Formula 1 in France: Sainz and Leclerc fought to be the fastest Ferrari

Formula 1 date 12 began at Paul Ricard with one premise: Ferrari will fight for pole position in Saturday’s qualifying, while Max Verstappen appears to be a step up in performance for Sunday’s race. It is thus possible to analyze at least the second training session of the first day of activity of the French Grand Prix, with Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc fighting for the top of the standings.

After a first free practice session dominated by the champion, who in the second decided to do longer tests with the medium tire and not with the soft one, in the second Ferrari made the difference with the red tire, the one it will probably use in qualifying. due to the extra wear that will cause the extreme European heat in the two hours of competition.

Although the Ferraris took some time to get on track, when they did Leclerc set the best time of the moment, on medium tires, with his 1: 34.182 and six tenths faster than Russell, but without Sainz or Verstappen in track. When the Dutchman did it he was only a penny faster, in what was almost a virtual draw among the young drivers.

However, it was Carlos Sainz who broke that parity, beating the two with a time of 1: 33.322, 850 and 860 thousandths of Verstappen and Leclerc, but with red tires. As expected, Ferrari also put the Monegasque in soft, who set records in the first and third sets by closing the lap in 1: 33.136, 186 thousandths faster than the Spaniard. So on the F1 website the question was raised: is the Italian team more willing to run out of C4 tires, knowing that it won’t take much for qualifying? What was clear on the track was that Sainz would not be satisfied: with a time of 1: 32.527 he beat his teammate by 609 thousandths and surpassed the record that Verstappen had dragged last year.

It was then that Red Bull decided to equip their drivers with red tires for the second half of free practice. But on his first flying lap Verstappen finds traffic, does not lose time and is second at 550 thousandths from Sainz, but with a 59 advantage over Lecler. But it didn’t last too long: the Monegasque was once again Sainz’s escort – at 0.101-, in what were the definitive times of a session that ended with full tanks and Ferrari with medium tires, with the lead on Sunday’s race .

Thus, behind Sainz and Leclerc was Verstappen – who in the end was the best fully loaded -, while Checo Pérez was unable to match his teammate’s performance and dropped to tenth place. The Mercedes men were faster, bringing improvements to the cars in France, with George Russell ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who had missed the first free practice and sold his car to the young Dutchman Nick de Vries.

“In the first lap I was competitive, in the second I made a couple of mistakes. It wasn’t the track, it was me who got used to the car, I started pushing too hard in the areas that compromised me. That’s why I was a bit critical with me. same, “explained De Vries, who believes that tire degradation will not be a problem as it was in Barcelona.

Following the Mercedes drivers was Lando Norris on McLaren who also made changes to the Paul Ricard Circuit in hopes of improving performance (Ricciardo was ninth). Pierre Gasly (Alpha Tauri) is seventh and Kevin Magnussen is an excellent eighth for Haas, while Schumacher finished 19th after an accident at the start.

The third free practice of the French Grand Prix, which is run with around 40 ° C that afflicts the European summer, will be Saturday at 8 on Fox Sports and Star ++, while the ranking will start at 11. Meanwhile, on Sunday at 10 in Argentina it will be played a championship race dominated by Verstappen with 208 points, 38 more than Leclerc, his escort.

Problems for Schumacher

At the start of the second workout, Mick Schumacher spun at Turn 11 and blew up the Haas boss. “We have lost a set of tires, they are on the ground, so we cannot use them in the long term”, confirmed Guenther Steiner as the German returned to the pits after a big crash on that set of medium tires, certainly motivated by the headwind.