@LewisHamilton leads @MercedesAMGF1 one-two in FP1. #FrenchGP #F1

Lewis Hamilton lead team-mate Valtteri Bottas in a comfortable Mercedes one-two in the opening practice session at the French Grand Prix with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc completing the top three.

The Silver Arrows pairing lead the quickest Ferrari of Leclerc by nearly four tenths of a second at the Circuit Paul Ricard.

Mercedes were in control of a less eventful FP1 heading towards the final 30 minutes of the hour and a half long session, while Ferrari’s role was limited by early evaluation runs in the beginning and then rising up the time-sheets later on.

Bottas put his W10 EQ Power+ machine on top after the first half hour of running but was demoted following second rounds of runs approaching the 60 minute mark.

Red Bull Racing’s Pierre Gasly and McLaren’s Lando Norris had momentarily spells in P1 as they used fresh soft rubber.

Bottas then jumped to the top on his fresh set of softs before team-mate Hamilton moved ahead on a 1:33.272.

The Briton improved the benchmark to a 1:32.738, which Bottas could not match and ended up 0.069 down.

Leclerc finished the session in third and 0.373 seconds adrift of Hamilton’s time and demoted Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen to fourth.

Verstappen was 0.880 seconds off of Hamilton’s benchmark as the Milton Keynes-based squad endured a messy session with the Dutchman and Gasly suffering spins with their RB15 racers.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel spent most of the opening session down the order as the Scuderia opted to run earlier while testing and evaluating the new aero parts.

This meant Vettel was one of the last to do his second run, improving initially to 12th before moving up to complete the top five and a full second off of Hamilton’s benchmark.

The aforementioned Gasly ended the session in sixth place and ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris who finished best of the rest in seventh place with the former lucky not to hit the wall at turn four after spinning off.

Gasly lost the rear of his Honda-powered RB15 racer through turn three’s right hander and slid sideways off the track to the right of turn four before stopping just before the barriers.

Carlos Sainz was eight in the other McLaren MCL34 and in-front of ninth placed Renault of Daniel Ricciardo who lost time when he clipped the kerb and the team called him in to check for damage.

Toro Rosso’s Alexander Albon rounded out the top ten and ahead of the two Racing Point’s of Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll who were 11th and 13th respectively with Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg splitting the two RP19’s in 12th.

The other Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat took 14th and in-front Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen who was 15th and the two Alfa Romeo Racing C38’s of Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi who ended 16th and 17th respectively.

A water leak left Haas F1 Team’s Romain Grosjean in the garage for most of the opening session with the Frenchman only running nine laps as he finished behind the two ROKiT Williams Racing FW42’s with rookie Nicholas Latifi outpacing Robert Kubica by 0.025 seconds in George Russell’s racer.

You can read the full Formula 1 Pirelli Grand Prix De France 2019 Free Practice 1 Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2019/races/1007/france/practice-1.html