Schumacher wins French Grand Prix

Michael Schumacher drove a brilliant race on Sunday to win the French Grand Prix and the 2002 Driver's World Championship.

He beautifully set up the race to take the lead in the last few laps to bag his fifth World Championship and his 61st Grand Prix victory.

The victory was the German's eighth in 11 races, giving him an unbeatable lead of 62 points with a maximum of 60 remaining to be won.

In equalling the late Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio's record of five championships, and three in a row, Schumacher became the first driver to win the title as early as July and with six rounds in hand.

Schumacher also set a record of 16 successive points finishes, beating Argentine Carlos Reutemann's 15.

Finland's Kimi Raikkonnen was heading for a certain victory, when, with five laps to go, his McLaren skidded wide and conceded the lead to Schumacher.

His McLaren teammate David Coulthard finished a well deserving third. J P Montoya and Ralf Schumacher in BMW Williams finished fourth and fifth respectively, while Jenson Button in Renault finished on sixth.

It was a disastrous start for Ferrari, as Rubens Barrichello's car failed to start forcing him to retire without even a single lap.

Montoya, though, took advantage of the pole position start to take the race lead, closely followed by Michael Schumacher.

Raikkonnen in his McLaren-Mercedes also got off to a good start, and was just behind Michael Schumacher.

It was a tight wheel-to-wheel battle between these top three cars on the third lap as they tried to overtake each other, but nothing ensued as they managed to hold on their positions.

David Coulthard in the other McLaren-Mercedes, was looking good at fifth place, closely following Ralf Schumacher.

When Ralf Schumacher went for his first pit stop on lap no 22, quickly followed by Montaya two laps later, Michael Schumacher took the lead for the first time.

However, he could hold on to his lead only for a short while, as he went for a pit stop on lap no 26. Schumacher rejoined the race at third position, just ahead of Montoya.

But Ferrari received a jolt when Schumacher was awarded a 10 seconds 'drive through penalty' for crossing the pit lane exit line.

Montoya then took the race lead after Raikkonnen went into the pits for his first stop.

It was then a tough battle between Schumacher and Raikkonnen for the second place, with Raikkonnen managing to hold on to the lead over the German.

The race leader changed yet again after Montoya went for his second pit stop and Raikkonnen sped to the first place, closely followed by Schumacher.

David Coulthard was also awarded a 10 seconds 'drive through penalty' for the same offence committed by Schumacher earlier.

The race was now nicely set up for McLaren as Raikkonnen looked well set to win, with a lead of one second over Michael Schumacher and David Coulthard looked sure of a third place finish.

But Raikkonnen's McLaren skidded wide allowing Schumacher to zip past him for a win.