Magny-Cours, 1st July 2007

Ferrari pair Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa scored a resounding one-two in Sunday's French Grand Prix at Magny Cours, putting them firmly back in the World Championship battle. The pair finished nearly half a minute ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who opted for a three stop strategy whereas the Ferrari pair stopped twice.

Raikkonen's result partially depended on an excellent start, when he leaped into second place, overtaking Hamilton off the line. This, he explained, was thanks to recent developments to the start system, but it saw him trail pole-winning teammate Massa by 1.2s at the end of the first lap.

Behind Hamilton came BMW's Robert Kubica, then Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella. BMW's Nick Heidfeld picked up a place at the start to end the first lap sixth, ahead of Nico Rosberg who picked up two places, as did Fernando Alonso in eighth place.



Massa explained later that he had to open up a four second gap in the first stint and this he did. In fact he had a 5.1s advantage over teammate Raikkonen by lap 19 when he made his first pit stop. By then Hamilton and Alonso had already made their first stops, on lap 16, the World Champion having been bottled up behind Heidfeld for many laps.

Kubica and Fisichella also stopped on lap 19, while Rosberg came on lap 20. However, Raikkonen didn't pit until lap 22 when Heidfeld also came in. After the first round of stops, however, Massa's lead had shrunk to two seconds, but the pair were nearly eight seconds ahead of Hamilton, while Kubica was still fourth. Jenson Button, who had not made a pit stop, was fifth, ahead of Heidfeld and Alonso who were again locked in battle.

Rather than build up a gap to his teammate during the second stint, however, Massa found himself struggling to overtake a midfield battle comprising Rubens Barrichello, Mark Webber, David Coulthard and Alexander Wurz. Indeed, rather than building a gap, he actually lost out badly so that his lead was only 1.2s over teammate Raikkonen halfway through the 70 lap race. By the time he made his second stop on lap 43, his lead over his teammate had grown to 3.3s - but it wasn't enough.

Agan, Raikkonen came in a couple of laps later and when he emerged, he was in front by 1.8s. The margin grew to 2.4s over the final 25 laps but Massa was never in a position to challenge his teammate and the pair finished that way after 70 laps.

However, what was impressive was the margin to McLaren which was almost certainly increased by Hamilton's three stop strategy. He was already 4.1s behind the Ferraris when he made his third stop on lap 51 which dropped him to 23s behind the Ferraris. However, he finished third to maintain his 100 per cent attendance on the podium in his debut season.

Kubica scored a strong fourth place ahead of teammate Heidfeld, the latter overhauling Giancarlo Fisichella who finished sixth. He had been overtaken earlier in the race by Alonso who finished behind him in seventh place, while Button's one-stop strategy resulted in eighth place.

At the halfway stage of the World Championship, Hamilton leads the championship by 14 points from Alonso, who is now just three ahead of Massa, who is five ahead of teammate Raikkonen. McLaren lead the Constructors' series by 25 points, but their margin was reduced by ten points in France. BMW Sauber are a distance third.