Massa beats Hamilton to France pole

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By Pablo Elizalde Saturday, June 30th 2007, 13:03 GMT


Felipe Massa grabbed his fourth position of the season after holding off championship leader Lewis Hamilton in qualifying for the French Grand Prix.

The Ferrari driver set a best time of 1:15.034 to edge McLaren rival Hamilton by less than a tenth of second. Massa's teammate Kimi Raikkonen will start from third position after missing out yet again on a place in the front row.

The Finn has only started from the top two once this year.

BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica, returning to Grand Prix action following his crash in Montreal, showed the accident had no effects on him, the Pole putting on his strongest qualifying performance with fourth.

Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella and Heikki Kovalainen completed a good day for the French team as they will start from fifth and sixth respectively, the team's best effort this year.

Nick Heidfeld was seventh, ahead of Williams' Nico Rosberg.

Hamilton's teammate Fernando Alonso endured a dismal session and will start from 10th position after being unable to set a time.

Alonso hit trouble very early in the final session, the Spaniard having to return to his garage without managing to complete his opening lap after he suffered a gearbox problem.

Alonso spent some 10 minutes in his car while his team tried to solve the issue, but he eventually got out and did not return to the track.

"This is the worst thing that could happen, because at least starting from outside the top ten you can choose the fuel you load," Alonso told Spanish TV after his problems.

Trulli's teammate Ralf Schumacher completed one of his best qualifying performances of the season thanks to the 11th fastest time.

Honda's fortunes did not improve much despite the use of their upgraded car, both Brazilian Rubens Barrichello and Briton Jenson Button unable to make it into the top ten. Button will start 12th, with Barrichello right behind.

David Coulthard was unable to even set a time after suffering an apparent gearbox problem during his first lap at the start of the second session.

The Red Bull Racing driver, who will start from 16th place, managed to bring his car back to the garage, but the team were unable to solve the problem in time to give him another run.

Teammate Mark Webber also seemed to have problems during the session, the Australian completing just only flying lap to finish in 14th position.

The Red Bull duo were split by Toro Rosso's Scott Speed, who continued with his strong weekend following his promising showing in practice.

Toro Rosso teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi was unable to repeat his impressive performance from Friday, when he set the fifth quickest time in practice, the Italian being eliminated in the first session. He finished ahead of Williams driver Alex Wurz, who continued with his qualifying problems and missed the cut once again.

Wurz, who failed to make it past the first qualifying segment for the third time in a row and for the fifth time this season, finished in front of Super Aguri duo Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson, whose Japanese squad did not have a car in the second session for the first time since Monaco.

Sato, however, has been penalised in the previous race in Indianapolis and the Japanese will drop to the back of the grid.

The bottom two positions of the grid were again for Spyker drivers Christijan Albers and Adrian Sutil, the German parking his car on the grass with some problem when the session was already over.

France qualifying breakdown Session 1 Session 2 Session 3
Pos Driver Team Pos Time Lap Pos Time Lap Pos Time Lap
1. Massa Ferrari 3. 1:15.303 3 2. 1:14.822 3 1. 1:15.034 12
2. Hamilton McLaren 1. 1:14.805 3 1. 1:14.795 3 2. 1:15.104 12
3. Raikkonen Ferrari 2. 1:14.872 3 3. 1:14.828 3 3. 1:15.257 13
4. Kubica BMW Sauber 8. 1:15.778 7 4. 1:15.066 3 4. 1:15.493 12
5. Fisichella Renault 12. 1:16.047 7 7. 1:15.227 6 5. 1:15.674 12
6. Kovalainen Renault 5. 1:15.524 7 8. 1:15.272 6 6. 1:15.826 12
7. Heidfeld BMW Sauber 9. 1:15.783 4 6. 1:15.149 7 7. 1:15.900 12
8. Trulli Toyota 15. 1:16.118 5 10. 1:15.379 6 8. 1:15.935 12
9. Rosberg Williams 13. 1:16.092 7 9. 1:15.331 6 9. 1:16.328 12
10. Alonso McLaren 4. 1:15.322 3 5. 1:15.084 3 10. No time 1
11. R.Schumacher Toyota 7. 1:15.760 6 11. 1:15.534 6       
12. Button Honda 14. 1:16.113 6 12. 1:15.584 6       
13. Barrichello Honda 16. 1:16.140 6 13. 1:15.761 6       
14. Webber Red Bull 6. 1:15.746 6 14. 1:15.806 5       
15. Speed Toro Rosso 11. 1:15.980 6 15. 1:16.049 6       
16. Coulthard Red Bull 10. 1:15.915 7 16. No time 2       
17. Liuzzi Toro Rosso 17. 1:16.142 6             
18. Wurz Williams 18. 1:16.241 7             
19. Sato Super Aguri 19. 1:16.244 6             
20. Davidson Super Aguri 20. 1:16.366 5             
21. Albers Spyker 21. 1:17.826 6             
22. Sutil Spyker 22. 1:17.915 5             

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Frustrated Alonso hoping for wet race

By Pablo Elizalde Saturday, June 30th 2007, 13:26 GMT


World champion Fernando Alonso is hoping for a wet French Grand Prix after a dismal qualifying on Saturday.

