FRENCH GP – Valtteri Bottas leads Mercedes one-two in FP1, with Red Bull four-tenths off
Valtteri Bottas lead a Mercedes one-two after going three tenths faster than his teammate Sir Lewis Hamilton in first practice for the French Grand Prix. After two tough weekends, many expected Mercedes to have the slight edge over Red Bull and so it proved with Max Verstappen almost a tenth behind Hamilton in third.
Mercedes needed a strong start and set the ball rolling when Hamilton was first out on the soft tyres setting a 33.783, Verstappen was nine hundredths off while Bottas’s first attempt was aborted after he went over the kerb at Turn Two. Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez was fourth just over three tenths behind.
Many expected the seven-time champions to come back strongly and at the early stage they appear to be quick, they have won the last two races at Paul Ricard. Bottas made a slight mistake early on going a bit too aggressively and over the large kerb at Turn Two damaging his front wing.
After spending some time in the garage as Mercedes assessed the damage – which it estimated was worth “tens of thousands of pounds” when team sporting director Ron Meadows complained to race director Michael Masi regarding the kerbs’ placement – Bottas had slotted in just behind Verstappen at the end of the hard tyre running.
Meanwhile, Verstappen managed to match Mercedes on a used set of soft tyres in sector one before going fastest in sector two, but then damaged the floor and abandoning the lap. The Dutchman believing, he may have picked up floor damage, while he complained to the team about balance through the twisty final sector.
Esteban Ocon was fifth leading the midfield group after going over a second faster than the McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo, who spilt the two Alpine’s with Fernando Alonso going seventh.
Pierre Gasly was eighth fastest six thousandths behind Alonso, while the second McLaren of Lando Norris was ninth. The Alpha Tauri of Yuki Tsunoda rounding out the top ten going two tenths ahead of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari.
The only real drama of the session was when Sebastian Vettel made his mistake at Beausset. The four-times champion appeared to get caught out by a gust of wind which swung him around and off into the barrier although he was able to continue in the session which he ended fifteenth fastest.
That left Vettel two hundredths behind his Aston Martin teammate Lance Stroll.
Mick Schumacher also had a moment on his out-lap on the hards at the beginning of the session, clipping the wall with his right front after spearing off left when he hit the brakes approaching the turn. While Carlos Sainz also clipped the same kerb and went off.
Ferrari appeared to have dropped behind as expected with Leclerc going eleventh fastest, a second and a half behind Bottas’s fastest time. But the Monacan had warned the special circumstances of Monaco and Baku was why the team performed well.
Nicolas Latifi was fastest in the Haas-Williams battle, the next four races looking tough for the Grove team. The Canadian was a second faster than Nikita Mazepin, who was seven-tenths ahead of teammate Mick Schumacher. Test driver Roy Nissany replaced George Russell for the session and was two seconds behind Latifi.