It's not everyday that I miss a qualifying session. But, living in Miami means you have a lot of visitors and today I had to take some people to the airport, which caused me to miss qualifying for the British Grand Prix.

So, imagine my surprise when I got home to find Kovalainen and Mark Weber on the front row!

Of course, once I read that it rained, it all made sense, and with Kimi starting 3rd, all looks good for Sunday.

Unfortunately, Massa will start 9th. But, if he can get off the line clean look for him to slice through the field on a track Ferrari traditionally does well in.

In any case, looks like it will be a British Grand Prix to remember.

Ross Brawn says that every team, including his Honda team would love to have Alonso drive their car, but feels Alonso's heart is with Ferrari.

Normally, we'd ignore these Alonso-to-Ferrari rumors, but coming from a person like Brawn who was Ferrari's former technical director during the golden years makes you think twice.

"Fernando is a very good driver that everyone would like to have sitting in their car, but I know what team he would like to go to, everyone does," referring to Ferrari of course.

"The reality is that, before we can talk seriously with him, the situation with Ferrari must be resolved."

"Broadly speaking, everyone who has worked with him speaks highly of him. With McLaren it was obviously difficult, but the people at Renault regard him very highly," he added.

So, who knows? Maybe Alonso will end up at Ferrari after all.

Kimi suffered some more bad luck when his exhaust broke on him half way through the race, which gave Massa the speed advantage he needed, as Kimi was forced to nurse his car for 35-laps, till the end of the race. But, if bad luck means a Ferrari 1-2, I'll take it!

Ferrari's speed was such that only Massa could take advantage of Kimi's failure.

Behind the Ferrari's Trulli finished 3rd, his first podium in 55 races, Kubica finished 4th, Kovalainen was 5th, Mark Webber showing some consistency and now has 18-points finished 6th, and the two Renaults finished in 7th and 8th led by Piquet.

Hamilton who had a horrible day, and could not duplicate Kimi's feat from 2005 when Kimi also started 13th and finished 2nd, finished 10th and is now 10-points behind Massa in the championship race.

For Ferrari, things are really starting to look good as they had an obvious speed advantage on what is a high-speed track, and the next race in Silverstone is also a high-speed track.

Kimi led the way in France, easily winning the pole ahead of his teammate Felipe Massa, and saving some fuel in the process. It is Ferrari's 3rd 1-2 so far this season.

Massa and Alonso, the only drivers that could have beat Kimi's time crossed the finish line in 2nd and 4th respectively, just before Kimi, who was on his last flying lap passed the pit lane entrance. When Kimi saw he had won the pole, he immediately drove his car into the pits saving that extra lap of fuel, which will undoubtedly play a big part in tomorrow's race, when Kimi will have that extra lap of fuel in his pocket.

Hamilton, who finished 3rd will start tomorrow's race in 13th after being given the 10-spot penalty from his accident in at the Canadian Grand Prix. Heidfeld also had a tough day qualifying out of the top-10, so that's another team going to head-to-head with Ferrari that will be disadvantaged. In other words, Ferrari have a great opportunity to make up some serious ground in both championships.

And here's a challenge to Hamilton: in 2005 Kimi found himself in the exact same position Hamilton finds himself in now, starting 13th after a 10-spot grid penalty, and he finished the race in 2nd. Kimi showed he can do it (as all champions do), let's see if Hamilton is champion- material as he always likes to suggest.

During Saturday morning's practice, Nelsinho Piquet set the fastest time of 1:15.750. Still not close to Massa's record time, but if Piquet in his Renault is setting 1:15s in low fuel, I predict we will see a 1:14 set by someone during Q1 or Q2.

The Ferraris look ready to go, and we'll see how Hamilton's penalty will play out.

What will Hamilton do if he doesn't have the speed and can only qualify 4th or 5th, which would bring him down to 14th or 15th?

How will that penalty affect Ferrari's fuel strategy? Will they run a little heavier so they can have an advantage in the race knowing Hamilton *shouldn't* really be a threat?

Only time will tell, and that time is coming up!

After the second practice session in France, Kimi and Alonso joined Felipe Massa under 1.16:000.

No one beat Massa's record-breaking time set in the morning, but a sub 1.16:000 is good news for Ferrari.

Could this be Felipe Massa's turn to take top spot on the podium at the French Grand Prix on Sunday?

If not, he sure fooled many when he broke the lap record of 1:15.377 set by Schumi back in 2004. Massa's time of 1.15:306 was 0.071 seconds faster and we still have the rest of Friday practice and Saturday to go!

