Preview - French Grand Prix 2002.

After the excitement of the British Grand Prix - arguably one of the most action packed Grand Prix in years - Formula One heads to France for the eleventh race of the season.

And with six races yet to run after the French GP, a Michael Schumacher win with team-mate Barrichello Williams driver Juan Pablo Montoya finishing also lower than third will mean Schumi takes the title. Whilst Barrichello's finishing position can easily be assured - as the Austrian GP showed us, Montoya might prove a little more difficult, especially if he drives as he did at Silverstone.

The French Grand Prix is currently held at Magny Cours but has been held in seven different places since the first championship race in 1950. France is viewed as the home of Grand Prix racing, hence the name Grand Prix and the fact that all FIA rules originate en Francais.

The track itself is located essentially in the middle of nowhere and is a medium-to-high downforce circuit. As Renault's Pat Symonds explains, it's a difficult circuit for set-up. ''The track has a very smooth surface and it can be very hard work as it is extremely sensitive to track temperature - much more so than other circuits,'' Symonds explained, ''That means the car tends to oversteer as the circuit warms up, and this is a factor we must always keep in mind.

''Overall, you often find you are chasing the circuit with set-up. It is very easy for big understeer to build in turn two and, what's more, the circuit demands high speed changes of direction and good traction out of a number of slow corners.

Such is their dominance this year, who else but Ferrari can you expect at the fore? The interest in the Scarlet cars is that Rubens Barrichello has continued to outqualify Michael Schumacher an unprecedented three times this year and has also been pushing him hard in the races as well. Schumacher's old sparring buddy, Damon Hill, has said that Schumacher should retire, but Damon's hardly the person to listen to for retirement advice. Barrichello's performance relative to the Ferrari No.1 is definitely of significance however. In many ways Formula One would benefit from an early Schumacher championship if it means that Schumacher and Barrichello can fight fair and square for the rest of the season. Though Michael, of course, might feel out of his depth without team orders in his favour, after all he's not experienced that for a very long time.

Williams see the home advantage for their Michelin tyres, thought they will be hoping that there isn't intermediate weather conditions. The Magny Cours circuit can provide a variety of weathers, intermediate weather would be most embarrassing indeed for the Michelin man. Juan Pablo Montoya should put on another storming drive, especially in qualifying, and Ralf will be no doubt considering visiting a petrol station and queueing up with the 2CVs and Renault 4s come fuel stop time.

McLaren had a rather difficult time at Silverstone and Ron Dennis is sure to have cancelled his digital F1 subscription. David Coulthard and young Raikkonen will both be putting in their usual strong performances in a car that still isn't quite there.

Renault have been a bit subdued of late, and the French GP is the first time for the team at home in many years so expect all stops being pulled out ''We will certainly be looking for points, and it would be great to improve on that at our home race,'' techincal director Mike Gascoyne said ''That must be our aim. There would be no better place in the whole year to score a podium finish." Both Button and Trulli could do with a good performance, but it's Button that needs to impress the most in case he is foisted on to the job market.

Somehow Sauber always remain inconspicuous. Good solid performances are expected of the Swiss team and usually are delivered. Silverstone saw points for Heidfeld and a top ten for Massa but Sauber seem to be having a rather quiet season. The results have been good and they stand fifth in the points but as a team, and through their performances, they don't jump out at you.

Of the drivers, Heidfeld has driven there before, and knows it rather well as he explains: ''It's very much a track that keeps you on your toes. I can say that I know it pretty well after covering a total of 1626 kilometres during the three days of the race last year (767km) and during the tests (859km)!''

By contrast new team-mate Felipe Massa has hardly seen the French circuit, let alone driven anything as powerful as his Sauber-Petronas C21 on it. But the Brazilian isn't too worried. ''I've never been to Magny-Cours, but I won't have any problem to learn the circuit,'' he insisted, ''And it's always better if you don't have so many bumps. The C21 is quick and well balanced, so I think we will be competitive again this weekend.''

