his more substantial fuel load compared to Schumacher. He re-joined the race in the lead with extra time in hand - he was now 2.8s ahead of the German.

It seemed the master strategists Ferrari had blown it as Schumacher was buried in traffic while Alonso carved out an increasing gap. But we should know better than to doubt the reigning world champions as Schumacher responded eating into Alonso's lead, so that just 0.7s separated the two as Schumacher made what was to be his crucial second pitstop.

The stop was to last just 6.2s, as unbeknown to onlookers, Ferrari took the brave decision to switch to a four-stop race, short-fuelling Schumacher to enable him to run light and set qualifying-spec laps so that he came out in front of the Spaniard after his final stop.

The strategy was there, now Schumacher had to make it happen. And he did just that, pulling out lap after lap that were over a second quicker than Alonso so that by his fourth and final pitstop he had a 21.7s cushion over the Spaniard.

The race of strategy had worked courtesy of some cunning thought, the use of softer Bridgestone tyres, a softer rear suspension and the short Magny-Cours pit lane. But this time, the winning strategy wasn't engineered by Brawn.

"The strategy switch wasn't my idea, Luca Baldisserri came up with the idea," the Briton admitted. "We had nothing to lose. We didn't know it would work but it was worth trying. I would have been too difficult to overtake Fernando, so switching to this strategy meant that Michael could run in clear air."

Baldisserri added: "We thought 'why not?' You lose the position on track, but if you have a fast car you can try a different strategy. Here we knew we could use four stops against someone who was three-stopping."

Schumacher admitted the tactic had been 'fun' although he was surprised at the pace of Alonso.

"We switched strategy after the second pitstop. We decided to go for it because there was no challenge from behind, it was only ahead of us. We knew it was optimistic, but no risk, no fun. Ross decided for it and it was just brilliant.

"I wasn't so optimistic going into the race, but the tyres worked fantastically towards the end of the stint where our competitors struggled. That was one of the key issues where I was able to open the gap before the final pitstop.

"I was surprised after my second pitstop how Fernando was able to keep up with me. By our calculations he was with me for a lot longer than I thought. I thought we were behind schedule and then we saw him pull in very early and put in a lot of fuel for his last stint. That was our opportunity because his tyres struggled a bit during towards the end, and we opened the gap."

Alonso, who has yet to win a race since his maiden victory in Hungary last year, admitted the team had done all it could to wrest the lead from Schumacher, but the German was just too good.

"I think we did the maximum, I pushed from the beginning until the end," said the Spaniard. "We were surprised that Michael kept stopping so early, and when he kept pushing so hard it was impossible for us to keep up the pace. After the third stop we knew that a fourth stop was coming."

The Ferrari party wasn't over though for team-mate Rubens Barrichello, who won the equally exciting battle for third that had raged throughout the race between him, Renault's Jarno Trulli and BAR-Honda's Jenson Button.

The Brazilian qualified a disappointing 10th but with a mixture of classy pit work and one or two overtaking manoeuvres Barrichello found himself up to fifth behind the rear of Button, who was hounding Trulli following the Italian's nippy start off the line which leapfrogged him to third ahead of the Briton and McLaren's David Coulthard.

If anyone was going to wrest the final podium stop from Trulli then it seemed Button was the man as he prepared to pass the Italian during the final pitstop. What seemed like a very plausible effort soon dissipated as first the Briton lost the back end of his BAR on his in-lap and then his anti-stall system botched his pitstop.

What was a fight for third became a fight for fourth as Barrichello took advantage of Button's mishaps to take him going into the hairpin. It was a poor defense by Button who found himself in fifth.

With Button out the way, Barrichello pushed Trulli hard but with one lap remaining it seemed he would have to make do with fourth. That was until he caught Trulli napping on the penultimate corner and dived inside the unsuspecting Italian who, like Button, made no effort to close the door on the Brazilian. Less than a second separated the three drivers as they crossed the line.

"It was a great race, and I had a very fast car," Barrichello said. "I must say that people were very fair on the track today. After running first in qualifying yesterday, it was a big penalty, so I played my cards and did everything I could. Jarno made a mistake and slowed down a bit too much at Turn 13 and I was able to pull alongside him at 15. It was risky, but I took the risk and it was worth it. I was very glad for myself, and the team, that I could go from 10th to third."

Just three seconds down on Button was the McLaren duo of David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen who drove the new MP4-19B in its first race of the season. The team wasn't expecting miracles this weekend, but to be on the pace of the Renaults, BARs and Ferraris ahead of them will be encouraging.

Juan Pablo Montoya rounded out the top 10 in what was a torrid race for the Williams driver. Last year the Colombian famously shouted at his team over the radio over his annoyance at team-mate Ralf Schumacher getting preferential treatment in the pit lane. This year Montoya was once again shouting on the radio, but this time over a badly-behaving FW26 that caused him to spin at the final chicane, run wide on several occasions, and lock-up his tyres more than he would dare mention.

Team-mate Marc Gene fared no better, the Spaniard brought the second Williams home in 10th spot and, to add insult to injury, it was behind the Jaguar of Mark Webber. It was a far-cry from last year's Williams 1-2, and this time the team had brought a new aero package to France.

Jaguar's Christian Klien was 11th in the second Jaguar while Giancarlo Fisichella and Felipe Massa had a disappointing race to finish 12th and 13th respectively. Toyota had a particularly awful race with Cristiano da Matta and Oliver Panis a lowly 14th and 15th - what happened to the car da Matta was driving on Friday when he topped the session two practice times?

Jordan's Nick Heidfeld (16th) led his team-mate Giorgio Pantano (17th) home once again while Minardi's Gianmaria Bruni finished his race in the pit but was classified 18th.

Remarkably there were just two retirements - BAR-Honda's Takuma Sato had yet another engine failure while Minardi's Zsolt Baumgartner spun his car and got stuck in the gravel.