Lewis Hamilton has beaten his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas by a tenth of a second to take pole position for the French Grand Prix. Mercedes have looked strong all weekend, and they maintained their advantage throughout the weekend topping all three practice sessions.
The four times champion set his fastest time during his first run in Q3 and that put him two tenths ahead of Bottas, and almost three tenths faster than Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel. Hamilton has been in strong form all weekend and the Mercedes upgrade as given the team the edge over Ferrari, with Vettel being three tenths off.
Both Red Bull’s of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo out-qualified the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn made a mistake on his final run before hitting traffic when it mattered on his closing lap in Q3. He will start ahead of Renaults Carlos Sainz, who was over a second slower than Raikkonen.
Hamilton said “It wasn’t too bad. Qualifying is always tough. Q3 wasn’t spectacular. Q1 and Q2 were good, but Q3 was so-so. It’s such a beautiful place. I’m really excited to come here, and to get on the front is great for all the guys.”
Vettel: “It’s a difficult one to get the right balance, I tried to push everything in the last attempt, but looking back. I pushed too hard. You try and get a little bit here and there out the car and then it slides, you lose the line, and you end up losing time rather than gaining.”
It was another impressive session for Ferrari’s young driver Charles Leclerc, the Monacan got his Sauber through to Q3 for the first time his career. Leclerc once again impressed with his performance which gave Sauber their first Q3 appearance since 2014.
Leclerc told Sky Sports “It’s just unbelievable. It’s probably the best recovery I did in my career from one day to another. Yesterday was a disaster, the car was not great and I was not driving very well.”
“We changed the car completely today and I have no words to describe how I feel right now. We all should be proud of what we achieved today.”
Despite there strong showing in practice, both Haas’s will start ninth and tenth. Romain Grosjean spun off and crashed the car at L’ecole as he exited onto the Mistral Straight. Grosjean was unhurt in the crash and will start tenth.
While his teammate Kevin Magnussen came across Raikkonen on his fast lap.
Esteban Ocon was eleventh ahead of Renaults Nico Hulkenberg, both drivers losing out as the circuit improved late in the session. Hulkenberg was six hundredths off a place in Q3 after what he described as a “very good lap.” That put him ahead of his former teammate Sergio Perez and Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly by a second.
Marcus Ericsson also impressed for Sauber, like Leclerc he also made it into Q2. After missing all of FP2 after a crash on Friday and his running limited in FP3 with the weather it was an impressive result for the Swede.
While Sauber impressed, it was the worst qualifying of the season for McLaren. Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne both failing to make it out of Q1 starting sixteenth and seventeenth.
The Spaniard told BBC News “Happy with the lap. This is the way it is. Already in Canada, we were P15, so we were one position on the borderline, so it is not a surprise but it is very disappointing
The poor performance will fuel the growing unease which has been reported within the team. Despite the team’s effort to improve the car, and the performance will only increase the pressure on a management who are facing increasing criticism.
Another team who are under pressure is Williams, they didn’t fare much better with Sergey Sirotkin out qualifying Lance Stroll, with Toro Rosso’s Brendon Hartley twentieth.
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