Zoom An all Ferrari front-row at Magny Cours

Kimi Raikkonen claimed pole position on Bridgestone’s soft compound Potenza in baking temperatures, under clear blue skies at Magny Cours for the eighth round of the championship, the French Grand Prix.

On a day of very close times, Raikkonen’s pole lap of 1:16.449s was just over four hundredths quicker than Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa. Lewis Hamilton set the third fastest time, but takes a ten place grid penalty for tomorrow’s race.

Fernando Alonso set the fourth fastest time, whilst Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen went fifth and sixth quickest respectively.

All through the day lap times were very close with only a second separating the top 18 cars in the morning. Massa set the day’s fastest time, using the medium compound to achieve a 1:15.024s in Q1. Track conditions are improved from Friday as more rubber has been laid on the track, however this improvement was counteracted by hotter temperatures than yesterday.

Hirohide Hamashima, Tyre Development Director
“Congratulations to Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari for their pole position. The difference in lap time over one lap between the medium and soft compound Potenza was very close today, even though it seems that the soft compound has an advantage."

"We saw a lot of cars with a tendency for understeer in qualifying, and because of this we saw more graining than this morning. Some teams prefer the soft tyre and others prefer the medium tyre, and this means we are very interested to see what strategies will be used tomorrow. Both compounds allow a variety of different uses for the race."

E.A. © CAPSIS International