Lewis Hamilton will have his work cut out to maintain his challenge for the drivers’ championship after he saw the Ferraris sweep the front row for the French Grand Prix on Sunday at Magny-Cours, with Kimi Raikkonen handing the Italian team their 200th pole position in Formula One. Driving errors made Hamilton third fastest, which means that he will start from thirteenth place on the grid on Sunday because of the ten-place penalty that he received for crashing into Raikkonen in the pitlane during the Canadian Grand Prix earlier this month.

Raikkonen’s pole, the sixteenth of the Finn's grand prix career, came from a lap of 1min 16.449sec. The world champion was 0.041sec faster than Felipe Massa, his team-mate, and perfectly placed to repeat his 2007 victory at the circuit and close the seven-point gap between himself and Robert Kubica, the championship leader, who leads Hamilton and Massa by three points.

“The main thing is to be fastest ... and that worked out very well for us,” Raikkonen said. “The car has been working very well all weekend, so hopefully we will get some good points here. It’s going to be a long race. I’m pretty sure we have a good race car but as we’ve seen before, anything can happen.”

Massa, who set the fastest time in the practice session, will start on the outside of the front row. “I was a little bit overdriving [in the final session] trying to get the best out of the car and lost a bit of time in the corners,” the Brazilian said. “We had a lot more fuel compared [to the first two sessions] and lost a bit of time, but front row is good.”

For Hamilton, there was dissatisfaction at knowing that without errors on the exit to turn seven he could have improved on his time of 1:16.693, but he had the comfort of knowing that Raikkonen had finished second in France for McLaren in 2005 from thirteenth place on the starting grid. “It’s quite a disappointing qualifying for me,” Hamilton said. “I have to apologise to the team, I didn’t do a great job at all. I was pushing and trying to get the best out of the car and I did in most areas except that one [turn seven]. We just missed out but we will push very hard tomorrow.”

The 23-year-old British driver had no illusions about the task ahead, however. “It’s tough. We’re here to race and compete for wins,” he said. “When you know that you don’t have a chance of doing that, then it puts you on the back foot. If we can pull off some points from this weekend, it will be a major bonus.”

Sharing the second row with the Toyota of Jarno Trulli will be Fernando Alonso in the Renault. McLaren’s misery was further compounded when race stewards penalised Heikki Kovalainen five places for driving too slowly and hindering the qualifying lap of Mark Webber in the Red Bull. It is the second time that Kovalainen, who had qualified sixth, has been penalized for such an offense this season. “I was just trying to stay out of people’s way,” the Finnish driver said.

Fernando Alonso of Renault will move up after finishing fourth ahead of Toyota’s Jarno Trulli, while Kovalainen’s infraction means that Kubica moves up to fifth in his BMW Sauber.

Qualifying times for Sunday’s Formula One French Grand Prix (x-denotes penalty of ten places for causing an accident at Canadian GP; y-denotes penalty of five places for hindering competitor’s qualifying lap):

1. Kimi Raikkonen, Finland, Ferrari, 1min, 16.449sec.
2. Felipe Massa, Brazil, Ferrari, 1:16.490.
3. x-Lewis Hamilton, Britain, McLaren, 1:16.693.
4. Fernando Alonso, Spain, Renault, 1:16.840.
5. Jarno Trulli, Italy, Toyota, 1:16.920.
6. y-Heikki Kovalainen, Finland, McLaren, 1:16.944.
7. Robert Kubica, Poland, BMW Sauber, 1:17.037.
8. Mark Webber, Australia, Red Bull, 1:17.233.
9. David Coulthard, Britain, Red Bull, 1:17.426.
10. Timo Glock, Germany, Toyota, 1:17.596.

Eliminated after second session

11. Nelson Piquet Jr., Brazil, Renault, 1:15.770.
12. Nick Heidfeld, Germany, BMW Sauber, 1:15.786.
13. Sebastian Vettel, Germany, Toro Rosso, 1:15.816.
14. Sebastien Bourdais, France, Toro Rosso, 1:16.045.
15. x-Nico Rosberg, Germany, Williams, 1:16.235.

Eliminated after first session

16. Kazuki Nakajima, Japan, Williams, 1:16.243.
17. Jenson Button, Britain, Honda, 1:16.306.
18. Rubens Barrichello, Brazil, Honda, 1:16.330
19. Giancarlo Fisichella, Italy, Force India, 1:16.971.
20. Adrian Sutil, Germany, Force India, 1:17.053.