Here’s Giles Richards’ report from Paul Ricard.
Updated
Driver championship standings
- 1. Max Verstappen - 233 points
- 2. Charles Leclerc - 170 points
- 3. Sergio Perez - 163 points
- 4. Carlos Sainz - 143 points
- 5. George Russell - 143 points
- 6. Lewis Hamilton - 127 points
- 7. Lando Norris - 70 points
- 8. Esteban Ocon - 56 points
- 9. Valtteri Bottas - 46 points
- 10. Fernando Alonso - 37 points
- 11. Kevin Magnussen - 22 points
- 12. Daniel Ricciardo -19 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. Lance Stroll - 4 points
- 19. Alex Albon - 3 points
- 20= Nicolas Latifi - 0 points
- 20= Nico Hulkenberg - 0 points
Ferrari’s woes summed up by these words from their two drivers.
Charles Leclerc: “We’ll add things up at the end of the season, but if we’re 25 or 30 points short at the season I can only blame myself I couldn’t go into reverse, but those are small details. You just can’t put a car into the wall.”
Carlos Sainz: “Come on, guys, I can’t believe you told me to box then I don’t know why we boxed ... I don’t understand.”
Here’s the race result.
- P1 - Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
- P2 - Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
- P3 - George Russell (Mercedes)
- P4 - Sergio Perez (Red Bull)
- P5 - Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)
- P6 - Fernando Alonso (Alpine)
- P7 - Lando Norris (McLaren)
- P8 - Esteban Ocon (Alpine)
- P9 - Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren)
- P10 - Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
RACE CLASSIFICATION 🏁
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 24, 2022
A dominant victory for Max Verstappen 💪#FrenchGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/o0uAdtUumY
Updated
Carlos Sainz drove well, and almost in spite of the antics of his Ferrari team.
Carlos Sainz is your @salesforce Driver Of The Day 💫
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 24, 2022
From P19 to P5, the super Spaniard put in an incredibly strong drive to collect important points for both championships! 💪#FrenchGP #F1 @ScuderiaFerrari @Carlossainz55 pic.twitter.com/3bWmR6bspY
George Russell: It was a long race, a tough race. Checo was all over me. I was glad to see that chequered flag, He didn’t really leave me much space.
Lewis Hamilton: This is the biggest crowd we have had out here. This was a tough race and my water bottle didn’t work. A huge congratulations to the team back home and th the two factories. George did an amazing job. I don’t see my weight but I probably lost around three kilos. I hope everyone back home has had an amazing Sunday. Budapest, it’s going to be hard to beat the Red Bulls.
Max Verstappen: I think we had really good pace. Following on, the tyres were overheating, I could only for go one more pit. We tried to stay calm. And from there onward you never how the race how it goes. Unlucky for Charles, I hope he’s Ok. It was all about looks after the tyres.
Your podium stars in France 💫
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 24, 2022
🥇 Max Verstappen
🥈 Lewis Hamilton
🥉 George Russell #FrenchGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/yHYy7CA9mQ
Updated
If that was the last French Grand Prix for a while, it was a good one, and might have been ever better had Charles Leclerc not made that “mistake”, as he freely and admirably admitted. Max Verstappen does not make mistakes like that.
Looked like the two Aston Martins, Vettel and Stroll, had a bit of a clash at the chequered flag. Max Verstappen seems perturbed by Perez’s fourth place. Hamilton says “great job, guys” to Toto Wolff in the Mercedes garage, and “well done, George”.
“That was a good restart,” says Russell. “Brilliant job.” Mercedes seem very happy with the French GP as a whole.
MAX VERSTAPPEN WINS IN FRANCE!!!
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 24, 2022
A dominant display by the Dutchman who didn't put a foot wrong to take glory at Le Castellet 👊#FrenchGP #F1 @Max33Verstappen @redbullracing pic.twitter.com/1SS1Xj13p1
Updated
Max Verstappen wins the French GP!
53/53 Perez getting closer and closer on the final lap, and hunting down Russell with DRS in hand. Can the young Englishman stay away? Sainz still has the fastest lap. Verstappen, up ahead, takes the 27th win of his career, and Hamilton takes his first second place of the season as Russell completes the podium, Sainz chasing down Perez for fifth.
Updated
52/53 Perez was caught napping. and his clash with Russell is the key battle with Hamilton and Verstappen safely away up ahead. Verstappen has ten seconds on Hamilton, this battle behind them is a matter of car lengths.
51/53 Russell has his third place, and he will claim justice for that previous contretemps. He used the rules of the virtual safety car to fly past Perez. Mercedes for the 2/3 as it stands.
Russell overtakes Perez to take third
50/53 Guanyu Zhou’s car is shuffled off the side of the track, and Verstappen is asking his team whether he can come in for a stop, perhaps to try and get a fastest lap. The virtual safety car is ended, and Russell slows up to speed away and try and chase down Perez and he flies past into third.