Behind Massa, Hamilton, Kovalainen, and Raikkonen followed and they were all about 0.700 seconds behind Massa. If that were to hold true come Sunday, and for every lap, it would give Massa a a victory by over 49 seconds.

Then again, maybe it's a just a sign of things to come and all of the top 4 will be able to break records.

Either way, its a Ferrari on top, and that's how we like it!

Lewis Hamilton is without a doubt an up and coming young driver in Formula One. And some might say he is more than just up and coming, but when you think about it, he's won nothing. In fact, he's done a lot more losing (like losing the championship last year when he beached his car in China's pit lane entry), than anything else. And I for one, am getting tired of how he answers legitimate questions by trying to talk-the-talk, and then failing to walk-the-walk.

Now don't get me wrong, I like the fact that he can't walk-the-walk, I just wish he would also stop talking-the-talk.

Most recently, he was asked about the penalty he has received in France and how that will affect his approach to the French Grand Prix. His answer was: "I'll just have to pass some cars!"

Talk about a smug answer. He almost makes it seem like up until now, he didn't want or need to pass "some cars", but come Sunday, he will have no choice.

Go home!

Even he starts in the best possible position of 11th, it won't be until he gets to about 5th or 6th before he reaches drivers in cars that actually have a chance to win, so passing a bunch of Force India's or STRs isn't going to impress anyone, especially if you are in a McLaren.

And it becomes even more tiresome when in the past, when ever faced with this kind of adversity, he's done nothing else but choke!

I can't wait for Sunday, and I can't wait to hear what he has to say when barely cracks the points.

Hamilton ran into the back of Kimi's Ferrari while in the pit-lane. He knocked Kimi and himself out of the race, and that was as stupid as it gets — well, almost: stalling your car in the gravel in the pit-lane in China, which ultimately costs you the championship and a chance to rewrite the record books is far more stupid, but I digress.

Yet, afterwards I couldn't believe how many people tried to justify, or at least absolve Hamilton's actions by comparing what he did today, to what happened to Kimi in Monaco two weeks ago when he lost control and ran into the back of Sutil's car.

To set the record straight, Kimi used logic that is undeniable:

"If I go at 300kph (nearly 190mph) and lose control and hit somebody, it is natural, but if there is a pitlane speed limit and two cars are stopped and you hit them, it is stupid. I saw a red light and chose to stop. Unfortunately someone else (Hamilton) saw a red light and chose not to."

Once the Canadian Grand Prix got underway, it became apparent the Ferrari strategy was not as bad as first thought. It was clear the Ferraris were super heavy and were strategizing to leapfrog whoever was in front of them with solid long runs.

Things got even better for Ferrari when a pace car came out and ate up all of Hamilton's lead that he had built up to that point.

Hamilton and McLaren also missed a glorious opportunity to pit just before the pit-lane closed as a result of the safety car. Had he managed to do that, he would have more than tripled after the safety car period. This meant that the top five cars pitted at exactly the same time while the safety car was still on track. Kubica, who was in second place at the time kind of finished first of the three, but Kimi was right there with him and both drivers made it to the red light at the same time. That is when Hamilton, a sophomore made a rookie mistake.

Apparently looking just at the Ferrari and Kubica, he forgot to look at the red light and by the time he realized what was happening, he couldn't stop his car in time — all while still in the pits — and ran into the rear end of Kimi's Ferrari.

Nico Rosberg then rear ended Hamilton and the race was over for all three.

It was clearly Hamilton's mistake and the stewards penalized Hamilton 10-spots at the next race in France.

Meanwhile, Massa found a way to lower his position and could only manage finishing 5th, behind Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld who took home a 1-2 for BMW, it was also Kubica's first grand prix victory. Then David Coulthard finished on the podium for the first time in who knows how long in 3rd position. And Timo Glock managed to keep his Toyota ahead of Massa in fourth.

Im not sure how Massa was unable to pass Glock, but apparently this is modern F1 and that means hardly no passing.

In any case, Kubica is now leading the championship standings only 4- points ahead of Hamilton and Massa who are tied. Kimi is only 3-points behind them.

I'm not sure where they went, but despite Kimi's 2nd-row miracle, Felipe Massa and Ferrari in general were no where to be found.

I thought I saw them yesterday in the Friday practice, and they were definitely present at this morning's practice, but not during the qualifying sessions.

What is even more puzzling is how Kimi could be ahead after the first sector, and again after the second sector, then lose nearly a full second in the third and final sector.

It seemed like Ferrari had set up there cars to race part of the track and not the whole track, while everyone else put the entire lap together.

