Date 28 June 1998 | Course length 4.250 km (2.641 mi) | |
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Official name Mobil 1 Grand Prix de France Location Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours, Magny-Cours, France Course Permanent racing facility Distance 71 laps, 301.750 km (187.499 mi) | ||
The 1998 French Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Magny-Cours on 28 June 1998. The 72-lap race was won by German Michael Schumacher driving for Ferrari. His teammate from the United Kingdom, Eddie Irvine finished second. Mika Häkkinen, driving a McLaren-Mercedes finished in third. Also, the weekend clashed with France's Round of 16 World Cup game.
Contents
Background
The grand prix was originally dropped due to a dispute over television broadcasting rights in France for the race. French broadcasters TF1 had the broadcasting rights while rival channel FR3 obtained a judgement from a French court to allow all channels to operate on the grounds of the racetrack.
Jos Verstappen replaced Jan Magnussen at Stewart GP through the rest of the season.
Qualifying
Mika Häkkinen of McLaren-Mercedes took pole position, beating Michael Schumacher by 0.2 seconds. David Coulthard qualified third, and Eddie Irvine took fourth place. Throughout the qualifying session, Schumacher and Häkkinen exchanged first place, until Häkkinen finally took the pole.
Race
At the beginning of the race, Jos Verstappen stalled his Stewart, meaning that a restart had to be called for. At the second start, Mika Häkkinen was overtaken by both Scuderia Ferrari drivers Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher. This meant that Häkkinen dropped down from first to third, and Schumacher led Irvine in a Ferrari 1-2. After the start, Schumacher began to pull away; sometimes at one second a lap. While Schumacher was pulling away, Irvine was holding both the McLarens behind him. On lap 20, Häkkinen tried an ambitious move on Irvine. His attempt failed, and he spun into the gravel trap. However, he managed to keep his car going, went into the pits for more tyres, and rejoined in fourth place. However, he regained third place when David Coulthard had problems with his pitstop. Coulthard went into the pits, but due to a fuel filling problem, had to do another lap, and then go into the pits again. After this second set of pits, Häkkinen was back behind Irvine, and Schumacher was some way in front. On the final lap, on the final corner, Häkkinen made an attempt to overtake Irvine, after Irvine was very slow through the chicane before the final corner. Irvine just held off Häkkinen to take second, by only a tenth of a second. However, both drivers were 19 seconds behind Schumacher. After Coulthard's misfortune in the pitlane, he finished sixth, scoring one world championship point. It was Ferrari's first one-two for 8 years, the previous being at the 1990 Spanish Grand Prix, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell scoring the one-two.