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French Grand Prix Race Results |
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French Grand Prix Race Results |
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Download the NewsOnF1.com |
Race Report - ResultsMichael Schumacher wins his 50 Grand
Prix of his career and his 6th race of the season increasing his lead in
the championship over David Coulthard to 31 points. With 7 races to go,
his 4th title is looking very good. Drama at the start for Mika Hakkinen as the
McLaren stalls on the formation lap yet again!. He is pulled into the pits
but doesn't start and his race ends there. The top 3 remain close to each other with around 1.5 seconds separating each of them until the first round of pit stops when Ralf Schumacher pits followed by Michael Schumacher. Ralf has a slow stop and Michael overtakes him. Coulthard pits a couple of laps later and rejoins in 4th while Montoya on the harder compound Michelin stays out for a few more laps. On lap 32 David Coulthard is given a 10 second stop-go penalty for speeding in the pit lane ending any chance for him winning the race. He pits and rejoins in 5th place 32 seconds behind Michael Schumacher. The second set of tyres for Ralf were
pretty bad and he was losing a lot of time to Michael Schumacher in the
lead and on lap 44 Ralf Schumacher pits and Michael Schumacher pits a
couple of laps later. Montoya takes the lead temporarily until he pits on
lap 50 but retires with engine problems 2 laps later. Coulthard was pushing Barrichello hard for 3rd place and attempted to overtake him several times without success and Barrichello retained 3rd. Jarno Trulli is finally rewarded with a 5th place following another strong performance and luckily his Jordan managed to finish. In fact the 2 Jordans managed to finish this round and it was the first points finish for the team since the Spanish GP. Sauber once again managed to score a point with Nick Heidfeld while Kimi Raikkonen finished 7th. Just 5 cars were not classified although Alonso and Button also did not cross the finish line but were classified as finishers. This shows the high level of reliability of the cars and with no retirements caused by mistakes, it also shows the level of competitiveness between the drivers. So Michael Schumacher once again capitalises on the misfortunes of his rivals, with David Coulthard penalised for pit lane speeding and Ralf Schumacher struggling with his tyres, Michael Schumacher driving a very consistent race wins the race and adds another 10 points to his championship total making it nearly impossible for David Coulthard to catch him with only 7 races remaining. Ralf Schumacher has taken 3rd place in the championship ahead of Barrichello who despite starting from 8th managed to finish in 3rd thanks to a 3-stop strategy, the 10 second penalty for Coulthard and the retirements of Montoya and Hakkinen. In the constructors championship, Ferrari are now a massive 52 points ahead of McLaren while Williams are just 13 points behind McLaren certainly threatening McLaren for second. Sauber managed to score 1 point from Heidfeld while Jordan reduced the gap to Sauber to just 1 point as Trulli scored 2 points for Jordan. Click here of the Drivers' Championship table for this season The next race is the British GP from Silverstone on the 15th of July
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