NOW IT'S RAIKONEN'S TURN!
(Image taken from BBC)
So after a double header on the other side of the Atlantic during which Lewis got a taste for winning Grand Prix it was back to Europe for what's meant to be the last French Grand Prix for a couple of years at least. Magny Cours being slap bang in the middle of nowhere it never was the most popular place. Driver wise it was welcome back to Robert Kubica after a quick recovery from his accident in Montreal with Vettel back to the testing ranks while Honda yet again were supposed to have improved their car. We would see.
In Q1 Davidson and Wurz were the main two names to get eliminated. However even with the new Honda, Jenson couldn't make Q3 and would start 12th while DC wasn't even able to set a Q2 time due to gearbox issues and would start 16th. It was a Ferrari show in Q3 though. Raikonen was the first man to set a serious time and though Lewis took provisional pole briefly, Massa quickly outdid him to take pole leaving Lewis to settle for second though at least the Brit wasn't as unlucky as his teammate Alonso started 10th due being unable to set a Q3 time thanks to engine trouble!
Well DC quickly made it up to 13th fairly early on before having grip issues. It never got bad enough for him to pull out of the race, but the Scot never looked like having a very eventful race either. Credit where credit's due it was his first finish since Monaco but the Red Bull clearly isn't all that reliable and whether the points in Spain were a one-off or not remains to be seen, let's see what happens in Silverstone next week in front of a home crowd.
Jenson was another matter entirely though. He turned out to benefit from some early incidents and finally the Honda started to look half decent as he fueled long, made it up to 9th off the grid and smoothly made his way into the points while everyone else pitted early! By the time he finally came in he'd made it up to fifth! He fell back to 9th afterwards but from there on in always looks a secure bet for his first top ten finish and even though he piited one more time he still managed to slip into eighth place for his first point of the season!
For the first time in a while though. Lewis put in a display that didn't seem that awesome. He was beaten off the grid by Raikonen and never really looked like preventing a Ferrari 1-2. His one moment of greatness came when he got hauled into the pits to avoid traffic and came out having to duel with Kubica for position! The on-form Pole was completely outmuscled but that was it really. Still, the hot rookie keeps his 100% podium record.
Of the two Ferraris, well it was Massa that always looked likely to run the show with no one really able to touch him. Raikonen took the lead for a while during pitstops though and even when Massa retook the lead the Finn looked to chase down his teammate before flipping the script during the second round of pitstops coming out ahead of his teammate and the Brazilian couldn't catch him from there on in. Raikonen's second win of the season and Ferrari's first 1-2. That'll keep the tifosi happy for a while.
Lewis still leads the world championship with 64 points though and has also increased his lead over Alonso to 14 points! DC's still in 12th with four points and a top five finish while Jenson is off the mark with 1 point and having competed in more than 1 race this season, he edges Vettel to take 16th!
Now for Silverstone and with a guy like Lewis around, I've got a feeling we'll be seeing something special!
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