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Kimi Räikkönen was quite happy with the balance of his car after the first and second free practice of the French Grand Prix in Magny-Cours. He is correspondingly confident for the forthcomming weekend and sees himself in a competitive situation.

Kimi could complete a total of 21 laps with his Ferrari F2008 in the first free practice. At this he set in 1:16.073 minutes the fourth fastest time with a gap of 0.767 seconds on his team mate Felipe Massa, who was the fastest man on track with a time of 1:15.303 minutes. Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen were places between the two Ferrari drivers on the second and third place.

Kimi then was one of the most hardworking pilots in the second free practice with a total of 42 driven laps. Although he could improve his lap time from the first practice session only minimal, he instead was able to collect a variety of important data for the race on Sunday. Kimi finished the second free practice with a time of 1:15.999 minutes on the third place behind his team mate Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso. The Renault driver set in 1:15.778 minutes the fastest time of the second practice session and with that he was 0.221 faster than Kimi.

"I am happy with the way things went during these two free practice sessions. We got through all our usual Friday job list, working mainly towards the race. Of course we don't know how much fuel our main rivals were running, but I get the impression we are very competitive. Maybe I did not get the most out of the first lap, but I am happy with the balance of the car. We tried out this new system for a Safety Car period and I think it could be a good solution because it puts everyone in the same situation and that way, you can't be penalised just by unfortunate circumstances."

2nd Free Practice
 

Pos  Driver  Team  Laps  Time  Gap  1.  F. Alonso Renault 37  1:15.778    2.  F. Massa Ferrari 24  1:15.854  0.076  3.  K. Raikkonen Ferrari 42  1:15.999  0.221  4.  L. Hamilton McLaren 29  1:16.232  0.454  5.  S. Vettel Toro Rosso 42  1:16.298  0.520  6.  R. Kubica BMW 35  1:16.317  0.539  7.  H. Kovalainen McLaren 36  1:16.340  0.562  8.  N. Heidfeld BMW 43  1:16.458  0.680  9.  N. Piquet Renault 39  1:16.543  0.765  10.  D. Coulthard Red Bull 36  1:16.572  0.794  11.  N. Rosberg Williams 42  1:16.682  0.904  12.  J. Trulli Toyota 43  1:16.743  0.965  13.  S. Bourdais Toro Rosso 42  1:16.758  0.980  14.  K. Nakajima Williams 32  1:17.002  1.224  15.  T. Glock Toyota 39  1:17.092  1.314  16.  M. Webber Red Bull 38  1:17.106  1.328  17.  J. Button Honda 37  1:17.244  1.466  18.  G. Fisichella Force India 42  1:17.394  1.616  19.  R. Barrichello Honda 27  1:17.591  1.813  20.  A. Sutil Force India 33  1:17.868  2.090

1st Free Practice
 

Pos  Driver  Team  Laps  Time  Gap  1.  F. Massa Ferrari 22  1:15.306    2.  L. Hamilton McLaren 22  1:16.002  0.696  3.  H. Kovalainen McLaren 20  1:16.055  0.749  4.  K. Raikkonen Ferrari 21  1:16.073  0.767  5.  R. Kubica BMW 19  1:16.377  1.071  6.  F. Alonso Renault 23  1:16.400  1.094  7.  J. Trulli Toyota 32  1:16.758  1.452  8.  S. Vettel Toro Rosso 27  1:16.838  1.532  9.  N. Heidfeld BMW 21  1:16.870  1.564  10.  T. Glock Toyota 31  1:16.886  1.580  11.  N. Piquet Renault 31  1:17.063  1.757  12.  D. Coulthard Red Bull 21  1:17.234  1.928  13.  M. Webber Red Bull 22  1:17.269  1.963  14.  N. Rosberg Williams 30  1:17.394  2.088  15.  R. Barrichello Honda 25  1:17.491  2.185  16.  S. Bourdais Toro Rosso 27  1:17.683  2.377  17.  K. Nakajima Williams 25  1:17.696  2.390  18.  J. Button Honda 21  1:17.928  2.622  19.  G. Fisichella Force India 27  1:18.072  2.766  20.  A. Sutil Force India 13  1:18.673  3.367