The Spaniard, 10 points behind teammate Lewis Hamilton in the championship, will start from 10th place on the grid after being hit by a gearbox problem at the start of the final shootout.

Hamilton, meanwhile, qualified right behind pole-setter Felipe Massa.

Alonso was unable to return to the track after his problems and so failed to set a laptime.

Now the two-time champion is hoping that tomorrow's expected rain helps him recover from his low position.

"If something like this happens to my rivals tomorrow and if I manage to score good points I'm sure I won't remember today's frustration, but it is disappointing to not be able to complete a single lap," the Spaniard told reporters after qualifying.

"But maybe tomorrow I'll be the lucky one and the rest will be unlucky.

"It's a lot harder and a lot more dangerous to start from the middle of the grid, but maybe it rains.

"It will be hard, but if I have to choose I'd prefer a wet race which is always a bit of a lottery and maybe I can benefit from that tomorrow."

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Raikkonen: error cost me front row slot

By Jonathan Noble Saturday, June 30th 2007, 13:48 GMT


Kimi Raikkonen said he had no one to blame but himself for an error that cost him a place on the front row of the grid for the French Grand Prix.

The Finn had been expected to be teammate Felipe Massa's main challenger for pole position at Magny-Cours, but in the end he fell two tenths short to see McLaren's Lewis Hamilton knock him off the front row.

But with Ferrari at least showing improved form after some difficult recent races, Raikkonen was philosophical about his situation.

"There have been some hard times but we just try to improve the car all the time," he said.

"It seems better now. We seem to be more competitive but it's pretty close and we'll see what happens tomorrow. I lost time on one corner, but that's my fault and so there is no point complaining."

With the weather conditions for tomorrow's race uncertain, Raikkonen said he was not worried whether it rained or not - as he expected Ferrari to be strong no matter what was thrown at them.

"I think we have a good car. It wasn't a perfect lap, but I think the race will be different tomorrow.

"It will make it much more complicated for everybody if it is wet, probably a bit more interesting, but we will wait and see what happens."

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Dennis: McLaren flattered Ferrari

By Mark Glendenning and Jonathan Noble Monday, July 2nd 2007, 09:34 GMT


McLaren boss Ron Dennis believes his team made Ferrari look better than they actually were in the French Grand Prix after seeing the Maranello outfit return to form with a one-two finish.

Dennis claims his team were on the back foot for most of the Magny-Cours weekend, having been concerned about engine performance, being unable to find a good balance in Friday practice and then seeing Fernando Alonso suffer an unexpected gearbox problem in qualifying.

Those factors resulted in McLaren under-delivering - which allowed Ferrari to have a fairly straightforward run to victory.

"We flattered them [Ferrari] this weekend," said Dennis. "They did a good job, and probably improved the car a little bit. But we made them look a lot better than they were. Hopefully, we will demonstrate that at Silverstone."

But Dennis was far from disheartened by the result, especially because it was Kimi Raikkonen and not McLaren's closest title challenger Felipe Massa who took the win.

"Overall, it was damage limitation from beginning to end," he explained. "Obviously we're delighted that Kimi won over Massa. It means he is only a couple of points closer to Lewis, and didn't close the gap that much, even on Fernando.

"If this is going to be our worst race then we'll be comfortable with that. And if we hadn't had such good races before, we wouldn't be where we are in the world championship. So we've got to put it down to the fact you can't win every race, and this is one we didn't win.

"But we've won here previously, and there is no reason that we can't win at Silverstone. You know, as history has shown, when you have got a good lead in the world championship, you have got to be pragmatic about your races.

"Lewis did a really solid job at finishing third. It's his eighth podium position, and there is no luck that gives you that sort of result. For me, I loved Fernando's fight; I think he was fighting from beginning to end, and he got the most out of a difficult situation. And that's motor racing."

Dennis believes McLaren did the right thing in keeping Hamilton on a three-stop strategy, even though it killed off any chances of the Briton challenging either Ferrari driver for position.

"Lewis didn't make a good start. He was able to hang on; there was no problem with pace, but it was going to be impossible to overtake.

"We then started to evaluate everything that could go wrong, or everything that was likely to cause us to lose third place, and then we switched him to a strategy to guarantee third place, and that was really what that was all about."

Dennis also said that he was baffled by Alonso's gearbox problem in qualifying, which was caused by the failure of a part that the team had used without issues for three years.

"The gearbox problem was difficult to accommodate, to say the least," he explained. "It was such a one-off. This is a component that we've used for three years and we're somewhat mystified.

"It's probably a batch problem, which we were able to eliminate with help from the factory. So we were comfortable that it wasn't going to be an issue in the race."