French GP: Massa leads dominant Ferrari 1-2

Felipe Massa motors to the win in France as Ferrari blew away the competition

Ferrari

Felipe Massa led a Ferrari 1-2 in the French GP today at Magny-Cours beating his teammate Kimi Raikkonen by 17.9 seconds back. Third place went to Jarno Trulli in the Toyota, 28.2 seconds behind the leader. Massa was lucky in that his faster teammate, Raikkonen, had exhaust problems on his Ferrari, which enabled Massa to win.

Raikkonen was on his way to a comfortable victory when exhaust leak developed. Despite pitting earlier than Massa, he established a six-second advantage in the first half of the race. However, the exhaust leak slowed him and he had to let his teammate through. Such was Ferrari's dominance that even with the leak Raikkonen still finished well ahead of the third place car.

Trulli battled to the finish with Heikki Kovalainen in his McLaren-Mercedes in fourth, half a second behind. Robert Kubica finished in fifth place in his BMW Sauber, followed by Mark Webber in the Red Bull-Renault in sixth, Nelson Piquet in the Renault in seventh place, and his teammate Fernando Alonso finishing in the final points paying position.

Lewis Hamilton took his 10 place grid penalty from the Canadian GP and was never a factor, especially after he was hit with a second penalty and was awarded a drive-through for cutting the Nurburgring chicane while passing Sebastian Vettel on the first lap. The McLaren driver was only able to recover to 10th.

Raikkonen believes he would not have finished the French Grand Prix on Sunday had the event lasted just two more laps.

"It was disappointing in the end," he shrugged. "We had a good car all weekend. I was on pole and leading quite easily and then I had problem with the car. Unfortunately, that happens sometimes. We were still lucky to finish the race and get the eight points.

"On the last couple of laps the car almost stopped a few times. So even if it's disappointing not to win I still took eight points… and it's much better in the championship, I'm in a more confident position. A great the result for the team, just an unlucky situation [for me]."

Despite his problem in more detail, he explained: "We just lost most of the power, so that was the biggest problem. We lost the power and then it came back. The car was slow in the straight line and also out of the low-speed corners so it was difficult.

"But luckily we were fast enough in the beginning to go away from the others, and we had enough gap.

"I suspect two more laps and we would have not finished the race. Like I said before it's disappointing but still eight points is good for the championship and good for the team. Everybody did their best but unfortunately these things happen in racing."

Asked what the final laps in damp conditions were like, he added: "It was like having traction control! I didn't have power out of corners so it didn't really affect me at all."

Robert Kubica admitted that the French Grand Prix was principally about damage control for his BMW Sauber team.

The Pole took the lead of the Drivers' championship following his victory in Canada two weeks ago, but the Swiss-based squad just never found their grove at Magny-Cours.

"We didn't score as many points as we wanted to here in Magny-Cours," said Kubica, who finished fifth.

"Over the whole weekend we tried to minimize the problems we had, and we knew the race would be decided on the first lap. At the start I tried to overtake Jarno Trulli, but did not manage it. I tried again in turn 5 on the outside, but it did not work out.

"In the end I have to say I am pretty happy. I finished fifth, only two seconds away from the podium. We now have to analyze what happened here and see how we can improve for the next race."

Race winner Felipe Massa is happy to be in the points lead now.

"It's a great pleasure to lead, and hopefully we can stay in that position to the end," said Massa.

"For the moment we've won nothing, just some races, and the championship is open 100 percent, with many races to go."

"We just need to keep doing our job race by race, thinking about the points, about winning, although second and third are good."

"We also need to think about the championship until the last race, and then we will know if we did the right job, had the right luck and did everything we could to win."

"Because my dream is not just to lead the championship, it is to win the championship."

"I am going to do the best I can to try and achieve that. That is my goal, and hopefully one day we can celebrate that."

Team-by-team summary

FERRARI
Kimi Raikkonen would have won from pole, but ultimately he was lucky to nurse a broken exhaust to second place, as Ferrari dominated amid McLaren's penalty troubles.

