The Formula 1 season is about to cross the halfway mark with Ferrari's Felipe Massa in first place with declared desire to end the season on top.
Massa won Sunday's French Grand Prix which allowed him to leapfrog into first place, a position a Brazilian has not occupied since the late Ayrton Senna 15 years ago.
This was Massa's third win of the season and he has already matched his best season total since joining Ferrari in 2006 and allows him to think big.
''I will now take it one race at a time and we'll see what happens. Like every driver I want to win the title and I think this year I have a real chance. The car is competitive and the team is perfect,'' Massa said after the race.
''We have to be careful not to make any mistakes because the season is still long. Plus we should not underestimate the other drivers,'' he added.
Massa's feat on Sunday was in large part due to luck being on his side. His teammate and reigning world champion Kimi Raikkonen developed mechanical problems almost halfway into the race after taking pole and leading up until then.
Massa has had his own string of bad luck and this season failed to pick up any points at all in the first two races.
But luck, bad or good, is part of the game and Massa is convinced that ''now it's my turn'' to get lucky.
With Massa now in the lead and Raikkonen third and only six points behind, Ferrari finds itself in a position where it has to bet on two drivers, unlike last year when Raikkonen had a strong lead over Massa and the Brazilian was forced to work more for his teammate than himself.
Although always careful not to betray emotions, Raikkonen was clearly disappointed over his mechanical problems, a broken exhaust, which kept him from winning his third race of the season and climbing back into first place.
''We still have a long way to go but we are in a better position than we were last year. Let's see what I can do in the latter half of the season,'' the Finn said after Sunday's race.
Sunday's one-two finish in France was the 79th in the Italian team's history and the third this season. It allowed Ferrari to extend its lead in the constructors' championships where it has collected 91 points from 8 races compared to 74 points for BMW and 58 for McLaren-Mercedes.
