Michael Schumacher dominated the 70-lap French Grand Prix to claim a new record in winning the same Grand Prix eight times. Schumacher started from the Pole Position and was never really challenged as he controlled the pace in his Bridgestone-shod Ferrari and took the chequered flag with a comfortable gap over Fernando Alonso with Felipe Massa coming home third.
The start of the race saw Schumacher and team-mate Felipe Massa both make a good getaway off the line, but Alonso is always quick from the start and poked his Renault nose around the outside of Massa into turn two. Massa closed the door and that was the end of that particular challenge.
Alonso would remain third for much of the race, unable to keep pace with Schumacher but able to keep the gap to Massa relatively stable. The front runners all made their first pit stop with a few laps of each other but Alonso took on a few seconds worth of fuel more than the Ferrari duo. Able to run a longer second stint than Massa, Alonso and the Renault team had in effect turned their three-stop strategy into a two-stop strategy.
As Massa peeled off into the pit for the third time, it was the end of his hopes of finishing second as Alonso swept passes and helped to reduce the damaged caused with Schumacher winning again. While Schumacher celebrates his record win and the fact he has reduced the championship gap from 19 to 17 points, Felipe Massa and Ferrari must know that they had the car to finish second but lost out to some changes in strategy at Renault.
Jarno Trulli looked set to finish in fourth but was forced to retire his TF106B with some kind of brake issue. This handed the position to Ralf Schumacher who was just five seconds behind Massa by the chequered flag.
It was a fairly so-so day for McLaren Mercedes with Kimi Raikkonen and Pedro de la Rosa starting sixth and eighth, both moving up one position by the chequered flag thanks to Trulli's misfortune. It was de la Rosa's first race for McLaren this year as he took over from the departed Juan Pablo Montoya and he did a solid - really getting one over on Nick Heidfeld - job but as his McLaren stopped with smoke billowing from the engine on the slow down lap, he may already know how hard his next race at Hockenheim will be.
Giancarlo Fisichella didn't show much pace in the second Renault as he too switched to a two-stop strategy, finishing 45 second behind the race winner. He was never on the pace of team-mate Alonso who was over half a minute up the road. Still, Fisichella started seventh and finished sixth...