2001 Canadian Grand Prix

The 2001 Canadian Grand Prix was the eighth of seventeen scheduled races of the 2001 Formula One World Championship and the 33rd edition of the event as part of the Formula One World Championship. It was held on 10 June at the 13-turn temporary road course Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Quebec and was run over 69 laps. For the race, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA; Formula One's governing body) race director Charlie Whiting made a request to Canadian Grand Prix president Normand Legault to install two-inch "ribs" behind the kerbs at turns 12 and 13 to try and convince racers to alter their trajectory through the chicane to improve their chances of their cars not sustaining damage. The Ferrari Challenge, Formula Ford 1600 and the Toyota Atlantic Championship held support races during the weekend. Going into the race, Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher led the World Drivers' Championship with 52 championship points, ahead of the second-placed David Coulthard of McLaren (40) and Rubens Barrichello in the second Ferrari (24) in third. Williams' Ralf Schumacher was in fourth on 12 championship points and Nick Heidfeld of Sauber was fifth with eight championship points. Ferrari led the World Constructors' Championship with 76 championship points; McLaren and Williams were second and third with 44 and 18 championship points respectively. Jordan with 13 championship points and Sauber with 12 contended for fourth place. Ten of the eleven teams held a three-day test session at the Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours in France. Marc Gené, Williams's test driver, set the pace on the third and final day. Three squads spent three days at the Monza Circuit in Italy, with Sauber's Kimi Räikkönen leading on the first day, Luca Badoer, Ferrari's test driver, spent three days at the Fiorano Circuit, Ferrari's private circuit, shaking down three F2001 chassis that were transported to the Canadian Grand Prix as well as performing practice starts and testing car components. Michael Schumacher had won the Canadian Grand Prix four times in his career up until the 2001 race. He and spoke of his confidence that he could win at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for the fifth time despite his dislike of the track due to his preference of high-speed corners, "The records I have in Montreal are good but that means nothing now as it is a new challenge. We need to be prepared to do a good job. It will be a tight competition between us and probably McLaren and Williams, and anyone else who has improved a lot." His brother Ralf Schumacher stated that he hoped to extend his points tally after a poor performance at the preceding Monaco Grand Prix, "I think the Circuit Giles Villeneuve could be pretty favourable to our car as we have a powerful engine, which is essential there. It's not particularly demanding on the drivers, as it is basically a "stop-and-go" track. I like Montreal and I am looking forward to being there, hoping this time I will be able to finish my race and be in the points." There were eleven teams (each representing a different constructor) with two drivers each for the event. In particular, Sauber, Jordan and Arrows brought brake air intake fairings similar to those introduced by Ferrari since the ; Sauber did not use their new air intake fairings for the race itself. ==Practice==

A total of four practice sessions preceded Sunday's race—two one-hour sessions on Thursday, and two 45-minute sessions on Saturday. Conditions were dry and sunny for the Friday practice sessions. Coulthard was fastest in the first practice session on Friday morning with a time of 1:18.763, almost four-tenths of a second faster than Barrichello in second. His teammate Michael Schumacher was third and was fastest before Coulthard's and Barrichello's late session laps. Mika Häkkinen, Olivier Panis, Heidfeld, Jarno Trulli, Räikkönen, Ralf Schumacher and Montoya completed the top ten. Jacques Villeneuve lost control of the rear of his BAR leaving turn five and struck the barriers lining the circuit at the next corner due to a suspension failure at almost , heavily damaging his car against the guardrail; the car rested upon a tyre wall. Villeneuve and no one else was unhurt but he was forced to miss the remainder of the session since his car was destroyed; rules prohibited drivers from using the spare car during free practice and were only able to drive spare cars from the start of qualifying. In the second practice session held later in the afternoon on a cleaner circuit than at the beginning of the preceding session, Häkkinen set the day's fastest lap with the only sub-1:18 time at 1:17.692, breaking the circuit record set by Michael Schumacher in 1997. He was followed by his teammate Coulthard, Eddie Irvine, Barrichello, Montoya, Ralf Schumacher, Heidfeld, Trulli, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Panis. had an altercation with Juan Pablo Montoya for which both drivers were warned a similar incident would result in a ban of two races. At the drivers' briefing later on Friday, Montoya reportedly threatened to place Villeneuve in the wall and Villeneuve responded by saying he would put Montoya in a tree. Montoya then told Villeneuve that he "killed" marshal Graham Beveridge in a crash at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix three months earlier. His remark prompted Villeneuve to grab Montoya by the collar on his racing overalls in an attempt to choke him, causing FIA race director Charlie Whiting to intervene to stop the altercation. His car was taken over by Jordan test and reserve driver Ricardo Zonta for the remainder of the weekend after the stewards granted Jordan's request under the Formula One Sporting Code. Weather conditions were sunny for the third practice session held on Saturday morning. Häkkinen led the session with a lap time of 1:16.628 set in the final minutes. His teammate Coulthard was 0.047 seconds slower in second and Michael Schumacher was third. Barrichello, Ralf Schumacher, Irvine, Heidfeld, Pedro de la Rosa, Räikkönen and Panis filled positions four through ten. Trulli spun at the L'Epingle hairpin and took nearly five minutes to engage reverse gear before driving into the pit lane. Michael Schumacher was fastest with a 1:16.200 lap. Coulthard in the faster of the two McLarens came second and his teammate Häkkinen was third. Following in the top ten were Barrichello, the Sauber duo of Heidfeld and Räikkönen, Panis, Ralf Schumacher, Trulli and De la Rosa. Häkkinen braked too late for the L'Epingle hairpin and got his McLaren stuck in the gravel trap at the end of the session. ==Qualifying==

