Felipe Massa won the French GP ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen whose chances of victory were undone by a broken exhaust.
Raikkonen led from the start, quickly eeking out a few seconds lead over his team-mate. However, the Finn started to lose time to Massa on Lap 34 due to a broken exhaust, banging and burning the side of his F2008.
As a result Massa was able to cruise past the reigning Champ, taking the lead in the grand prix, which he went on to win by over 17 seconds. In doing so he also became the newest leader of the Drivers' Standings.
Jarno Trulli held off the attacking Heikki Kovalainen to finish third, his first podium finish since Spain 2005.
Race Report
With rain expected, the ambient temperature was down at 24C with the track at 31C as the cars lined up on the grid. Indeed there had been a flurry of light rain as the cars went to the grid.
As the red lights went out Kimi Raikkonen was quickly into the lead with Felipe Massa slotting in behind - back down the grid everyone behaved themselves through Estoril and down to the Adelaide hairpin. Fernando Alonso was slow off the line and immediately dropped from 3rd to 5th.
Both Red Bulls were also slow away and lost places while Lewis Hamilton made it through to 11th before attempting to pass Sebastian Vettel before the Imola chicane. Hamilton had got his car in front, but was out too wide to turn in and opted to cut the chicane (very much like Vettel had done a couple of times to keep in front of Kovalainen at Montreal).
This move would attract a highly contentious drive-through penalty later in the race. Hamilton didn't do himself any favours by tapping the back of Kovalainen later in the lap and losing small aero parts from his front wing.
Across the line at the end of the first lap the order was: 1.Raikkonen, 2.Massa, 3.Trulli, 4.Kubica, 5.Alonso, 6.Glock, 7.Webber, 8.Piquet, 9.Kovalainen, 10.Hamilton 11.Coulthard 12.Vettel
On the second lap Fernando Alonso was able to take advantage of a move by Robert Kubica on third placed Trulli - the BMW got out of shape and Alonso was able to get past for 4th.
Hamilton was soon past Kovalainen for 9th as Kimi Raikkonen started to open a gap to Massa at the front and both Ferraris started to edge away from the pack. By Lap 8 Hamilton was on the back of Piquet and locking his tyres up into the Adelaide hairpin trying to find a way through to 8th place.
By Lap 10 Raikkonen had opened a 3.2 second gap to Massa and the World Champion looked to have a clear edge on his team-mate.
On Lap 14, Lewis Hamilton's drive-through penalty was announced - the stewards diving that the Brit had gained an unfair advantage bu missing the apex - and being able to find no way past Nelson Piquet he elected to take it straight away, rejoining in P13.
Renault's bid for pole glory was revealed on Lap 15 when Fernando Alonso came in for a very early pit-stop. Alonso was fuelled long and came out between Nick Heidfeld in 12th and Lewis Hamilton in 13th.
On Lap 19 Hamilton put a very robust pass on Alonso as he dawdled through Estoril, the cars momentarily bouncing tyres. Hamilton's lead over his old team-mate didn't last long as he dived into the pit at the end of Lap 19 for his first pit-stop. Neither Lewis nor Fernando would be running 3-stoppers as some had predicted.
At the end of Lap 21 Raikkonen pitted with a 4.3 second advantage. Massa pitted two laps later and the defecit to Raikkonen was exactly the same, 4.3 seconds. However, Raikkonen started to edge away from the Brazilian in traffic - by Lap 25 the gap was 5.9 seconds, by Lap 27 the gap was out to 6.5 seconds.
The Ferrari drivers were in a race of their own - on Lap 30, third place Jarno Trulli was 25.7 seconds back. Once the final stoppers had come in for fuel, the positions on Lap 31 were: Raikkonen, Massa, Trulli, Kubica, Alonso, Webber, Kovalainen, Piquet, Glock, Coulthard and Nakajima.
On Lap 34, though, something strange showed up on the timing charts. Kimi Raikkonen was two seconds a lap slower than Felipe Massa with a 1:19.799 compared to Massa's 1:17.825 - he was a second a lap slower on lap 35 and the lead went down to 3.2 seconds.
On Lap 36 the loss was another second and by Lap 38 Massa was right on his tail. Raikkonen had got a broken right exhaust and it was flailing along over the sidepod, the bodywork discolouring with the heat.
Massa was soon past the Finn into the lead and the question now was could the Ferrari keep going to the flag?
On Lap 42 Heiki Kovalainen made a very neat pass on Mark Webber's Red Bull for 6th place, which soon became 5th when Fernando Alonso came in for his second stop, the Spaniard rejoining in 12th, between Heidfeld and Hamilton again.
Lewis was losing time behind Alonso, dropping from 1:17s laps to the mid 1:18s and on Lap 47 he did something about it going tight into the Adelaide hairpin and passing Alonso for the second time in the race.
Jarno Trulli had been hauling Kimi Raikkonen in at about 0.8 a lap, but out of nowhere the Finn put in a 1:17.894 and increased the gap to the Toyota. Provided the overheating didn't get too bad he might hold position to the line.
The main battle now was for P3 between Trulli, Kubica and Kovalainen. Trulli pitted on Lap 50 from third place, Kovalainen and Kubica on Lap 52 and they exited the pitlane just behind the Toyota.
On Lap 56 it started to rain and the sudden shower started to slow times by two seconds a lap. Kovalainen closed right up on Trulli and Kubica lurked behind both, ready to pick up the pieces from any clash.
However Jarno held it together to resist any move from a fairly tentative McLaren and though the Finn got alongside Trulli before the Imola chicane on Lap 69, he never had the racing line and had to opt for an escape route across the chicane as his team-mate had done earlier in the race.
The only change of position in the closing stages was when Fernando Alonso got caught out while trying to lap a Force India three laps from home. He ran wide and allowed Nelson Piquet Junior to get alongside him and through for 7th place, a great result for the Brazilian.
Kimi Raikkonen's exhaust finally fell off on Lap 61 but he continued on to pick up second place. Only Jenson Button's Honda failed to finish, the Honda stopping on Lap 17.
It was deserved 1-2 for Ferrari in a relatively drama-free French Grand Prix. Jarno Trulli resisted Kovalainen to take an emotional third place in memory of much-loved former Toyota boss Ove Andersson. Robert Kubica picked up an efficient four points for his afternoon's race, but the BMW looked no serious threat at all.
FH
Results
01 F. Massa Ferrari 1:31:50.245
02 K. Räikkönen Ferrari + 17.984
03 J. Trulli Toyota + 28.250
04 H. Kovalainen McLaren + 28.929
05 R. Kubica BMW + 30.512
06 M. Webber Red Bull + 40.304
07 N. Piquet jr. Renault + 41.033
08 F. Alonso Renault + 43.372
09 D. Coulthard Red Bull + 51.072
10 L. Hamilton McLaren + 54.521
11 T. Glock Toyota + 57.738
12 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso + 58.011
13 N. Heidfeld BMW + 1:02.013
14 R. Barrichello Honda + 1 laps
15 K. Nakajima Williams + 1 laps
16 N. Rosberg Williams + 1 laps
17 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso + 1 laps
18 G. Fisichella Force India F1 + 1 laps
19 A. Sutil Force India F1 + 1 laps
Did not finish
20 J. Button Honda + 52 laps
