Massa leads Ferrari sweep of French GP

AT THE TOP: Brazil's Ferrari driver Felipe Massa holds the cup after winning the French Formula One Grand Prix.

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Magny Cours: Ferrari's Felipe Massa won the French Grand Prix on Sunday to seize F1's championship lead and continue an unlikely run after a miserable start to the season.

The Brazilian driver overtook teammate Kimi Raikkonen just over the halfway mark and cruised to a 17.9-second win that handed him a two-point advantage over BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica in the overall points standings.

Massa is the fourth driver to lead Formula One this year and the first Brazilian since three-time world champion Ayrton Senna in 1993.

"We are still in the middle of the championship and we still have a lot of races to go so we cannot think differently than we would always think to now," the 27-year-old said after picking up his eighth career victory.

"We need to take all of the opportunities we can to be in the front all of the time. It's always nice to lead the championship, hopefully we can stay in that position."

Massa, who has won three of six races since retiring from the first two, seized on Raikkonen's mechanical problem to overtake the pole sitter and confirm the Italian teams' rebound from poor races at Monaco and Montreal that robbed it of the early season momentum after four wins in the first five GPs.

Even though he had the pace before losing his right exhaust pipe, Raikkonen was happy to finish in the points.

"Luckily we went fast enough in the beginning to pull away from the others and set a gap. Usually, when you have this sort of problem, retirement is almost inevitable," the Finn said. "Still, eight points is good for the championship and a good result for the team."

Ferrari's eighth win at the Circuit de Nevers in 12 races and second straight 1-2 sweep - Raikkonen won last year - cushioned the team's lead in the constructors' standings to 17 over BMW Sauber.

Raikkonen trails Massa by five points in third.

"It's nice but my dream is not just to lead the championship, my dream is to win the championship," said the pumped-up Massa after jumping from the podium with the trophy still in hand.

Toyota's Jarno Trulli finished third ahead of McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen, who had started 10th after a five-place qualifying penalty. Teammate Lewis Hamilton's frustrating day was compounded by an extra penalty that left him out of the points in 10th and the British driver now trails Massa by 10 points with 10 races to go.

Hamilton, eager to get up into the points after starting from 13th on the grid, passed Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel at the third corner and got as high as ninth, but his impatience earned a drive-through penalty after he went off-course in the maneuver.

"You can keep on giving me penalties, whatever you want. I'll keep battling," the agitated Hamilton said. "I'm going to go back to the workshop and push with the team and we're going to focus on the next race and we're going to hit 'em hard."

The 23-year-old driver - penalized 10 places on the grid for causing an accident at the preceding Canadian GP - was lapped by Raikkonen after 20 laps.

"Kimi was 17 points behind with two races to go last year and he still won," Hamilton added. "Twenty points behind, I don't care - I'll still come back."

Raikkonen and Massa pulled away on the hard tires even with intermittent rain touching the asphalt, with Trulli and Kubica squeezing Fernando Alonso back into fifth with quick overtaking moves at the first turn.

"I felt we had a chance and I had to play it," Trulli said. "With the experience I have, I had to go for it."

Trulli and Kovalainen touched wheels with two laps to go as the Finn attempted a pass but Trulli steered the Japanese team to its first podium since the 2006 Australian GP.

"I did my job and kept the inside line ... I could see the podium and I didn't want to lose the position," said Trulli. "Everybody knows me, I'm hard to pass. Sometimes you get it wrong, this time I got it right."

Kubica held fifth, while Red Bull's Mark Webber was sixth ahead of Renault's Nelson Piquet Jr., who earned his first F1 points after eight races. Teammate Alonso, who had started third, rounded the points in eighth.