Raikkonen on Ferrari's 200th pole - France

Lewis Hamilton was third fastest for McLaren, but will drop to 13th on the grid due to his penalty for hitting Raikkonen in the Montreal pits.

That will elevate Fernando Alonso (Renault) to third place, with Jarno Trulli joining him on row two after an impressive effort for Toyota.

Hamilton's McLaren teammate Heikki Kovalainen and championship leader Robert Kubica (BMW) will complete the leading three rows.

Although Massa had dominated Q1 and Q2, it was Raikkonen who took charge in Q3, claiming provisional pole on his first run.

When Massa then failed to improve sufficiently to demote his teammate, Raikkonen chose to abandon his second lap, rightly believing he was assured of pole.

Hamilton's eventual third place was a comparatively successful result after an error at the Nurburgring chicane on his first Q3 run had left him eighth - and facing a potential ninth row start. He managed to vault to third with his second flying lap and minimised the damage.

Behind Alonso, Trulli and Kovalainen, Kubica took sixth place despite struggling in the earlier parts of qualifying.

He went out for two runs in Q1 to be sure of making the cut, and then came close to being eliminated in Q2, only just hanging on to 10th at the end of the session.

The Red Bulls will start seventh and eighth, with Mark Webber ahead despite being slowed on his first Q3 lap when Trulli had a spin in his path at the 180 corner.

Timo Glock was the final Q3 qualifier in the second Toyota, and will start ninth.

Nick Heidfeld's qualifying difficulties continued, despite the BMW driver's pre-event optimism. The German was just 0.063 seconds slower than teammate Kubica in Q2, but that was the crucial difference between 10th and 12th places.

Despite topping final practice, Renault's Nelson Piquet was edged out of the Q3 positions when Coulthard made a last-gasp improvement at the end of Q2. That left Piquet back in 11th, as the Brazilian missed the Q3 cut by a scant 0.047 seconds.

Toro Rosso looked set to produce an upset after Sebastian Vettel's rapid practice times, but in qualifying the German was only able to take 13th, one place and 0.2 seconds better than teammate Sebastien Bourdais, who will start his first ever home GP from his best grid position yet.

Nico Rosberg could only manage 15th place for Williams, and will fall to the back when the penalty for his involvement in the Montreal pitlane crash is applied. His teammate Kazuki Nakajima was knocked out in Q1, where he was just 16th quickest.

The Hondas and Force Indias were slowest of all. Honda's Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello have lacked speed all weekend and will start 16th and 17th once Rosberg's penalty is applied, while the Force India duo trailed the field by some margin, with 19th fastest Giancarlo Fisichella over 0.6 seconds slower even than the struggling Hondas.

Pos  Driver        Team                 Q1        Q2        Q3       Laps
 1.  Raikkonen     Ferrari              1:15.133  1:15.161  1:16.449  16
 2.  Massa         Ferrari              1:15.024  1:15.041  1:16.490  17
 3.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes     1:15.634  1:15.293  1:16.693  15
 4.  Alonso        Renault              1:15.754  1:15.483  1:16.840  18
 5.  Trulli        Toyota               1:15.521  1:15.362  1:16.920  19
 6.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes     1:15.965  1:15.639  1:16.944  18
 7.  Kubica        BMW Sauber           1:15.687  1:15.723  1:17.037  19
 8.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault     1:16.020  1:15.488  1:17.233  18
 9.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault     1:15.802  1:15.654  1:17.426  19
10.  Glock         Toyota               1:15.727  1:15.558  1:17.596  24
11.  Piquet        Renault              1:15.848  1:15.770            12
12.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber           1:16.006  1:15.786            14
13.  Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1:15.918  1:15.816            17
14.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1:16.072  1:16.045            17
15.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota      1:16.085  1:16.235            12
16.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota      1:16.243                       9
17.  Button        Honda                1:16.306                       9
18.  Barrichello   Honda                1:16.330                       6
19.  Fisichella    Force India-Ferrari  1:16.971                      10
20.  Sutil         Force India-Ferrari  1:17.053                       9

All timing unofficial