The performance talk from Friday of F1 French GP was overshadowed by the FIA decision but the on-track result had an interesting situation with the Top 3 teams plus the midfield scenario with McLaren and Renault.
Mercedes clearly looked the team to beat after Friday in the F1 French GP at Circuit Paul Ricard despite all the teams having a tough time in the first practice session due to the asphalt and the hot conditions making it difficult to find a fine balance.
It was much better in the second F1 session as Mercedes led the pack while Ferrari seemed behind with Red Bull Racing. Hamilton had a big moment in FP2 at Turn 3-4, where he nearly collected Max Verstappen but the FIA cleared him of any charge.
“It’s not been a bad start to the weekend,” said Hamilton. “It’s odd because we’re all struggling with the grip out there, it’s quite poor. It’s a new surface in a lot of corners, so there is a lot of sliding and a lot of mistakes out there, even one I made in FP2.
“But generally, we’re all in the same boat, and regardless we still have very good pace and we’re just trying to refine the set-up a little bit. I struggled [with the balance] already in FP1, then made some changes for FP2 but the general issue was still there.
“I had a lot of snap oversteer. But I don’t think it’s anything we can’t rectify. It was a serious moment, I’m surprised I caught it. If I had gone round I might have gone off into the wall. I got it under control but drifting.
“I had to apply the brake, and come off the brake and apply the brake and a bit of gas to try and keep the balance, it was kind of cool. So definitely happy with the save.” Teammate Valtteri Bottas, meanwhile, was happy with the changes in FP2 from FP1.
However, he complained of the same balance issue as Hamilton. Ferrari, on the other hand, did not have a great time as they found themselves more in Red Bull range rather than Mercedes after the updates they brought did not yield the desired performance.
“I would say we have a lot of work ahead of us since not all the new parts we have here performed exactly as expected,” said Sebastian Vettel. “I think we have a lot of data to analyze overnight, to possibly have a bit better performance.”
F1 team principal Mattia Binotto said it was expected for the team to lose time in the final part of the track like Barcelona but he was confident to find more performance as the weekend progressed. Red Bull though were happy to be in Ferrari’s range.
It wasn’t an easy run for both Verstappen and Pierre Gasly as the latter stated that they couldn’t fully understand the true performance of the new Honda F1 power unit, but the overall feelings was positive and reliability wise, it worked fine on both cars.
“We still have some work to do but we looked reasonably competitive against Ferrari. Mercedes are still too quick but we will look at the data and see what we can improve,” said Verstappen. “The tyres are not that easy to predict.
“And it seems that the softest compound is not a lot faster than the medium, which will make things quite interesting in qualifying.” Moving on to the midfield teams, McLaren looks to be the clear favourites as both drivers were well inside the Top 10.
While they were positive about their performance on Friday, both Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris cautioned for losing out in the rest of the weekend. “Position-wise it looks quite promising,” said Norris, after his Top 5 finish in FP2.
“Although in Canada the car was very quick on Friday, but even though we were still quick, the rest of the weekend we dropped back slightly, so we’re cautious. As a team, we’ve done a good job, the pace looks promising.
“Now if we can improve the car a little we should have a good qualifying.” At the same time, the Renault drivers were cautiously optimistic too with Daniel Ricciardo running the new spec power unit and Nico Hulkenberg not.
“It was positive run, although maybe the timesheets don’t reflect how the car actually felt,” said Ricciardo. “Across all our runs, the car seemed good. Our soft tyre run in qualifying trim was slightly tricky and maybe we missed out a little there.
“It didn’t feel that far off, and I’m certainly optimistic as the upgrades seemed positive and we have some data to go through to find further improvements.” Hulkenberg felt similar to the Australian even though he did not have the new unit.
Apart from these two teams, it was a mixed scenario with Haas, Alfa Romeo Racing, Racing Point and Toro Rosso. Over at Haas, it was a terrible day for Romain Grosjean after water leak in FP1 and lock-up in FP2 but Kevin Magnussen felt a bit better.
Overall, the team is still finding the right balance which could help Alfa Romeo, who had a much better outing with Kimi Raikkonen even making inside the Top 10 in FP2. The team seems confident of a Q3 berth, especially if few others falter at a key moment.
For Toro Rosso, it is only Alexander Albon with a real chance of any progress and start from a good position with the old unit on his car as Daniil Kvyat is already carrying a penalty. Honda is opting for a tactical gain for the Russian for the remainder of the season.
With no upgrades on the car, Racing Point were only to salvage as much from the two sessions. They looked better in FP1 but the rising temperatures worked otherwise for both Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll to be outside the Top 10.
French GP: Hamilton leads FP1 from Bottas by 0.069s at Paul Ricard
French GP: Bottas quickest in FP2 as Hamilton under investigation