Mercedes reigned supreme in the 2018 Formula 1’s French GP qualifying as Lewis Hamilton dominated all the three parts to take his career’s 75th pole from Valtteri Bottas and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel at Paul Ricard.
Q1:
After rain disrupted the FP3 session, the first part of the qualifying run remained dry, even though it was much cooler on track with overcast conditions. The fight at the front was still headed by Mercedes with Hamilton on top after his time of 1m31.271s.
The British driver was followed by Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen (1m31.531s) and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen (1m31.567s) to make it three different teams in the Top 3. But it was nightmare at the back especially for the two McLaren drivers.
Late improvements from both Force India drivers and Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson limited McLaren’s chances all the more. Stoffel Vandoorne was already out, with Fernando Alonso joining after Ericsson’s quicker laptime.
As a result, Alonso (1m32.976s) was only 16th followed by Toro Rosso Honda’s Brendon Hartley (1m33.025s), Vandoorne (1m33.162s) and the two Williams drivers Sergey Sirotkin (1m33.636s) and Lance Stroll (1m33.729s) – Hartley’s penalty will move Vandoorne, Sirotkin and Stroll a place up.
Q2:
The strategy game in the second part had both Mercedes and Red Bull drivers opt to use the supersoft tyres so as to start the race on the mid-level compound, while Ferrari chose to run on the usual ultrasoft tyres.
Hamilton stayed on top with a 1m30.645s laptime to be ahead of title rival Vettel (1m30.953s) who had his teammate Raikkonen (1m31.104s) just behind him. Interestingly, for the second runs, Red Bull decided to split strategies.
But Ricciardo didn’t improve on his ultrasoft tyres which means he will start on the supersoft compound. But the Top 10 fight, it was a close battle among different teams and drivers towards the end.
Force India’s Perez opted for an early run to shot himself into the Top 10, but he was bumped by teammate Esteban Ocon later on. However, both of them were then shot down by Sauber’s Charles Leclerc for his first Q3 appearance.
Ocon (1m32.075s) will start from 11th after missing Q3 by just 0.020s with Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg alongside – who radioed about a ‘good lap’ but was told that he missed Q3 by 0.060s to Leclerc.
Force India’s Perez (1m32.454s) early lap gamble didn’t pay off as he finished only 13th with Toro Rosso Honda’s Pierre Gasly (1m32.460s) only 14th ahead of Ericsson (1m32.820s).
Q3:
The third part was disrupted because of a red flag after the lone Frenchman in the Top 10, Haas’ Romain Grosjean binned it at Turn 4. He lost control of his Haas and slid across the run-off to hit the barrier front-on.
He was on his quick lap along with Leclerc and Haas teammate Kevin Magnussen but both had to abort their runs. Meanwhile, Hamilton (1m30.222s) took provisional pole from teammate Bottas (1m30.317s) and Vettel (1m30.400s) in third.
In the second and final run, it seemed like no one would improve especially with no purple sectors from anyone in the first and second sectors. However, Bottas triggered the movement going purple in the final sector to move ahead of Hamilton.
But the British (1m30.029s) driver also went purple in the final sector to eventually claim pole and lead a Mercedes 1-2 with Bottas (1m30.147s) in second. Vettel will start third after he made a mistake on his final lap.
The Red Bull drivers finished fourth and fifth respectively with Verstappen (1m30.705s) ahead of Ricciardo (1m30.895s) as both managed to beat Raikkonen (1m31.057s). Renault’s Carlos Sainz (1m32.126s) finished as best of the rest in seventh.
The Spaniard was closely followed by Leclerc (1m32.635s) who recorded his best result in qualifying as he managed to beat the Haas of Magnussen (1m32.930s) and Grosjean – the latter unable to clock a laptime in the end.