French GP - Ferraris dominate French qualifying

Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa will start on the front row of the grid at the French GP with penalty hampered Lewis Hamilton back in 13th

The pole, the 16th of Raikkonen's grand prix career, left the Finn perfectly placed to repeat his 2007 victory at the circuit.

Poland's Robert Kubica, the championship leader for BMW-Sauber after his victory in Canada earlier this month, qualified seventh but will start sixth because of a 10-place penalty imposed on McLaren's Hamilton.

Hamilton, who picked up the punishment after crashing into Raikkonen in the Canadian Grand Prix pit lane, qualified third and will start 13th.

His demotion left Renault's double world champion Fernando Alonso sharing the second row with Italian Jarno Trulli in a Toyota.

McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen moved up to fifth. Kubica leads Hamilton and Massa by four points in the championship with Raikkonen a further three adrift after seven races.

Raikkonen failed to finish in Canada after the pit lane collision and drew a blank in Monaco after running into the back of Adrian Sutil's Force India while in fifth place. But he has never failed to finish in France.

The Finn also finished second in France for McLaren in 2005 from 13th place on the starting grid and Hamilton will take comfort from that statistic.

However, the Briton, who had led the championship before his Montreal gaffe, produced errors on the exit to turn seven on both of his quick laps that cost him some time.

Australian Mark Webber, in a Red Bull, will start on the third row with British team mate David Coulthard alongside.

Germany's Nico Rosberg, also involved in Hamilton's Montreal crash and penalised 10 places, starts at the back for Williams while France's only grand prix driver Sebastien Bourdais qualified 14th for Toro Rosso.

Brazilian Nelson Piquet, still without a point, will make his first top 10 start after moving up to that position following Hamilton's demotion.

Source : uk.eurosport.yahoo.com