McLaren Mercedes driver Heikki Kovalainen finished fourth ahead of BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica and Red Bull's Mark Webber.

Renault's Nelson Piquet Jr. finished seventh ahead of team-mate Fernando Alonso.

Meanwhile, after starting 13th on the grid, Lewis Hamilton finished in 10th place, the McLaren driver's attempt to come through the field hampered by a drive through penalty.

However, Hamilton was not the only driver whose afternoon at Magny-Cours was compromised: although Massa took the chequered flag some 18 seconds ahead of Raikkonen, the defending World Champion had led comfortably until suffering a fractured exhaust pipe midway through the race.

Nevertheless, he still finished second and claimed eight valuable Championship points - the 18-second gap he in turn had over Trulli demonstrating Ferrari's advantage over their rivals.

That much was evident from the lights, with polesitter Raikkonen leading Massa off the line, Trulli assuming third place and Kubica - for a few corners at least - getting ahead of Alonso.

Having both straightlined the quick Imola chicane to pass Sebasatian Vettel's Toro Rosso and also clipped the back of team-mate Kovalainen, Hamilton was up to 10th at the end of lap one.

He then passed the heavily-fuelled sister McLaren into the Adelaide Hairpin on lap five with lap seven seeing Hamilton duelling with former GP2 adversary Piquet over eighth place.

source : www.skysports.com