The French Grand Prix 2007 marked the resurgence of Ferrari and Kimi Raikkonen. The flying Finn scored his first victory since Australia. Ferrari scored their first 1-2 finish after almost a year with Felipe Massa taking the second place. It throws the championship wide open yet again. The race saw both McLaren drivers struggle to match the speeds generated by Ferrari cars. Both Ferraris finished the race about 30 seconds ahead of the 3rd placed McLaren of Lewis Hamilton.

Lewis scored his eighth successive podium finish this season. The McLaren struggle is aided by poor race strategies and some reliability issues. Double world champion, Fernando Alonso failed to complete his qualifying run on Saturday due to a gear box failure. He started the race from 10th on the grid. Massa was the one who started the race from the pole position with Hamilton lining up alongside him and Kimi on 3rd. Kimi got up to a flier overtaking Hamilton to the first corner. From then on, it was Ferrari versus the rest.

Massa suffered while passing the back-markers and lost crucial seconds in traffic. Kimi made the most of it and delivered some stunning laps to overtake Massa during the second round of pit stops. Massa led the race for most parts till the time of his second pit stop. Kimi had 3 laps of more fuel which eventually helped him immensely in deciding the race in his favor. It was a cool, calm and composed race from the Finnish driver and truly justifies the ‘Ice Man‘ tag given to him. A 3-stop strategy for Hamilton against 2-stops by all other front runners almost spoiled the race for him.

The next race of the season will take place this weekend at Silverstone, UK. As things stand in the championship till now, Lewis still heads the Driver’s table with 64 points from his team-mate Alonso who has 50 points. Massa in 3rd has 3 points less than Alonso. Kimi is in 4th place with 42 points to his name. In the Constructor’s table, McLaren with 114 points leads Ferrari by 25 points. BMW is way behind with 48 points. Another 1-2 for Ferrari at Silverstone will make it even more exciting and pile up enormous pressure on McLaren. The full results from the last race are as follows -

1 – Kimi Räikkönen – Ferrari – 70 – 1:30:54.200
2 – Felipe Massa – Ferrari – 70 – +2.4 secs
3 – Lewis Hamilton – McLaren-Mercedes – 70 – +32.1 secs
4 – Robert Kubica – BMW – 70 – +41.7 secs
5 – Nick Heidfeld – BMW – 70 – +48.8 secs
6 – Giancarlo Fisichella – Renault – 70 – +52.2 secs
7 – Fernando Alonso – McLaren-Mercedes – 70 – +56.5 secs
8 – Jenson Button – Honda – 70 – +58.8 secs

9 – Nico Rosberg – Williams-Toyota – 70 – +68.5 secs
10 – Ralf Schumacher – Toyota – 69 – +1 Lap
11 – Rubens Barrichello – Honda – 69 – +1 Lap
12 – Mark Webber – Red Bull-Renault – 69 – +1 Lap
13 – David Coulthard – Red Bull-Renault – 69 – +1 Lap
14 – Alexander Wurz – Williams-Toyota – 69 – +1 Lap
15 – Heikki Kovalainen – Renault – 69 – +1 Lap
16 – Takuma Sato – Super Aguri-Honda – 68 – +2 Laps
17 – Adrian Sutil – Spyker-Ferrari – 68 – +2 Laps

Ret – Scott Speed – STR-Ferrari – 55 – Technical
Ret – Christijan Albers – Spyker-Ferrari – 28 – Accident
Ret – Anthony Davidson – Super Aguri-Honda – 1 – Accident
Ret – Jarno Trulli – Toyota – 1 – Accident
Ret – Vitantonio Liuzzi – STR-Ferrari – 0 – Accident