Charles Leclerc has beaten his championship rival Max Verstappen to take pole position for the French Grand Prix. The Monacan was just over three tenths faster after putting in his fastest lap on his final run in Q3 edging out Verstappen, Ferrari appears to be regaining some momentum having taken victory in Spielberg
Despite his teammate Carlos Sainz having a penalty which will see him start at the back of the grid, Ferrari opted to run him through to Q3 to give Leclerc a tow along the Mistral Straight to try to counter the Red Bull’s straight-line speed. Team work was clear as Sainz soon dived out the way for the final sector allowing Leclerc to set a 30.872, Verstappen was left unable to respond after not improving in the first two sectors.
on the second runs Leclerc picked up Sainz’s tow exiting the chicane that splits the long Mistral straight and had the slipstream all the way down through the flat-out Signes corner before Sainz moved out of the way into the Beausset double-left. Which lead to him gaining the margin over Verstappen.
If it wasn’t knowing he had a grid penalty it would have been interesting to have seen whether Sainz could have carried the momentum from the last few races, he was two tenths off. He however was disappointed by the timing of the penalty on a weekend when the team has been quick.
Saying “Unfortunately the penalty comes at a point in the season when I am feeling at the best with the car. I have been all weekend very fast. But obviously because of the penalty the target was to get to Q3 and give the tow to Charles, which I think I did pretty well.”
Verstappen managed to out-qualify his teammate Sergio Perez by a quarter of a second. The Red Bull’s starting second and third on the grid for the race will be a huge threat to Leclerc at the start of the race, the team has the advantage on the straights in practice but the Monacan was surprised that didn’t translate in qualifying.
Leclerc told reporters “I think it’s around 0.2secs (I gained) in the car to the lap before in the tow. So it’s significant. It would have been a lot closer. It was a nice help anyway.”
Verstappen added, “Overall we were lacking a bit in qualifying, just general grip. It was a bit more tricky than I would have hoped but we still have a decent race car. Tomorrow will come to our favour. We are quick on the straights and we can use that.”
Mercedes have looked to struggle all weekend, Lewis Hamilton could only manage fourth, but was eight tenths off at a circuit which is expected to see them struggle more. The eight-time constructor’s champions went into the weekend full of hope with upgrades and a Paul Ricard track that was expected to suit them, but they have been battling in the midfield so far and only scraped through to Q3.
However up until Lando Norris managed to spilt Hamilton and teammate George Russell they had been evenly matched. Hamilton, who missed FP1, ended the session over three and a half tenths ahead of Russell.
The Mercedes upgrades this weekend being a revised front wing and nose, but they haven’t delivered the next step towards Red Bull and Ferrari, with them further behind than Silverstone and Spielberg. But Hamilton and Russell remained evenly matched until Hamilton moved three and a half tenths ahead on his last run.
Norris put his McLaren fifth to spilt the Mercedes following a mega final attempt and the teams upgrades allowed him to go a tenth faster than Russell. Norris’s teammate Daniel Ricciardo failed to make it through to Q3 he missed out by three and a half hundredths of a second, leaving him eleventh.
Norris said “It has been a very good day. Before qualifying we were discussing whether we should even talk about Q3. It was very far away from what we thought we could achieve. But as we’ve gone through the weekend we have understood the package and upgrades more and more and how to maximise them and find the limit of it all and we did that, I think.”
Russell was left a tenth behind Norris, and ahead of Fernando Alonso by four-tenths of a second. Yuki Tsunoda was the final driver to set a reprehensive time in Q3 leaving the Alpha Tauri driver eighth nearly three tenths off Leclerc’s session topping time, going ahead of Sainz and Kevin Magnussen, both drivers starting from the back of the grid for fresh Ferrari power units.
Daniel Ricciardo was eleventh, the McLaren driver missing out by over a tenth on a place in Q3. But he was ahead of Esteban Ocon by a tenth, Alpine surprising off the pace at their home Grand Prix with Ocon being the highest Frenchman after being shuffled out of the top ten as others improved.
Ocon was five thousandths of a second ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel, with Alex Albon fifteenth. The Williams driver only made it through to Q2 when Mick Schumacher’s fastest lap was deleted for track limits dropping the Haas driver to nineteenth.
Albon was also unable to improve having lost the rear at the Mistral chicane on his final attempt. Pierre Gasly was a surprise knock out in Q1, the Frenchman starts sixteenth after setting his time first, Lance Stroll set the same time as the Alpha Tauri driver but after the Frenchman.
Guanyu Zhou was first across the line when the chequered flag dropped, but the Alfa Romeo driver had to catch a wild snap of oversteer at Turn Six. The Chinese driver saying he “nearly spun” catching the moment, with his previous personal best good enough for eighteenth ahead of Schumacher and Nicholas Latifi, who both set their quickest times at the end of Q1.
Schumacher briefly went sixteenth, however despite a protest from Haas about the time being deleted for track limits. That left him nine hundredths ahead of Latifi as they rounded out the field.
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FRENCH GP – Charles Leclerc Fastest In First Practice Nine Hundredths Ahead Of Max Verstappen
