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F1 STATS WRAP: French Grand Prix
Written by: Sean Kelly   
06/30/2007
Charlotte, NC
 
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Over the course of this season, Felipe Massa and Kimi Räikkönen have had to contend with speculation over their ability to carry Ferrari in the post-Schumacher era.

Well, it appears that it's a case of "Crisis? What crisis?" after the duo scored what is just Ferrari's second 1-2 finish in the last 17 years that did not feature the German wunderkind. Räikkönen became the first man this season to win a race from lower than the front row, and the first man to do so in a dry race at Magny-Cours since 1994.

It extends his record of finishing in the top seven on every occasion he has raced on this circuit – not something that he can say of too many tracks on the calendar. Ferrari's 16th win in Magny-Cours is more than twice as many as the next most successful constructor in France (Williams, with 8), and it was the team's seventh Magny-Cours win in the last 11 races.

Räikkönen's victory was made possible when he beat Lewis Hamilton away from the line. This is an area that the Finn has been notably poor lately, having dropped at least one position at the start four times in the previous six races, and the only time he gained positions on lap 1 (Monaco) was because he started down in sixteenth.

Felipe Massa's second place means France was the first race this year in which the leader at the end of the first lap did not go on to win, and it snapped Massa's record of his last four race finishes all being in the position he started. It is likely that he lost the race on strategy today, having taken pole and set the fastest lap.
Over the previous five races, Massa led Räikkönen on the track for 93% of the total distance, so he will be annoyed to miss out on a day when Ferrari were dominant.

Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton is set for a lengthy period of reflection after tying his worst ever F1 finish in third (!) This was the first race that the Englishman finished lower than where he started, and also the first that he failed to lead at any point. Despite never being a serious contender for victory in this race, he still extended his championship lead to 14 points. Not bad, considering this was a bogey track in the lower formulae, having to charge back from 19th to finish fifth in last year's GP2 Sprint, and never bettering 21st in the F3 Euroseries.

He was overtaken in an F1 race for the first time on Sunday, when Räikkönen jumped him away from the line, while Nick Heidfeld, the only other driver who hadn't been passed on-track in 2007, was undone by a fearless Fernando Alonso move later in the afternoon. Heidfeld was both outqualified and outraced by returnee Robert Kubica, who showed no ill-effects from his 75g meeting with the Montreal concrete three weeks ago.

The Polish driver jumped ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella in the points on a day where all of the top 7 in the championship added to their scores. Fisichella has now driven here 12 times overall, without ever finishing in the top five, but on a weekend where both Renaults were on the top six on the grid for the first time in the post-Alonso era, he at least had a better time than Heikki Kovalainen.
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