Part of the problem, according to the drivers was the way the track was patched up. Every year the good folks in Montreal patch up with asphalt problem areas in the track. But, this means the track is inconsistent, bumpy and starts to fall apart with heat. In fact, the biggest problem was the marbling that was going on, especially around the tight hairpin, which is where Kimi seemed to tip-toe his way around, as opposed to race around.

At the end, the only silver lining was that Kimi will start on the clean side of the track in 3rd position. Ahead of him will be Hamilton on pole, and Kubica in 2nd.

Kimi will absolutely have to get past at least Kubica at the start if he has plans of winning tomorrow.

Meanwhile, you will have to go all the way back to 6th position to find Felipe Massa, who as I say, did an amazing disappearing act through the qualifying sessions.

Alonso quietly stuck his Renault right behind Kimi in 4th, and Rosberg managed a very impressive 5th.

Here's hoping tomorrow will remind us a lot of the 2004 Canadian Grand Prix, where Schumi and Barrichello started a woeful 6th and 7th respectively, but ended up finishing 1-2 in the race.

Listen folks, it's a done deal: Alonso is definitely coming to Ferrari, probably around 2010.

Just as we reported way back when that Kimi was coming to Ferrari, when everyone was speculating that Montoya (or someone else) was coming to Ferrari, our sources clearly tell us Kimi *may* retire and Alonso will take his place.

And as is always the case in sports, when everyone and their uncle denies that something is going to happen, it usually means it will happen exactly as reported.

P.S. the year Alonso joins Ferrari will also be the year Alonso competes for the championship once again.

After Kimi Raikkonen made a 'dumb dumb' and crashed himself and Adrian Sutil out of last week's Monaco Grand Prix, it was suggested Force India lost millions in sponsorship money their 4th or 5th place finish would have given them.

But, as all of us at F50.com suspected, Force India and Sutil would have been removed from the points anyway, because Sutil passed a bunch of cars during the yellow flag after Alonso and Heidfeld collided.

This was confirmed by steward Paul Gutjahr: "We would have had to give him a 25-second penalty, because he overtook three cars under yellow flags after the Alonso-Heidfeld collision at the hairpin." And a 25-second penalty would have dropped Sutil from fourth to at least 10th place.

So, instead of giving Kimi the finger, Force India should be thanking him. A public slap in the face would have cost Force India a heck of a lot more.

It all went wrong for Ferrari in Monaco thanks to the weather and their inability to adapt - or perhaps they gambled wrong.

The race started wet, and Ferrari eventually had both their drivers at the front, 1-2 before the first major event, a safety car.

The safety car ate up Massa's lead, and shortly after that, Kimi was handed a driver through penalty, because his tires were not on his car within the mandatory 3-minute period before the installation lap.

The safety car period on the other hand, helped Hamilton enormously, because he hit the wall and needed to make an unscheduled pit stop, which lost him tons of time. He regained all that time and converted his strategy to a more favorable one with that safety car period.

But, all was not lost for Ferrari yet.

Kubica made things interesting as he also took advantage of the safety car period, and what appeared to be better wet weather pace and quickly found himself in 2nd behind Massa.

Then Massa lost his car giving up first to Kubica.

Massa managed to overtake Kubica during the next round of pit-stops, but not for long.

Ferrari, by this time was banking on the rain to come back in an around lap 50. Had the rain come, all of the drivers (Hamilton, Kubica, etc.) who had earlier gambled and put on dry tires, would have been forced to pit again, and Ferrari would have had their 1-2 back.

But, the rain never came, so instead it was the Ferraris who were forced to make another unscheduled pit-stop, which essentially sealed the deal for Hamilton who won his first Monaco Grand Prix.

There was another safety car period after that, which bunched everyone up again, but this is Monaco and passing is only a suggestion.

Of course, Kimi added insult to injury by crashing into the back of Sutil after the safety car went in, which forced yet another unschedule pit stop to fix his wing. That cost him at least 4-points as he ended up finishing 9th.

At the end of the day, Massa is lucky to get on the podium in 3rd position, Kimi had his race to forget finishing 9th, and Hamilton is lucky to be 1st in the championship with his win today.

Kubica got what he deserved; however, finishing in 2nd position. BMW was perfect all weekend in the sense that they performed to their abilities, chose the right strategy, and adapted when necessary.

Defending champion Kimi Raikkonen may know his stuff when it comes to racing cars, but when it comes to an auction block it's a whole other story.

During a charity event this weekend in Monaco, Kimi was the highest bidder for Sharon Stone's 1974 Corvette.

Kimi paid $200,000 Euros (that's $315,000US) for a car that is technically worth no more than $19,900US.

Charity or not, that's crazy... unless the car comes with Ms. Stone herself???