The 2001 French Grand Prix (officially the Mobil 1 Grand Prix de France) was a Formula One motor race held at the Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours, Magny-Cours, France on 1 July 2001 before a crowd of 120,717 people. It was the tenth race of the 2001 Formula One World Championship and the 51st French Grand Prix as part of the series. Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher won the 72-lap race starting from second position. Ralf Schumacher finished second for the Williams team with Rubens Barrichello third in the other Ferrari. Ralf Schumacher led the opening 23 laps before he made his first pit stop and Michael Schumacher assumed the lead after the first round of pit stops. His nearest championship rival David Coulthard of the McLaren outfit served a ten-second stop-and-go penalty on lap 32 for an earlier transgression of speeding at the pit lane exit. Michael Schumacher pulled away from the slower car of Ralf Schumacher who baulked his teammate Juan Pablo Montoya, until his second pit stop on the 44th lap. Montoya led laps 46 to 50 before he ceded the lead to Michael Schumacher, who maintained it to take his sixth victory of the season and the 50th of his career. The result enabled Michael Schumacher to increase his Drivers' Championship lead over Coulthard in second to 31 points. Ralf Schumacher's second-place finish moved him past Barrichello for third. Although he retired from the event, Montoya kept fifth. Ferrari further extended their Constructors' Championship advantage to 52 points over the McLaren team in second. Williams remained in third place with 43 points while Sauber broke its tie with Jordan to move into a clear fourth with seven rounds left in the season. Background The 2001 French Grand Prix was the tenth of seventeen scheduled single seater races of the 2001 Formula One World Championship and the 51st running of the event as part of the series. It took place at the fifteen-turn Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours in the commune of Magny-Cours, Burgundy on 1 July 2001. The layout of the circuit provided a mixture of corners taken at low and high speeds with four long and short straights. It had a flat and smooth racing surface that had no single deformation around the track to disrupt the stability of the cars and the series' two tyre suppliers Bridgestone and Michelin brought soft compound tyres to maximise mechanical grip.