At Jordan Honda Takuma Sato has been outqualifying old hand Giancarlo Fisichella of late and this has certainly caused some interest. For the team, and the speculation regarding its Honda engine supply, BAR stole a march on them at Silverstone by getting both cars in the points whilst Jordan didn't. Ironically Japanese driver Sato, saw his race end early due to engine failure. France is one of the three places where Jordan previously has scored a race victory, so they could surprise everyone with a good performance, but realistically expect them at best just to nudge into the points.

David Richards can rejoice that BAR are no longer pointless. Frenchman Olivier Panis will be the only native driving in the race but does not let the excitement of a home race cloud his judgement: ''The French Grand Prix is my home race and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to finish in the points at Magny-Cours also. We have to be realistic though and accept that we still have a big challenge in front of us," Panis said ''Racing in front of your home crowd is always something special. The massive amount of fans cheering for you makes the atmosphere thrilling. On the other hand, for me the job is the same everywhere and wherever the race is I keep focused on the job at stake with only one target, which is to give 100 per cent. I'm racing to win.''

French Canadian Jacques Villeneuve also seems to be buoyed by the car finally getting into the points this season so there could well be another good performance coming from him.

What can you say about Jaguar? Niki Lauda has previously gone on record as saying "If you design a bullshit car, you can't do anything in a season. If it is bad at the start you are stuck with it all season" and how true he was. Jaguar's much vaunted aero revisions certainly failed to impress at Silverstone. A quick fix would be for Lauda to accept some Arrows chassis in lieu of payment for the Cosworth powerplants they supply to Walkinshaw's operation. If a delivery of British Racing Green paint arrives at Arrow's Leafield base you know that Walkinshaw's had the same idea. Both Jaguar drivers are continuing to push, but where they are placed on the grid is not worthy of either them, or the Ford expenditure to get them there.

Minardi should put on another solid tail end performance, courtesy of Mark Webber. Yoong's focus, initially at least will be the qualifying session so that he can actually get into the race.

After a recent run of reliability problems, the Panasonic Toyota Racing team's primary objective in France will be to get both of its cars to the finish of what is traditionally a high-attrition race. As Ove Andersson explains, ''The British Grand Prix was proof that you can leave no stone unturned in Formula 1. We had two mechanical failures in the race, which was very disappointing, especially at this stage of the season. We have to overcome these if we are to continue to progress as a team. The French Grand Prix is the home race of our tyre supplier Michelin, so it would be satisfying to get a good result for them this weekend. The weather will hopefully be warm, which should be to our advantage.'' McNish, despite having an awful British Grand Prix with his early retirement, has at least had the novelty of beating the top teams in Formula One at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where the tiny Scot set an new official record in front of record crowds.

Arrows performance has been a real shame for F1 this year. With Cosworth power, and a design team that usually knocks up a pretty tidy chassis, far greater things could have happened this year if the money hadn't been so tight. Testing was limited for the car at the beginning of the season and F1 certainly misses the first lap antics of hard charging Dutchman Jos Verstappen. That said, despite the true extent of its financial woes coming to the fore at Silverstone, Heinz Harald Frentzen drove a blinding race in Silverstone. But for reliability Frentzen could have produced a shock result in Silverstone. Magny Cours should be good for the Leafield concern, provided Tom's piggy bank is close at hand to ensure enough cash to run this weekend.

As for tyres, Bridgestone and their unique relationship with Ferrari are the real story of 2002. The Japanese concern is taking two new specifications of dry weather tyre to France and both were tested last week. Hisao Suganuma, Technical Manager of Bridgestone Motorsport, explains their target for Magny Cours: "Clearly, our main aim towards being competitive at Magny-Cours is to minimise rear tyre degradation and to find a high level of heat durability. We had a good result there last year and based on that we have developed even better tyres for this year's race. Our option tyre is likely to be the best choice in high temperatures since it will offer better consistency and balance; the primary specification will be more appropriate if it is cooler. If it rains the surface at Magny-Cours can become quite polished and slippery so we are taking wet-weather tyres that are suitable for all conditions." Michelin will be at home and are no doubt regretting not developing an intermediate tyre but there is no point dwelling on this in what is their second season back in F1

So get ready for another Ferrari victory, French style.