BOITUMELO RANTAO
FORMULA One made its stop in Le Castellet, France at the Paul Ricard Circuit where championship leader Max Verstappen beat out Mercedes’ driver Lewis Hamilton to pole position for the French Grand Prix.
“To be able to put it on pole here, on a track that has not been our favourite in terms of performance, is very promising and a big boost for the team” said Verstappen.
Verstappen set a blistering time of 1:29.990 – which left Hamilton waiting three tenths back. Hamilton will start ahead of teammate Valterri Bottas in third. Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff will be pleased with both cars splitting the Red Bull cars of Verstappen and Sergio Perez, who qualified in fourth.
“That was an exciting qualifying session and a solid performance to put our cars P2 and P3, with just a tenth of a second between them,” said Wolff.
“But we weren’t quick enough to claim pole position today. We made a good step with Lewis’s car from yesterday, and he felt much more comfortable with the balance once he was running in qualifying; and Valtteri has bounced back strongly from a tough weekend in Baku.”
Behind Perez was Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz who, after downplaying Ferrai’s pace, qualified as the best car after the front-runners in fifth. AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly qualified in sixth, his best qualifying performance at his home race.
Sainz’s teammate Charles Leclerc, who arrived in France after two consecutive pole positions, struggled “overall‘ with his Ferrari and will start in 7th.
McLaren’s Lando Norris will start in 8th, with teammate Daniel Ricciardo starting from 10th on the grid. Alpine Racing, in their first home race as Alpine, will have drivers Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon start 8th and 11th respectively.
The first qualifying session (Q1) had barely gotten off to a start when AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda took too much kerb into turn 1, and spun off into the barrier off turn 2, triggering a red flag.
After a delay he would not continue the session. Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll would finish 19th without registering a time. Also out in Q1 were Williams’ Nicholas Latifi, Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen, and Haas’ Nikita Mazepin.
Mick Schumacher crashed at turn 6 towards the end of Q1, which triggered red flags for the second time in the first qualifying session.
However, the Haas rookie had set a time that would see Schumacher into the second qualifying session (Q2) for the first time, yet consequently stopping other drivers from completing their final runs of Q1.
