#FrenchGP Qualifying: @Max33Verstappen beats @LewisHamilton to pole. #F1

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen beat Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton to pole position in qualifying at the French GP with the other Silver Arrow of Valtteri Bottas completing the top three.

After he topped the earlier FP3 session by over seven tenths, Verstappen lead the way once again in the initial runs in Q3, with a 0.386 margin over Hamilton.

The Briton found enough time on his final flyer to out-do Verstappen’s first best effort in the final stage of qualifying, but the Red Bull driver already put the benchmark way beyond hard-to-beat as he lead the top four runners to the line, as they ran at the back of the pack on the last hot-laps.

Although Hamilton made the session’s quickest sector one effort, purple in sector’s two and three for Verstappen, after he put in a personal-best effort in the first sector, saw a 1:29.990.

Hamilton ended up 0.258 seconds adrift of Verstappen’s French GP pole time, as Bottas was a further 0.386 down on the Dutchman’s benchmark.

The other Red Bull of Sergio Perez was fourth on the time-sheets with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz completing the top five, with Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc in sixth and seventh places respectively.

McLaren’s Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo were split by Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso in ninth place, as the three drivers rounded out the top ten.

All the top ten runners will start the French Grand Prix on the yellow side-walled C3 medium compounds, after running the middle stage on the more-durable tyre, which is expected to be the better race tyre than the softs in race conditions today.

In the second segment, Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon posted a personal best on his final flying lap in Q2, but was eliminated by 0.121 seconds from McLaren’s Ricciardo – who switched for a set of softs on his last flyer, which he aborted when it was clear the Australian was through to Q3 to ensure he started the French GP on the preferred medium tyre strategy.

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel qualified 12th and will start in-front of Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi who was 13th and Williams Racing’s George Russell in 14th.

The latter duo ran different tyre strategies for their Q2 flyers, with Giovinazzi following the rest on the mediums at the start of proceedings, whilst Russell used the softs.

When they swapped compounds for their last hot-laps, Russell jumped ahead into 13th on the mediums, but the soft running Giovinazzi got back ahead as the chequered flag was waved, and both drivers will be free to pick any choice of compound to start the Grand Prix.

Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher progressed to the second qualifying stage for the first time in his Formula 1 career, but only after ending Q1 25 seconds earlier when the German crashed at turn six, the long right-hander that sweeps into the turn seven left-kink and the long Mistral Straight early in the lap.

The rear of the Ferrari-powered VF-21 came around midway through the corner as he went to complete his final flyer and the German went backwards at high-speed, facing the wrong way across the run-off area before whacking the barriers backwards on the outside, which damaged the rear and the front-left was knocked off as the Haas snapped back around.

This halted any improvements, and kept Schumacher in Q2, which he could not run, wounding up 15th on the time-sheets, with Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi ending qualifying in 16th place – the Canadian knocked out by a very narrow 0.002 seconds by team-mate George Russell, who was on course to complete an even quicker final hot-lap effort before having to abandon it when the red flags were brought out.

Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen and Haas F1 Team’s Nikita Mazepin were stuck in 17th and 18th places respectively, whilst Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll ended in a low 19th with no time posted.

Stroll lost his effort that would have saw him progress to Q2 for exceeding track limits at turn six in the early stages of the opening stage and had his lap-time invalidated.

The Canadian had enough time to complete two flyers before the end of Q1, but after aborting his first lap and setting up for one last run, he was caught out by a late red flag and was unable to set a time under the two minutes left as the session was not restarted.

Q1 had already been interrupted by an earlier red flag after three minutes in, when AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda spun off backwards into the barrier behind the second corner.

The Japanese driver clipped the kerbs on the inside of turn one as he started his flying lap, which unsettled his AT02 and sent it’s rear swinging around as he went of the track backwards before reaching turn two.

The AlphaTauri’s rear suspension and wing were wobbling wildly as the AT02 went off the circuit, before being damaged hitting the barriers, from which Tsunoda was unable to get the car out and drive away.

Tsunoda eventually climbed out of his AlphaTauri and will start at the rear, with Q1 stopped for ten minutes, after which the first string of lap-times were posted.

You can read the full Formula 1 Emirates French Grand Prix Qualifying Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1070/france/qualifying.html

2021 French GP Qualifying – The Top Three

Pole Position – Max Verstappen, #33, Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16B, 1:29.990:

“Really positive weekend, FP2 was a turnaround and just made it even better today. Of course we have to finish it off tomorrow, the car felt good yesterday [in the race simulation] so I’m looking forward to it.”

2nd Place – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12, 1:30.248:

“Really, really hard weekend. Mentally, not physically. Trying to get this car into a happy place, the changes I made to the car were satisfying. Max did a great job today, he’s been incredibly quick, he’s got a fresh engine this weekend so just got to give it everything.”

3rd Place – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport Formula One Team, F1 W12, 1:30.376:

“It’s been a strong weekend, much better than a couple of weeks ago.”

In the earlier FP3 session, Red Bull’s Verstappen finished in P1 ahead of Mercedes’ Bottas who was second, Ferrari’s Sainz in third, team-mate Perez fourth and Mercedes’ Hamilton rounding out the top five. You can see the full Formula 1 Emirates French Grand Prix Practice 3 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1070/france/practice-3.html

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