French Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton extended his lead at the top of the Formula One drivers' championship at yesterday's French Grand Prix but the precociously talented Briton only just maintained his spotless record of podium finishes as Ferrari staged the kind of mid-season resurgence that catapulted Michael Schumacher into title contention last year.

His replacement, Kimi Raikkonen, also fought his way out of the doldrums to claim a first win since the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

Raikkonen has come in for harsh criticism in recent months - a schoolboy racing error in qualifying in Monaco wrecking his race chances before he limped to desultory results in Canada (fifth) and the US (fourth) - and there have even been calls for the Finn to be sacked by Ferrari.

But Raikkonen is a mercurial talent. Given the right tools he is capable of creating masterworks. Yesterday, the laps he put in just before his second stop to steal the lead from team-mate Felipe Massa bore witness to just why every driver on the F1 grid fears a fired up and reliable Raikkonen.

The Finn, who started third, had, after jumping past Hamilton at the start, trailed pole-winner Massa for the bulk of the race, the gap between him and the Brazilian fluctuating through 45 laps but never more than a few seconds.

Massa visited the Ferrari pit for his second stop on lap 45 and rejoined to watch Raikkonen fly past and assume control of the race. The question was could the Finn find the pace to bridge the gap in the time remaining before his own stop.

With Ferrari claiming to have made a significant step forward with their underperforming car, the answer was an emphatic yes. On the lap before his stop, Raikkonen was a full two seconds quicker than the heavily fuelled Massa. The Finn stopped, fuelled, took on soft compound tyres and was gone, back into the lead as Massa was arrowing down the pit straight. It was a sparkling example of what Raikkonen is capable of when his heart is in it.

"People always think that you have lost it when you don't have good results but we just worked hard and tried to get it right and I think we can still improve," he said afterwards.

"We are still not where we want to be but we are definitely much happier with the car since the last test, and in the last races, but we could not get it together. I think we seem to have good speed now so hopefully we can keep it up in the next races."

Second-placed Massa claimed that getting caught in traffic during his second stint had cost him victory. "In the first stint I was supposed to be more than four seconds in front of Kimi," said Massa, "and it worked perfectly because the track was free. I was 4.8 seconds (in the lead), so I came out in front again.

"Then he had three laps more than me in the second stint and it was supposed to be the same. I needed to be more than four seconds in front. But I was so disappointed with the traffic in the second stint. I lost so much time.

"Even when you are not very close to the car in front, you lose so much downforce and cannot follow the car. You lose speed. That is the biggest problem we had today and I lost the victory because of that."

For third-placed Hamilton, it was a quiet race, save for a mid-race battle with BMW's Robert Kubica, which again demonstrated the young Briton's credentials when he tussled with and simply brushed aside the highly rated Pole with a razor-sharp move on lap 38. Thereafter it was a straight, untroubled run to his eighth podium of the season.

"I didn't get off to the best start and I don't know what happened yet - I just saw Kimi come flying past," Hamilton said. "I just had to stay as close as possible. I had good pace in the first stint and was a bit quicker than Kimi and tried to keep with him, but it's impossible to pass here unless you are a lot faster."

Hamilton's team-mate Fernando Alonso had suffered a gearbox problem in qualifying on Saturday and was forced to start the race from 10th position, with a heavy fuel load. The champion muscled his way to seventh, throwing in a spectacular move on Nick Heidfeld on the inside of turns 11 and 12 during his middle stint. By that time, though, the front three were long gone. He is, however, refusing to concede defeat to Hamilton in the title race despite the 14-point gap.

"Hamilton has finished all eight races on the podium, but when he has gearbox problems or is hindered by the safety car, that will be the day when I gain the most points on him," said the Spaniard. "We knew it was going to be a complicated race, starting from behind and with less fuel than the rest. I hope these two points are important at the end of the season."