McLaren-Mercedes F1 driver Lewis Hamilton (left) sprays champagne towards Ferrari F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen of Finland as they stand on the podium after the French Formula One Grand Prix, in Magny-Cours, central France yesterday. Raikkonen won the race and Hamilton took third place. - AP

MAGNY-COURS (AP):

Kimi Raikkonen hopes it is the beginning of a revival for himself as much as for Ferrari.

Raikkonen led Felipe Massa to give Ferrari a sweep of the top two places at the French Grand Prix yesterday, ending McLaren's winning streak at three Formula One races.

"Finally! Everything went the right way in my race," Raikkonen said. "It took longer than expected. We knew what our problems were and the works are paying off now."

Raikkonen started third on the grid, moved to second, and then overtook Massa at the second pit stop with 27 laps to go to cruise to his second F1 win this season, after the Australian GP, and his 11th overall.

Revival

It was the first Ferrari victory since Massa won at Spain in May.

Last year, Michael Schumacher and Massa led a Ferrari 1-2 in qualifications and the race. It helped to kick-start Schumacher's comeback where he almost overhauled Fernando Alonso in the final race of the season.

Now, Raikkonen is hoping for the same sort of revival.

"We didn't expect to have the problems that we had in the last few races, so I think we are back where we expected to be," Raikkonen said. "It's nice, we (have) had a bit of a hard time. I kind of expected to have a hard time and don't always expect to have good results."

The Finn timed 1 hour, 30 minutes, 54.200 seconds on the 4.41-kilometre (2.74-mile) circuit, nearly 2 1/2 seconds ahead of Massa and 32 seconds in front of series leader Lewis Hamilton in third place.

Robert Kubica, who survived a horrific crash at the Canadian GP and missed the subsequent United States GP, both of which Hamilton won, took fourth for BMW-Sauber. Kubica was cleared to race Thursday after hurting his anklewhen he crashed hard into two walls in Montreal.