Felipe Massa drove his Ferrari to a third victory this season at Magny-Cours in France, pushing him into first place in the drivers standings. Kimi Raikkonen seemed to be in full control until his tailpipe came undone; but managed to take second place in his Ferrari. Ferrari's lead in the team standings was extended to 17 points above BMW.BMW's drivers, Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld, finished 5th and 13th. Kubica now sits just behind Ferrari's Massa in the drivers standings. The third dominant team in Formula 1, McLaren-Mercedes, suffered from numerous problems on this day. Heikki Kovalainen managed a 4th place finish but would assuredly list Jarno Trulli (3rd in a Toyota) as a new nemesis.
Lewis Hamilton was dropped 10 places on the starting grid because of his pitlane incident with Raikkonen's Ferrari last race in Montreal and added to his troubles by completing an illegal pass on Sebastian Vettel (12th in his Ferrari-powered Toro Rosso) which necessitated a pitlane drive-thru. With Hamilton's Mercedes finishing way back in 10th, the McLaren-Mercedes team collected just the five points by way of their Finnish driver.
The aforementioned Toyota finished the race about 30 seconds ahead of teammate Timo Glock with his 11th place position. The other STR-Ferrari Sebastien, a certain Mr. Bourdais, struggled yet again and finished in 17th.
Only one car was retired from the race. That'd be Jenson Button in his Honda. The other Honda, Rubens Barichello's car, raced to 14th. Sucky day. Toyota engines found inside the Williams cars of Kaz Nakajima and Nico Rosberg drove to 15th and 16th, respectively. Ferrari powers the Force India cars, but Fisichella and Sutil were unable to replicate their similarly-powered racers at the front of the pack. 18th and 19th for these boys.
Only the Renault engines remain. The factory team, with drivers Fernando Alonso and Nelsinho Piquet, gathered three points from their 7th and 8th spots; Piquet ahead of the two-time world champion. Mark Webber and David Coulthard bookended the "real" Renaults, but only Webber's Red Bull grabbed points.
In two weeks time, the F1 cars head to the Silverstone circuit in Britain. Added pressure for phenom Hamilton - added angst for team principal Ron Dennis. Lewis was a might aggressive at Magny-Cours.
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