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French GP Qualy: Kimi One Step Closer Towards Fulfilling His Lust

Kimi Räikkönen, who declared his lust for a victory here in the French GP, has taken the pole position ahead of his Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa.

The qualifying session was a rather uneventful one, with a couple of incidents coming from the Toyota's Jarno Trulli who spun but had no big issue) and Lewis Hamilton taking a slight off-course excursion both in Q3.

The folks who got kicked out after Q1 were the usual suspects of the Force India duo and the disappointing Honda team. BMW's Nick Heidfeld came so close to missing the cut but eventually did well enough to get to the 12th spot and hence Williams' Kazuki Nakajima relegated to 16th.

In Q2, Nakajima's teammate Nico Rosberg, who will be penalised 10 grids tomorrow, was the slowest among the bunch of 15 runners. He will thus start from the very last spot. The two Toro Rosso of Sebastian Vettel and Sebastien Bourdais got 13th and 14th despite a rather good performance during Practice 3. BMW's Nick Heidfeld could no longer escape his fate of being eliminated and neither could Renault's Nelson Piquet Jr, who seemed to just have had his best qualifying session thus far.

During Q3 with the top 10 shootout, both Toyotas of Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock struggled for grip during the first few minutes. Trulli managed a 5th spot (which will be 4th tomorrow after Hamilton is demoted) and did considerably better than his teammate in 10th. Kimi Räikkönen's best time of 1:16.449 could not be beaten even by his teammate and he thus went back to the pit without completing his final round.

McLaren's Lewis Hamilton set the 3rd fastest time, but will start from the 13th position tomorrow. His teammate Heikki Kovalainen could not really fill the shoes of being McLaren's sole surviving hope (I'm not writing out Hamilton possibly scoring some points tomorrow, but it will be tough) and only managed a 6th.

The two Red Bulls were 8th and 9th, behind BMW's Robert Kubica. BMW has struggled visibly in this track and it does not bode well for the team if they want to stay ahead of McLaren in the Constructor's Championship.

Fernando Alonso did well enough to set the 4th fastest time, which means he would be promoted to the 3rd spot on the grid tomorrow. Again, we're not ruling out that he could be on a light fuel strategy.

Pressure in the Ferrari camp is definitely mounting, and now Felipe Massa is ahead of Kimi Räikkönen in the Drivers' Championship. The Brazilian would definitely want to go for some glory himself and it would be a very interesting start tomorrow. As for Lewis Hamilton, he had admitted that the pressure is also on him and we might get to see some frustration on the rookie when he has to drive his way through the traffic.

Again, there was no sight of rain in the qualifying session. As the saying goes, save the best for the last. Who knows if the rain might just fall tomorrow and add some spice to the race?

The starting grid for tomorrow will be as follows:

1. K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:16.449
	2. F. Massa Ferrari 1:16.490
3. F. Alonso Renault 1:16.840
	4. J. Trulli Toyota 1:16.840
5. R. Kubica BMW 1:17.037
	6. M. Webber Red Bull 1:17.233
7. D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:17.426
	8. T. Glock Toyota 1:17.596
9. N. Piquet jr. Renault 1:15.770*
	10. H. Kovalainen McLaren 1:16.944⁺
11. N. Heidfeld BMW 1:15.786
	12. S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:15.816
13. L. Hamilton McLaren 1:16.693^#
	14. S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:16.045
15. K. Nakajima Williams 1:16.243
	16. J. Button Honda 1:16.306 **
17. R. Barrichello Honda 1:16.330
	18. G. Fisichella Force India F1 1:16.971
19. A. Sutil Force India F1 1:17.053
	20. N. Rosberg Williams 1:16.235 ^#

* Timing set during Qualifying 2 run
** Timing set during Qualifying 1 run
^#Both Hamilton and Rosberg are penalised 10 grid positions after ignoring the red light at the end of the Canadian pitlane.
-- Starting grid if there are no further changes or penalties incurred by any of the drivers.

⁺ Heikki Kovalainen was penalised 5 grid positions in a post-qualifying decision by the stewards after he was found guilty of impeding Mark Webber in Q1.

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.

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