Max Verstappen Tops French Friday Practice

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen topped Friday Practice for 2021 French Grand Prix by just 0.008 seconds from Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas.

Bottas topped the morning session following a chassis change pre-race weekend and an eventful start in which he damaged his front wing, before dominating much of FP2 until Verstappen found time on the soft tyre to nick top spot.

Here is a full roundup of Friday’s action as drivers adapted to the return of a traditional race circuit after visiting the streets of Monaco and Baku in the last month.

 

FP1

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Sebastian Vettel was first out of the pits but the drama quickly began behind him as Mick Schumacher spun at Turn Three on entry, before Yuki Tsunoda suffered a spin at Turn 15 after losing grip in his rear tyres on entry.

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz set the initial benchmark of 1m 36.745 but once everyone begun to register representative fliers, it proved to be Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who set the pace on the hard tyre on 1m 35.639 with him quickly lowering that benchmark by 1.5 seconds soon afterwards.

Valtteri Bottas meanwhile endured a difficult start as he damaged his front wing on his opening flier by running over the yellow kerbs on the exit of Turn Two, which Mercedes went on to describe as “too aggressive” for F1 cars across team radio to FIA.

Bottas however recovered to go third on the hard tyre before eventually topping the session just after the half-hour mark with 1m 33.448 on a soft tyre simulation, ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen.

Sergio Perez was fourth quickest ahead of Esteban Ocon, Daniel Ricciardo, Fernando Alonso, Pierre Gasly, Lando Norris and Yuki Tsunoda, with everyone enjoying a largely quiet second half of FP1 focused on early race simulations as well as getting on top of track limits.

Position	Driver	Team	Time
1	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1m 33.448
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+ 0.335
3	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	+ 0.432
4	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	+ 0.745
5	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	+ 0.881
6	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	+ 1.196
7	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	+ 1.245
8	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	+ 1.251
9	Lando Norris	McLaren	+ 1.259
10	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	+ 1.399
11	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	+ 1.502
12	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	+ 1.668
13	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	+ 1.687
14	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	+ 1.827
15	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	+ 1.841
16	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	+ 1.894
17	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	+ 2.164
18	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	+ 3.203
19	Mick Schumacher	Haas	+ 3.881
20	Roy Nissany	Williams	+ 4.433

 

FP2

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A frantic start of session saw Bottas initially set the pace on mediums on 1m 32.880 ahead of Hamilton, Verstappen and Perez, before Haas’ Nikita Mazepin spun at Turn 15 just nine minutes into the session.

Four minutes later, Verstappen got wide out of Turn Two and ran over the yellow outside kerbs which tore off a piece of his front wing and caused a brief Virtual Safety Car as the debris was removed by a marshal.

Drivers soon afterwards switched focus to a qualifying simulation on the soft tyre which ultimately saw a mixture of small improvements to no time gain throughout the field, with Verstappen ultimately finding just enough to top the session on 1m 32.872 from Bottas by 0.008s.

Hamilton had to settle for third ahead of Alonso, Charles Leclerc, Ocon, Gasly, Carlos Sainz, Kimi Raikkonen and Norris who rounded out the top ten.

Position	Driver	Team	Time
1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1m 32.872
2	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	+ 0.008
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+ 0.253
4	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	+ 0.468
5	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	+ 0.678
6	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	+ 0.813
7	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	+ 0.824
8	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	+ 0.826
9	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	+ 0.914
10	Lando Norris	McLaren	+ 0.950
11	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	+ 0.959
12	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	+ 1.049
13	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	+ 1.083
14	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	+ 1.207
15	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	+ 1.575
16	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	+ 1.760
17	George Russell	Williams	+ 2.394
18	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	+ 2.459
19	Mick Schumacher	Haas	+ 2.640
20	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	+ 2.679