Updated
49/53 Sainz is flying along but won’t get to that battle between Perez and Russell. He is now complaining to his team who have told him he was short on tyre life. “I don’t understand.” Here’s a yellow flag, as Guanyu Zhou is off the side of the track, and a virtual safety car.
48/53 Sainz is in fifth now, as Russell makes a move on Perez, who is just staying out of reach for third place to go.
Leclerc admits blame for his crash
47/53 “Mistake,” admits Leclerc of the prang that offered Verstappen the race. “I am losing too many points. We were the strongest on track today and it’s unacceptable. It’s trying to push too much and I lost the rear. When it’s warm like this it’s difficult be consistent. I made the mistake at the wrong moment.
46/53 No further investigation, say the stewards. So Russell must chase third place. Sainz has set a fastest lap and is in sixth and chasing down Fernando Alonso.
45/53 Perez is looking slow, and Toto Wolff tells Russell to keep his head and take the place on merit. The Red Bull’s tyres look to be ailing.
44/53 Russell wants his team to do something about that near-crash with Perez but it looks like Perez pulled out of it, and avoided a crash. Russell thinks he had the honour, and getting angry.
43/53 Sainz takes the penalty and goes into the field in ninth, and the question is whether Ferrari have done the right thing. Bizarre strategy in action here.
42/53 George Russell and Perez at close quarters, and almost a crash. “He just turned into me,” says Russell. Sainz pits, and takes the penalty after a change of tyres.
41/53 The dialogue between Sainz and Ferrari continues. They want him to stay out, he wants to come in. He and Perez go wheel to wheel, and then over a couple of corners, he overtakes Perez. And bizarrely, his team tell him to pit while he is doing battle. He gets the job done, well done.
40/53 Magnussen is out after his smash into Nicholas Latifi. Let’s see what the commissioners say about that. Carlos Sainz has been told to adopt “plan D’, whatever that is.
39/53 Carlos Sainz says his team needs to pit soon, and that may ease the pressure on Perez and Russell.
38/53 Verstappen says he is “struggling with the left front”, the same was said by Hamilton a while back. This has been a tough examination of the teams. Nicholas Latifi, not for the first time, has come to grief in the Williams and Kevin Magnussen in the Haas clatters into him.
37/53 Pierre Gasly overtakes Kevin Magnussen to cheers from the home contingent as Sainz hunts down Perez, with DRS actionable.
36/53 Lance Stroll, in 10th, is advised that he needs to be careful, but tells his Aston Martin team to “leave me alone”. Charming.
35/53 Verstappen has the race in his command, and Mercedes may well be waiting a long time for an error. Back in the race for 8th, Ricciardo is being chased down by Ocon.
34/53 Sainz’s front blister is going to require some surgery, and Russell will surely move back ahead of him. For the moment, Sainz is flying at Perez, who doesn’t seem to fancy a move on Hamilton.
33/53 Sainz’s front-right tyre has a blister rather like that which may or may not have sunk Leclerc. Perez is just over a second slower than Hamilton, and perhaps gaining.
32/53 Russell is warned that Sainz will not be coming in to change those mediums. Then the countback can come. Hamilton, in going off the track, loses seconds, and is now almost six seconds behind Verstappen, He went over the rough stuff.
31/53 It may come down to pitting and tyre conditions. a game of cat and mouse between Red Bull and Mercedes, just like old times. With one rogue Ferrari flying along.
30/53 George Russell will not after all get to third as Carlos Sainz has overtaken him, and is driving an absolute blinder on those medium tyres. If only he didn’t have that five-second penalty, though for now he has Hamilton in his sights.
29/53 Russell has the chance to join Hamilton on the podium but like his teammate has a Red Bull up ahead of them.
LAP 25/53
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 24, 2022
Verstappen is holding steady out in front 💪
Hamilton follows behind, with Perez in third #FrenchGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/FkI0JYzPAv
Updated
28/53 A Verstappen error, and Hamilton, in his 300th race, who is flying along, could be in clover. He seems to be minding his tyres, and waiting for his chance. Verstappen is still quickest here but strategy is where Hamilton can damage his rival. He’s still almost four seconds down.
27/53 Sainz is flying along on his medium tyres, but they will probably not last the race. The drama, as ever, is with Ferrari.
26/53 Russell continuing to plough into Perez, and Sainz is behind him in fifth, but soon to be on the end of that five-second penalty.
25/53 George Russell is making his way into Sergio Perez, Mercedes are having a good GP on the quiet.
24/53 Verstappen is setting a fastest lap, and a look at that Sainz pit reveals he almost came out in front of a Williams. Whoops!
