Best in GP in France is Massa

The Brazilian registered his third F1 victory of the season.

MAGNY COURS, France (AP) — Felipe Massa of Ferrari won the French Grand Prix on Sunday and moved to the top of the overall standings after his third F1 victory of the season.

“It’s nice but my dream is not just to lead the championship, my dream is to win the championship,” the Brazilian said.

Massa overtook teammate and pole sitter Kimi Raikkonen with 32 laps to go and held on to win by 17.9 seconds. It’s the second consecutive Ferrari sweep at the Circuit de Nevers.

“It was fantastic, I didn’t expect that. Sometimes you need a little bit of luck and today we got that,” Massa said.

Massa leads the title race with 48 points — two points ahead of Robert Kubica of BMW Sauber, who finished fifth.

Raikkonen trails Massa by five points in third.

Toyota’s Jarno Trulli finished third ahead of McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen, who had started 10th after a five-place qualifying penalty.

Teammate Lewis Hamilton’s frustrating day was compounded by an extra penalty that left him out of the points in 10th. The British driver now trails Massa by 10 points.

Hamilton, eager to move up into the points from 13th, passed Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel at the third corner and got as high as ninth. But his impatience earned a drive-through penalty after he went off-course in the maneuver.

“I felt I had got past fairly and was ahead going into the corner,” Hamilton said.

Massa’s eighth victory meant F1 has a new leader for the fourth straight GP.

“It was a great race, we showed our competitiveness here,” Massa said.

“It was a great job from everybody, I’m very happy because we advanced a lot more in the championship. We still need to work a lot but it’s a step in the right direction.”

Raikkonen lost the edge when his exhaust came undone and Massa passed for Ferrari’s eighth win in 12 races at the Circuit de Nevers. The Italians rebounded from poor races at Monaco and Montreal that had robbed it of the early season momentum after four wins in the first five races.

“It’s disappointing in the end after having a really good car all weekend and being on pole ... but that happens sometimes,” the 28-year-old Raikkonen said. “Still, eight points is good for the championship and a good result for the team.”