Raikkonen takes top points

Ferrari's star hit back after a recent bad run of results by denying team-mate Massa at Magny-Cours. By MARK HUGHES

It was going to be a Ferrari one-two. That much was confirmed as soon as the first stops played out, when we saw that the red cars were not only faster than Lewis Hamilton's McLaren, but had track position over it - and were fuelled longer too.

It also looked like the race was heading Felipe Massa's way rather than Kimi Raikkonen's. The Brazilian had made full use of his pole position and appeared to be in control of things. By the time of his first stop he was more than five seconds clear, surely enough to counter the fact that Kimi was running three laps longer to each of the two stops. Yet it was Raikkonen who emerged from the second stops in front - a position he held to the end to bring his season back to life.

The underlying form of Raikkonen has been promising for a while, but he'd let himself down with details: the silly crash in Monaco qualifying; losing too many places off the grid; damaging his wing into the first corner in Canada. But the perception that he was getting blown away by his team-mate did not stand up to close analysis.

With the exception of Monaco - when it had looked as if he was going to be quicker until his incident - ever since Barcelona he's been either as quick or quicker than Massa in qualifying, once fuel loads were taken into account. France brought together that same underlying level of speed with a fault-free performance, a good call on strategy, and a Ferrari that was far better suited to the track than at recent races.

The F2007 appeared here with a host of modifications, some of them very visible. Team design chief Aldo Costa was quick to dismiss these as the main reason for the turnaround in form, however: "No, it's more track dependency. It's a combination of a lot of factors that seem to suit our car more [than McLaren's] here - tyre behaviour, weather, track design, the length of the straights. I'd say the improvements we made in the car were amplified by these factors."

The consensus seemed to be that the longer-duration flowing corners of Magny-Cours better suit a Ferrari that loses out on direction change to the McLaren, but which then gives its front tyres an easier time. Certainly, after the race the Ferraris' fronts looked in much better shape than McLaren's.

The very thing that has hurt the F2007 in the short-duration turns of the last three tracks played in its favour here, as McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh conceded: "Yes, we didn't look as good in the long corners - just like we didn't look good in Barcelona's long turn three, and that's not so different to this track in terms of its demands."

The Ferrari's usual straightline-speed advantage also counted for more here than at recent tracks. The other factor in Raikkonen's favour here was that he started from the clean side of the grid for once. He took full advantage of both that and an improved Ferrari start system - introduced here ahead of schedule as a bit of a risk, but from the perspective of having a points deficit to close - to comfortably out-accelerate Hamilton off the line and slot straight into second behind his team-mate.

This was crucial to Raikkonen's race. Had Hamilton got between the two Ferraris, he'd have held Kimi at McLaren pace - around 0.5sec slower than Ferrari's - for the first stint while Massa escaped. Hamilton took up third from Robert Kubica's BMW, Giancarlo Fisichella's Renault, Nick Heidfeld (BMW), Nico Rosberg (Williams), Heikki Kovalainen (Renault) and Jarno Trulli (Toyota).

Next was Fernando Alonso, on a mission to make amends for his P10 grid slot. His aggressive short-fuelling strategy had of course been formed around him starting from somewhere near the front, not the middle. He knew it was going to be an inappropriate strategy given that he'd be running among slower traffic. He was desperate, therefore, to limit the damage in the opening laps by getting past as many as possible before things had settled.

McLaren had chosen to start Alonso on a new set of soft tyres, with almost everyone else on the mediums on account of them being a faster tyre over a stint. The logic for fitting the softs was first-lap performance, in particular traction off the grid, and the realisation that he would be compromised through the stint anyway by the slower cars around him.

That way, he could be on the better tyre later in the race, when hopefully he'd have some clear track. Down to the hairpin on the first lap he was slipstreaming Trulli as Jarno made an ill-judged late dive on Kovalainen.

The contact ruined Heikki's race and ended Jarno's - and Alonso drove around the debris, hoping it hadn't damaged a tyre. Alonso's next victim was Rosberg, at Lycee on the second lap. But seventh was as far as he'd be getting for the time being, for now he was trapped behind a very defensive Heidfeld, who in turn was sitting on Fisichella's gearbox. By the fifth lap Alonso's deficit to the leader was already 13sec - and growing fast.

He was effectively out of contention as a factor in the destiny of the race. But he wasn't about to surrender to that. On the fifth lap Heidfeld got a little wobble on as he braked for Chateau d'Eau, the right-hander leading onto the downhill section near the end of the lap.