23/53 Yes, there was a small prang between Zhou’s Alfa and Schumacher’s Haas. Meanwhile, Carlos Sainz has a five-second penalty for unsafe release from the pit lane. Not a good day for Ferrari.
22/53 We await news from the Ferrari team, reliability was always going to be an issue. Leclerc looks bereft as he he wanders back to his team garage. We await news of whether this was driver or technical error. There’s a yellow flag on, as Mick Schumacher spins, the crowd recoiling as he does. Zhou has to come in for a new front wing, so there has to have been contact.
21/53 The safety car goes back in, and we are go again. Carlos Sainz is in sixth, and carrying the flag alone for Ferrari now. Verstappen speeds to over a second away from Hamilton.
20/53 Yuki Tsunoda is out, unable to survive the damage he suffered at the start. The safety car is out, and will be until the end of the next lap. “He’s alright,” asks Verstappen of his team. “He’s OK,” says Christian Horner. It looked nasty, though thankfully it wasn’t. But Ferrari have questions to answer.
19/53 Leclerc gets out of the car OK, as Hamilton pits, and slowly, as one of several pits, and Verstappen has the lead. It appears that Leclerc’s tyres let him down, the rear one going. He is complaining to the team. “I cannot get throttle,” he bellows. “Nooooooooooo!” Some very heavy breathing too.
Leclerc crashes out!
18/53 “You need to push now,”Christian Horner tells Verstappen, but hang, on Leclerc has smashed into the tyre wall at the side of the road. What happened there? He seemed to just lose the run of the car.
Updated
17/53 Sainz speeds past Ricciardo with his fresh engine, and Ocon is next. Leclerc is not pitting just yet and the suspicion is that he is on a one-stop strategy.
16/53 Lewis Hamilton’s pace is dropping off, and he’s nowhere near in touch with the Red Bull and Ferrari up ahead of them. In comes the Red Bull of Max Verstappen for a 2.4 seconds, very quick, pit stop. That puts Hamilton behind Leclerc and drops Verstappen back to seventh.
15/53 Leclerc’s tyres looking stronger than Red Bull’s, and that’s probably the factor at the moment, despite a blister on the front right. It’s very hot out there. Sainz in 10th has Daniel Ricciardo in the McLaren in his sights.
14/53 Sainz up to 10th, the Ferraris looking very strong, Leclerc up front driving so well at the moment.
13/53 The gap is over a second now, has Leclerc seen off Red Bull? Still a long way to go, and human/mechanical error may yet play its part.
12/53 Leclerc defending his position well, as Ferrari pass 50,000 miles as the leader of an F1 race. Sainz goes up to 11th as Fernando Alonso overtakes Kimmi Raikkonen’s record of most miles on track. All our yesterdays out there at the moment.
11/53 Leclerc and Verstappen continue to fly ahead, almost six seconds ahead of Hamilton. Perez is meanwhile being chased down by Russell. The Mercedes revival is on?
10/53 Carlos Sainz is making his way up the field, having had that back-of-the-grid penalty. He’s up to 12th.
Updated
9/53 Kevin Magnussen, in the Haas, is first to pit, a change of tyres, and nobody’s tyres are going to make it through on this baking hot day. Perez has been complaining about this downforce at the back of his car.
8/53 The heat from the Ferrari tyres will be causing problems for the chasing Red Bull. That means Verstappen must hold back a little.
7/53 The view from the Verstappen cockpit is the rear end of Charles Leclerc, and has been for the last couple of laps. A gap opens up, but the chicane offers respite to the Ferrari, this will have to be a defensive effort from the Monegasque.
Updated
6/53 Verstappen is actually driving with patience, nothing being risked just yet. He has his target in sight. Down the straight they go, but at the bend, just as Verstappen fancied it, Leclerc’s superiority on the bends shows and the move is aborted.
5/53 It’s breakneck pace out there, and as ever Verstappen and Leclerc are bang at it, while Hamilton is under pressure from Perez. The Red Bulls are just too strong for the others.
4/53 The suggestion is Leclerc’s tyres may already a little worn, as Verstappen speeds after Leclerc, with Christian Horner praising his No 1 driver’s “good pace”. Hamilton is already four seconds back, and further back in the field, Ocon has been penalised five seconds for that Tsunoda incident in the first lap.
Updated
3/53 Russell is trying to back ahead of Alonso, having been outfoxed by the wily Spaniard. Leclerc now coming under pressure from Verstappen, but seems to be stronger on the bends, while giving away so much on the straights.
2/53 Leclerc has managed to stay away for the second lap, the gap just over a second, but here comes DRS in the third lap.
Lights out, away we go!
Leclerc stays clear at the first turn, Hamilton overtakes Perez to take third, and Russell cannot get past Perez, meaning Alonso steals in to go fifth. And there’s a spin, Yuki Tsunoda spins off, Esteban Ocon involved Tsunoda is back on, but dead last, and there may be stewards getting involved, looks like the Alpine driver did not give enough space.