Winner Felipe Massa – the first Brazilian championship leader since the great Ayrton Senna in 1993 – admitted that, given the Finn's peerless pace, "it would have been hard for me to beat him on the track".

–

TOYOTA
Jarno Trulli's strong third place, despite a late spirited attack by McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen, was a fitting tribute to Toyota's late team boss Ove Andersson, ending a podium drought of more than two years.

Timo Glock struggled with handling and was a long way behind at the checker, finishing 11th.

–

MCLAREN-MERCEDES
Like Montreal, Magny-Cours was another shocker for Lewis Hamilton, who incurred yet another penalty, this time for cutting a chicane after passing Sebastian Vettel. He finished just tenth and is now ten points behind in the championship.

Kovalainen fared better, fighting back from his own grid penalty to be fourth at the flag, despite a spirited attempt to pass Trulli right at the end.

–

BMW-SAUBER
Robert Kubica, fifth and within sight of Trulli and Kovalainen at the end, lost his lead in the drivers' championship as BMW-Sauber's form dipped in France. "We now have to analyze what happened here and see how we can improve," said the Montreal winner.

Nick Heidfeld, thirteenth and half a minute behind his teammate, only narrowly avoided being lapped.

–

RED BULL-RENAULT
With the two works cars behind him, sixth placed Mark Webber was the first Renault-powered contender past the flag, even surviving a big moment out of the last corner at one point that let Fernando Alonso past. "His strategy didn't work out as well, which was good for us," Webber said.

David Coulthard finished 8 seconds behind Alonso in ninth.

–

RENAULT
Nelson Piquet's best showing in his difficult F1 career so far netted him 7th place ahead of his teammate Alonso, and the first points of his career. "It's the first time that everything has gone without any problems for me," he said.

Alonso started third but lost positions on the first lap, and Piquet got past due to a mistake. "I was not able to find the pace I had shown yesterday," he said.

–

TORO ROSSO-FERRARI
The junior Red Bull team titled its post-race media statement 'Rain dance failed', as the few rain drops failed to help Sebastian Vettel raise above his 12th place starting position.

Local driver Sebastien Bourdais only led home the slow Force Indias.

–

HONDA
Honda will be pleased to put another bad weekend behind them: Jenson Button was the only retirement, as he succumbed to damage sustained in first-corner contact with Bourdais.

Rubens Barrichello started last, after a gearbox change penalty, and he fought back to be the first of the six lapped cars. "There is no escaping the fact that this has been a painful weekend for us," he said.

–

WILLIAMS-TOYOTA
A fruitless race for the Grove squad, branded a "very mediocre performance" by team stalwart Patrick Head. Kazuki Nakajima finished where he started – 15th – and Nico Rosberg was never able to recover from his Montreal grid penalty. "The car simply didn't have the speed," he said.

–

FORCE INDIA-FERRARI
The two Force India cars brought up the rear, and Giancarlo Fisichella's deficit to the next highest competitor was a hefty half a minute. "We have had some better races," said Adrian Sutil, another 20 seconds adrift.

Results

Pos	Driver	Team	Time/Behind
1.	Massa	Ferrari	1h31:50.245
2.	Raikkonen	Ferrari	+ 17.984
3.	Trulli	Toyota	+ 28.250
4.	Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	+ 28.929
5.	Kubica	BMW Sauber	+ 30.512
6.	Webber	Red Bull-Renault	+ 40.304
7.	Piquet	Renault	+ 41.033
8.	Alonso	Renault	+ 43.372
9.	Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	+ 51.021
10.	Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	+ 54.538
11.	Glock	Toyota	+ 57.700
12.	Vettel	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	+ 58.065
13.	Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	+ 1:02.079
14.	Barrichello	Honda	+ 1 lap
15.	Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	+ 1 lap
16.	Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	+ 1 lap
17.	Bourdais	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	+ 1 lap
18.	Fisichella	Force India-Ferrari	+ 1 lap
19.	Sutil	Force India-Ferrari	+ 1 lap
DNF	Button	Honda	Out on Lap 17

Fastest lap: Raikkonen, 1:16.630