The BMW was consequently a little slow onto the hill and Alonso decided this was his chance. Into the heavy braking zone for Lycee - seventh gear to second in the space of a couple of seconds - Nick tried to deter the McLaren by moving towards the inside.

Alonso went up there anyway, inches to spare. But he'd over-committed and was forced to run wide on the exit, allowing the BMW back ahead, Alonso having to swerve sharply aside as Heidfeld took up his line for the final corner.

The two circulated as one for many laps, Alonso feinting this way and that, frequently running wide at the hairpin or Lycee as he tried in vain to fluster the unflappable Heidfeld. It was fantastic stuff - but all the while the leaders were pulling ever further clear, Massa's pace almost 2sec per lap faster.

Even Raikkonen was struggling to hang onto his team-mate, though he had pulled himself out of range of Hamilton, who in turn was pulling ever further away from the returning Kubica, charging along in the BMW and under no threat from Fisichella.

The McLarens were the first in for fuel - at the end of lap 16. They'd been fuelled identically, the idea on Saturday having been that Alonso was going to do one extra slow and economical burn-off lap (for which he would still be credited with the official 2.2kg), in order to take him one lap further up to the first stop. But of course that plan had been foiled by his gearbox failure, so the two McLarens remained on the same fuel load.

In the event it wasn't a problem, for Hamilton was running almost 19sec ahead of Alonso by the time they stopped. The team was able to turn Lewis around and get him underway just as Alonso was arriving at the top of the pitlane.

They were each fuelled for a further 21 laps - the team keeping its options open on both cars over whether to make two or three stops. Massa ran three laps longer than the McLarens up to his first stop, while Raikkonen ran three laps further even than that. Both were on committed two-stop strategies.

Kimi banged in two very fast laps as soon as Massa pitted - one of them a tenth faster than anything Massa had yet done - but on the next lap, and his subsequent in-lap, he was delayed by backmarkers.

"Until that happened, I thought there might be a chance to pass Felipe at the first stops," he recounted. As it was, his longer stint helped convert a 5sec deficit to one of just 2sec after they'd each rejoined.

But there was little doubt about it: just as at Indy the two Ferrari guys were racing each other, albeit around the pitstops rather than wheel to wheel on the track. That sort of stuff was still the preserve of the charging Alonso.

Fernando was immediately on it after his stop, but was still behind Heidfeld and Fisichella after they rejoined, courtesy of their longer opening stints. Fisi had stopped on lap 19, Heidfeld on 22, this enabling the BMW to jump the Renault.

On account of his shorter stint duration, Alonso knew that he needed to pass them on track - and even then that it would probably be fruitless as they would then likely leapfrog back ahead at the next stops. "We could have fuelled him longer at the first stop," said Whitmarsh, "but the problem with that is that it would have dropped him behind the slow train that was queued behind [Rubens] Barrichello - and that would have been game over."

So Alonso now set about trying to pierce Fisichella's defences. Down to Adelaide hairpin on lap 22, with Alonso getting a run on him, Fisi moved across early to claim the inside line. So Fernando simply tried the outside and braked later than late.

As with his earlier move on Heidfeld, it got him ahead only for a few metres, before he ran wide and lost the place once more. Next time he got the run going earlier and sliced cleanly down the inside. He was through.

Next: Heidfeld again! He was on the BMW's gearbox within a couple of laps, and on lap 28 tried a repeat of the outside-at-the-hairpin move - with the same run-wide outcome. He did it again three laps later, pushing like crazy, even though he knew it would probably be futile.

Up front Raikkonen was keeping the pressure on Massa, never more than a couple of seconds behind and sometimes less than that. Hamilton was having just as lonely a race in third as Kubica was in fourth, with Jenson Button in a yet-to-stop fifth, driving superbly in a Honda that at last has a front end he can lean on.

On the 33rd lap Alonso pulled the move of the race - and quite possibly of the season. It was impossibly brave and required the cooperation of Heidfeld for it not to have resulted in an aircraft-style accident. But he pulled it off anyway.

Getting a better slingshot out of the 180-degree Golf, he accelerated up towards Imola, the top-gear, right-left flick. Gaining fast on the BMW, Fernando drove alongside it on the right and simply aimed his car at the second, left-hand kerb.

He did it in the knowledge that there was a tarmac run-off for Heidfeld to use to the left of that kerb - but it was only an act of faith on the world champion's part that Nick would opt to use it rather than stubbornly hold his line, which he was quite entitled to do. Heidfeld sensibly opted not to have the accident and Alonso was through.