The pit-lane festivities have concluded, and the formation lap can begin once the final checks are done. It’s a scorchingly hot day in Provence, the land looking dry as a bone.
Lewis is the veteran now, and should he manage to hold it together in his Mercedes can perhaps land a blow if the leading two teams falter. Christian Horner meanwhile acknowledges that this is the hottest day of the championship this year, and like Max Verstappen, pinpoints tyre management as the key to victory.
300 Grand Prix for @LewisHamilton in France ✨
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 24, 2022
What can the Brit achieve today?#FrenchGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/iReWFMY630
La Marseillaise rings out across the famously ringed track, and Lando Norris comes out for a word: “Today’s a tougher day, yesterday was the easy job. The fastest car is going to be the best balanced.”
Max Verstappen has his say: “It’s trying to manage the tyres, you can be ahead and if you mangle the tyres they will overtake you.”
Jean Alesi is backing Ferrari, but seems to have fears about the reliability. Flavio Briatore has made an appearance, and says F1 is better than ever, with Verstappen and Leclerc as the new stars.
Petra gets in touch: “Nyck de Vries was asked to drive yesterday in Hamilton’s car. What’s your opinion about his talent? Does Nyck have a chance to be the next Formule 1 driver for Mercedes? When Nyck was a young kid I met him and his father at his house in a small town in Friesland. He was, and very probably still is, the most kind and wel upbrought kid I ever met. And, of course he was extremely talented driving at that time too!”
Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team principal spoke about De Vries this weekend.
I think if we’re not able to provide him with an interesting Formula 1 project, in a way we need to let him go. He’s looking at various options, [including] sports cars and then maybe Formula E, but you must never give up on the opportunity that one day a Formula 1 door can open, and today was very, very 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 be felt like an interference and that goes the contrary way.
The pit lane open, the cars have headed to the grid, and put through their paces as they get there. The mechanics get to work with their final checks. Red Bull’s Helmut Marko seems confident his boy Max Verstappen can get at 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] took seven championships everybody said: ‘That’s over for the next 40 years.’ Then Lewis arrived. He is really impressive. When you are spoiled in terms of results like he was, because a good race is P1, a shit race is P2, that was his life. But now he is driving a car that is jumping on the straight like a kangaroo and for him to stay motivated to talk to the engineers, to improve the car, that is … Wow. What a champion.”
Despite only taking one win – a record that does not reflect his talent, especially in the wet – Alesi recalls his career with fondness and still adores 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 fired after he described the car as a “truck”.
Lewis Hamilton was not happy with Mercedes’ qualifying performance at Paul Ricard, where it was felt his team might at last catch up with Red Bull and Ferrari.
We were hoping to be a lot closer than we are. I was thinking we might be 0.2secs or something like that. But we’re a second off and I don’t have an answer for that.
For whatever reason, we seem to be a lot further off this weekend, but the whole pack is. The two top teams are in their own league, really.
In the last lap, the first sector is as quick. Then we lose a lot down the straights. At least half a second. And then through that high-speed section again, they have less drag and more downforce in the corners. The last sector was 0.6-0.7secs. it’s just crazy. For some reason they are able to go much quicker through the high-speed corners.
I came here hoping we’d be within 0.3secs and then we could close that a couple of tenths at the next race and be in the fight at Budapest. But if it’s anything like this, it is going to be a while (before we can win). But it’s not impossible.
Giles Richards watched a pole position collected in pragmatic fashion.
He put in a fine lap for Ferrari but was aided by a tow from his teammate, Carlos Sainz, that helped him clinch pole, beating the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez into second and third. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were fourth and sixth – decent enough given their season but far from the improvement Mercedes had hoped for. An end to their winless run seems as far off as ever.
Sainz finished in ninth but, with the team knowing 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 in the Austrian GP last time out. Despite that, Max Verstappen still has a 38-point advantage over the Monegasque driver in second place and 57 points on Sergio Pérez, and is sat second on the grid today at Paul Ricard. Leclerc and Verstappen, with due deference to George Russell should Mercedes sort themselves out, looks like the rivalry of the future. The issue all season has been Ferrari may well be quicker over a single lap but do not have the reliability and pit-lane nous of Red Bull, who themselves have not been completely watertight. Still, Leclerc driving like a demon conjures memories of Ferrari at their 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 defence harder?
The lights go out at 2pm, join me.
Starting 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 - AlphaTauri
- 9 Daniel Ricciardo - McLaren
- 10 Esteban Ocon - Alpine
- 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
Driver championship standings
- 1. Max Verstappen - 208 points
- 2. Charles Leclerc - 170 points
- 3. Sergio Perez - 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
