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Lewis is the veteran now, and if he can hold it in his Mercedes he may be able to strike if the two leading teams falter. Meanwhile, Christian Horner admits this is the hottest day of the championship this year and, like Max Verstappen, points to tire management as the key to victory.
The Marseillaise plays on the famous ring track, and Lando Norris talks about it: “Today is a harder day, yesterday was easy work. The fastest car will be the best balanced.”
Max Verstappen says his: “It’s about managing the tyres, you can be ahead and if you wreck them, they’ll overtake you”.
Jean Alesi is backing Ferrari, but seems to fear reliability. Flavio Briatore has made an appearance and says F1 is better than ever, with Verstappen and Leclerc as new stars.
Petra gets in touch: “Nyck de Vries was asked to drive in Hamilton’s car yesterday. What do you think of his talent? Does Nyck have a chance to be the next Formula 1 driver for Mercedes? When Nyck was a small boy, I met him and his father in their home in a small village in Friesland. He was, and most likely still is, the kindest, most polite boy I have ever met. And of course, he also had a great talent for driving at the time!”
Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team principal, spoke about De Vries this weekend.
I think that if we are not able to offer him an interesting Formula 1 project, we have to somehow let him go. You are looking at several options, [including] sports cars and then maybe Formula E, but you should never give up on the chance that one day a door might open in Formula 1, and today was really, really good.
I can’t really help him, because we can’t really tell any team to look at him and consider him, because that would feel like interference and that goes against the grain.
With the pit lane open, the cars have been headed to the grid and tested as they arrive. The mechanics get to work on their final checks. Red Bull’s Helmut Marko seems confident his son Max Verstappen can catch Charles Leclerc. It’s hot out there and reliability has been a problem for Ferrari.
Giles Richards spoke to a Ferrari mainstay of the past in Jean Alesi.
“Lewis is unique,” he says. “When Michael [Schumacher] he made seven championships everyone said, “This is over for the next 40 years.” Then Lewis arrived. It’s really impressive. When you get spoiled by results like he did, because a good race is P1, a crappy race is P2, that was his life. But now he’s driving a car that’s jumping down the straight like a kangaroo and for him to stay motivated to talk to the engineers, to make the car better, I mean… Wow. What a champion.”
Although he has only managed one win – a record that does not reflect his talent, especially in the wet – Alesi remembers his career fondly and still loves the sport. The Scuderia were far from their best during his time with them. The 1991 car was unreliable; Alesi retired nine times that season and his teammate Prost, who had fallen out with Ferrari, was sacked after he described the car as a “truck”.
Lewis Hamilton was unhappy with Mercedes’ performance in qualifying at Paul Ricard, where it was thought his team could finally catch up with Red Bull and Ferrari.
We expected to be much closer than we are. I was thinking we might be 0.2 seconds or something like that. But we’re a second away and I don’t have an answer for that.
For whatever reason, we seem to be a lot further along this weekend, but the whole group is. The two best teams are in their own league, really.
On the last lap, the first sector is just as fast. Then we lose a lot on the straights. At least half a second. And then through that high-speed section, they have less drag and more downforce in the corners. The last sector was 0.6-0.7 seconds. it’s crazy. For some reason they are able to go much faster through high speed corners.
I came here hoping to be within 0.3 seconds and then we could close it by a couple of tenths in the next race and be in contention in Budapest. But if it is something like that, it will take some time (before we can win). But it is not impossible.
Giles Richards saw pole position collected pragmatically.
He put in a good lap for Ferrari, but was aided by a tow from teammate Carlos Sainz to help him take pole, beating the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez in second and third place. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were fourth and sixth, decent enough given their season, but far from the improvement Mercedes had hoped for. The end of his winless run seems as far away as ever.
Sainz finished ninth but, as the team knew he would start from the back row of the grid after taking new power unit components, they opted to use him tactically to Leclerc’s advantage.
preamble
For there to be a title race, we probably need a Charles Leclerc win here, to repeat his win at the Austrian GP last time. Despite this, Max Verstappen still has a 38-point lead over the second-placed Monegasque driver and 57 points over Sergio Perez, and is second on the grid at Paul Ricard today. Leclerc and Verstappen, with all due respect to George Russell if Mercedes were to settle, looks like the rivalry of the future. The problem all season has been that Ferrari may be faster in a single lap, but lack the reliability and pit-lane ability of Red Bull, who themselves have not been completely watertight. Still, Leclerc driving like a demon evokes memories of Ferrari at its best. Verstappen has already had it harder than last year here, when he was on pole, won the race and set the fastest lap. Now, can Leclerc make his title defense more difficult?
Lights out at 2pm, join me.
Initial grid positions
- 1 Charles Leclerc – Ferrari
- 2 Max Verstappen – Red Bull
- 3 Sergio Perez – Red Bull
- 4 Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes
- 5 Lando Norris – McLaren
- 6 George Russell – Mercedes
- 7 Fernando Alonso – Alpine
- 8 Yuki Tsunoda –Alpha Tauri
- 9 Daniel Ricciardo – McLaren
- 10 Esteban Ocon – Alpí
- 11 Valtteri Bottas – Alfa Romeo
- 12 Sebastian Vettel – Aston Martin
- 13 Alex Albon – Williams
- 14 Pierre Gasly – AlphaTauri
- 15 Lance Stroll – Aston Martin
- 16 Guanyu Zhou – Alfa Romeo
- 17 Mick Schumacher – Haas
- 18 Nicholas Latifi – Williams
- 19 Carlos Sainz – Ferriari
- 20 Kevin Magnussen – Haas
Classification of the drivers’ championship
- 1. Max Verstappen – 208 points
- 2. Charles Leclerc – 170 points
- 3. Sergio Pérez – 151 points
- 4. Carlos Sainz – 133 points
- 5. George Russell – 128 points
- 6. Lewis Hamilton – 109 points
- 7. Lando Norris – 64 points
- 8. Esteban Ocon – 52 points
- 9. Valtteri Bottas – 46 points
- 10. Fernando Alonso – 29 points
- 11. Kevin Magnussen – 22 points
- 12. Daniel Ricciardo -17 points
- 13. Pierre Gasly – 16 points
- 14. Sebastian Vettel -15 points
- 15. Mick Schumacher – 12 points
- 16. Yuki Tsunoda — 11 points
- 17. Guanyu Zhou – 5 points
- 18. Alex Albon – 3 points
- 19. Lance Stroll – 3 points