It's difficult to think of the last time F1 bore witness to such an incredibly ballsy pass. But when you think about it you'd probably arrive at the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix - when Alonso went around the outside of Michael Schumacher at 130R.

Just four laps later both McLarens were in for their second stops, and again Hamilton was underway well before Alonso arrived, but it required very slick work on the part of McLaren's pit crew. Again it ultimately dropped Alonso behind Heidfeld and Fisichella - so rendering those heroics fruitless.

Massa first encountered a long gaggle of backmarkers on lap 29. First Alex Wurz, then David Coulthard, Mark Webber, Barrichello and Ralf Schumacher. It took a total of eight laps for him to pass this group, and he wasn't happy: "The [technical] regulations mean that when you are behind in these cars you stay behind. You lose downforce when you get anywhere close. You cannot overtake even backmarkers. I think it's not normal that you stay more than three laps behind a car you're trying to lap."

He then blamed this for him losing the race. But it doesn't stand up. When he first encountered Wurz on lap 29 he was leading Raikkonen by 2.2sec. When they'd both finally cleared Ralf on lap 38, Massa was once more leading Raikkonen by 2.2sec. The gap had ebbed and flowed in between, but essentially Kimi had been held up just as much as Massa.

Backmarkers were not the reason Massa lost the race: the reason came back to Kimi being fuelled for three laps longer at the start of the race. He used those extra three laps at the first stops to change a 5sec deficit to a 2sec deficit. He used them at his second stop on lap 46 to change a 2sec deficit into the lead. As simple as that.

As Massa was rejoining on his high fuel load and graining new softs in the high 1m17s/low 18s, Kimi was banging in a sequence of low 1m16s on his low fuel load. In addition, his stop was 1.2sec quicker, partly because he required three laps' less fuel to get to the end. It was a straightforward strategy advantage played perfectly.

Yet Monaco and Indy this year suggested that you don't want to be the car behind even if you are running longer - that you will grain your tyres in the turbulent wake and be unable to take advantage of your low-fuel laps. Hamilton suffered this in Monaco, Alonso at Indy.

Why had Kimi's tyres not grained here and got Massa off the hook? "Because the medium compound here was strong enough not to be prone to graining," replied Bridgestone's Kees van der Grint.

Hamilton looked safe in third, so McLaren decided to try something different to Ferrari with his strategy. On his lap-37 stop the team fuelled him short, putting him on a three-stopper.

"The idea was we weren't certain how the soft tyre would stand up," explained Whitmarsh, "so by three-stopping him and putting him on the soft only for the short final stint we were minimising his time on it. If it had turned out to be delicate, the Ferraris might have been in trouble and obliged to run it for their long two-stop final stint - and then things might have got interesting."

But as it was, the soft stood up fine to the well-rubbered-in track, and all the three-stopping tactic did was drop Hamilton further behind the red cars.Upon rejoining after his second stop, Hamilton was passed by the yet-to-stop Kubica.

Knowing he had an extra stop to make, Lewis couldn't afford to simply follow the BMW until it pitted. He immediately attacked it into the hairpin. Kubica thought he'd done enough to defend the inside and began to move back across to the left to take up his approach. He'd not bargained on Hamilton's superb ability to brake late, especially on his new tyres.

Lewis instantly dived through to take the place. Kubica bravely tried sitting it out as they accelerated towards the Nurburgring chicane, and Robert's recent Montreal shunt came inevitably to mind as they sat with their wheels millimetres apart at 140mph.

But the place was Hamilton's and, between then and his final stop on lap 51, he did enough to ensure he came out still well ahead of the BMW. Kubica was left in an excellent fourth, well clear of team-mate Heidfeld.

Meanwhile, Alonso was at it again, simply launching his car at Fisichella at every available opportunity, frequently sliding wide, but always having performance enough in hand that he was soon back on the Renault's tail. But Fisi wasn't about to be flustered and defended perfectly to the end to take sixth. With hindsight, Renault reckoned it fuelled him too heavy in his middle stint, this giving him too much understeer to be able to hold Heidfeld at bay.

Although Fisi was inevitably overshadowed by Alonso's spectacular show, his was nonetheless an excellent drive, as was that of eighth-place finisher Button - the Honda's race pace was quite respectable, enough to overcome the Williams of Rosberg.

Meanwhile, Raikkonen took the plaudits, Massa scowled a little and Hamilton relaxed into a 14-point world championship lead as he heads into his home grand prix. Silverstone, here we come.