Alonso Delights Renault with Home Win

The Spaniard's run to a crushing fifth victory in 10 races was totally untroubled, with all but two cars lapped, and stretched his overall lead over McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen to 24 points.

With thousands of blue and yellow-shirted fans cheering him on under clear blue skies, Alonso took the chequered flag with his hand up in a 'High Five'.

"It was really, really good. The car performed extremely well again in the race, we were very competitive from the first lap," said Alonso.

"The last 10 laps went really slowly. I just wanted to cross the line and enjoy the victory with the team and the grandstand opposite the pits where most of the people were coming from the Renault factory."

The 23-year-old ended a Schumacher stranglehold by becoming the first winner in five years at Magny-Cours from outside the German family.

Alonso, who had not scored points in the last two races after crashing in Canada and then being unable to compete in Indianapolis, was not to be threatened.

"I think Silverstone is not a perfect place for us, to be honest," he said.

"It's one of the races we have with a red cross against it on our calendar, because the car has not really gone well in the past there so we need to find out some solutions this week and really try hard on Friday to set up the car and be competitive, if we want to be on the podium which, at the moment, I think is our maximum target for next week."

With Renault's new president Carlos Ghosn attending his first Grand Prix, the Spaniard took the chequered flag 11.8 seconds clear of Raikkonen.

It was Renault's first French Grand Prix win as a constructor since 1983. Their last one, in the turbo era, was at Le Castellet with four times champion Alain Prost.

That was some consolation for organisers of what was also the first French Grand Prix since 1965 without a French driver competing, even if Prost did appear on the podium to hand Alonso his trophy.

Alonso, however, warned that next week's British Grand Prix could not be as easy for the French squad.