McLaren has suffered a further blow to its French GP hopes following the decision to impose a five-place grid penalty on Heikki Kovalainen for impeding Mark Webber.

Race Stewards adjudged the Finn to have impeded the Australian by driving slowly on his out lap during today's qualifying session - Webber was on a flying lap at the time.

The decision means that Kovalainen, who qualified sixth but gained a place due to his teammate's penalty - will start from tenth on the grid.

Ron Dennis claims that the team was aware that there might be a penalty consequently the Finn's strategy was adjusted accordingly.

"Heikki is in a pretty good position, despite his penalty," said the McLaren boss. "It was one of those things: he tried to stay out of Webber's way, but in his effort to do so there was a bit of positional confusion and nowhere left for him to go. The result was that he compromised both his own and Mark's laps. We have no objection to his penalty, and look forward to an exciting and challenging day tomorrow."

Lewis Hamilton, who qualified third, had already been hit with a ten-place grid penalty following the incident in Canada which saw the McLaren driver hit the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen in the pitlane.

To check out our Magny-Cours qualifying gallery, click here