- Assisted by the superior Michelin tyres, David Coulthard dominated the race, coping easily with late pressure from Michael Schumacher who made little impact throughout the weekend.

race
 

David Coulthard from his front row grid position, jumped pole sitter Juan Pablo Montoya into the first bend, heading into a lead he was never to relinquish all afternoon. With McLaren finding a suitable setup around the streets of Monte Carlo, and the compound that Michelin were able to supply to both McLaren and Williams proving much more effective than Ferrari's Bridgestones, even a final few laps charge from Michael Schumacher did not trouble the Scot from claiming his second victory here in three years. Michael Schumacher, from the second row of the grid, struggled to find a way past Juan Pablo Montoya's Williams-BMW in the opening period of the race, as Coultard opened out a gap of just over eight seconds. When Montoya's engine expired dramatically, Schumacher moved up to second place, soon after stopping for his only pit visit of the afternoon  with a clean 8.5 second stop rejoining in fourth, just ahead on Heinz-Harald Frentzen's on song Arrows. Coulthard, also on a one stop strategy, pitted and rejoined easily ahead of the Ferrari, and although Michael Schumacher was able to close up in the final stage of the race, he was never seriously troubled by the Ferrari and went on to record McLaren's first win since Mika Hakkinen's victory at Indianapolis last year. Barrichello, from fifth on the grid, made a poor start, dropping a couple of places, and while trying to recover position ran into the rear of Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren-Mercedes, removing his nosecone and damaging the McLaren's rear with rear wing. A pitstop to replace the nosecone was followed by two stop-go penalties, one for causing the accident with Raikkonen and a second for speeding in the pitlane when coming in to serve his first penalty. The closing stages of the race saw Barrichello pressing Frentzen for sixth place, but, unable to find a way past the Arrows he finished outside the points. Meanwhile Ralf Schumacher, from fourth slot, had a steady run to bring his Williams-BMW home for the final podium position, Jarno Trulli was 4th, Giancarlo Fischiella was 5th and Frentzen 6th.

Juan Pablo Montoya, finding a gap in the traffic, snatched pole in the dying seconds of practice away from David Coulthard by almost 3/10ths of a second. Michael Schumacher lined up third, after setting fastest time half way through the session, but the Bridgestone-shod Ferrari's were no match for the Michelin runners here and he was unable to match the pace of the top two. Earlier his opening run was negated when Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren blew up in the tunnel, filling it with smoke, and the reigning world champion was suffering with his eyes, taking eyedrops during the session. Behind Michael lined up his brother Ralf, followed by the other Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello. Further back Mark Webber outqualified both Jaguars to line up in 19th place.