had his sixth pole position in Montréal and the 38th of his career. Saturday's afternoon one hour qualifying session saw each driver limited to twelve laps, with the grid order decided by their fastest laps. During this session, the 107% rule was in effect, which necessitated each driver to set a time within 107 per cent of the quickest lap to qualify for the race. 27 minutes into qualifying, Michael Schumacher took the 38th pole position of his career with a 1:15.782 lap that he set on his sixth timed lap with 12 minutes remaining, the only driver to set a sub-1:16 time. His brother Ralf Schumacher was 0.515 seconds slower in second and set his best time on the harder Michelin compound on his ninth try 38 minutes in after he heavily altered his racing set-up. Coulthard ran wide at the final chicane during his first timed lap but improved in the final sector on his last try late in the session for third, moving from fourth and demoting Trulli to the position. Trulli was ordered to parc fermé at the entry of the pit lane and he felt it prevented him from bettering his time due to the long amount of time he was kept there by marshals. Barrichello's fastest time was recorded on his last run. Qualifying classification ;Notes • — Fernando Alonso was excluded from qualifying due to an illegal front wing. ==Warm-up==

On race morning, teams had a half-hour warm-up session to fine-tune their cars for the race in warm and sunny conditions. Panis ran faster than he had done during the weekend, setting the session's fastest lap of 1:18.512 seconds. Coulthard was the faster of the two McLarens in second and his teammate Häkkinen came fifth after the team rebuilt his car overnight. The top six drivers were separated by 0.15 seconds. Although warm-up was generally devoid of incident, Häkkinen braked too late for turn one and ran across the gravel trap but avoided hitting the tyre barrier. ==Race==

The race began at 13:00 Eastern Standard Time (UTC+05:00). The air temperature ranged from and the track temperature was between ; Michael Schumacher made a good start to hold the first position from Ralf Schumacher on the inside line going into the first corner. Coulthard in third place was heavily fuelled for a one-stop strategy and he led a close pack of cars. Verstappen was lightly fuelled and he gained seven places to move into seventh, while Zonta moved from twelfth to ninth. Barrichello overtook Trulli for fourth later in the lap. Fisichella's right-front suspension was broken and he drove into the pit lane to retire. On lap two, Irvine made contact with one of Heidfeld's rear tyres going into turn three and both drivers spun into the grass. until Barrichello bettered it by eight-tenths of a second on lap four to draw closer to him. Bernoldi made the first pit stop of the Grand Prix on the ninth lap per the instruction of his team to remove a paper bag from his radiator to stop his engine from overheating. The safety car closed the field up, On the following lap, Villeneuve retired on the start/finish straight with a broken driveshaft after having earlier problems with his brakes. He entered the pit lane at the end of lap 51 and emerged 6.4 seconds in front of Michael Schumacher. Four laps later, Coulthard's engine failed on the back straight because of rising water temperatures and entered the pit lane with smoke billowing from the rear of his car, curtailing his race. Michael Schumacher finished in second, achieving the first one-two finish for siblings in a Grand Prix in the history of Formula One. Michael Schumacher spoke of a "happy family day" and stated that he was aware his brother was experienced enough not to make a driving error, "He obviously was close to overtaking but when you're inside, basically you have to brake a little bit earlier to make the corner and I was braking very late to try the maximum and as he said, he was going longer than I was, so I understand that he didn't take the maximum risk for either of us. It worked out for him." Williams technical director Patrick Head stated the team were not worried over the brakes. McLaren CEO Ron Dennis said that he was quite impressed with how Coulthard handled his suspension problem, "To have a problem like he had, to continue to race and maintain a strong pace requires a mixture of courage and tenacity." Prost team owner Alain Prost stated that the squad had experienced "an intense happiness" over their performance in the race, adding, "More than just two essential points for us, this result is the confirmation of our performance in Monaco, of our motivation and our potential." Irvine said that he accepted "two-third of the blame" for his accident with Heidfeld on lap two. Race classification Drivers who scored championship points are denoted in bold. ==Championship standings after the race==

;Drivers' Championship standings ;Constructors' Championship standings • Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. ==References==