Hamilton ultimately triumphs over Bottas, but Vettel struggles

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It may be unsurprising that qualifying at Circuit Paul Ricard for the French F1 GP saw a record-breaking 72nd front row lock out for the Silver Arrows, but an exciting session saw Hamilton, Bottas and Leclerc trading times at the top of the time sheets. There were some great battles further down the grid but an off form Sebastian Vettel could only achieve seventh.
A sunny day at the circuit produced high track temperatures that increased the importance of tyre preparation on the already fragile soft tyre. As qualifying started many wondered if Valtteri Bottas, who had looked quick in practice, would be able to take the battle to Lewis Hamilton and keep himself in championship contention. One of the other key battles would be between Renault, at their home race after a strong performance in Canada, and McLaren who have looked strong in practice.
As Q1 started we saw some promising pace from Charles Leclerc who was able to split the Mercedes’ drivers at the top of the table with less than a tenth of a second between the top three. At the bottom of the table we saw Perez, Magnussen, Russel, Kvyat and Kubica go out.
It is not unusual for the top three teams to attempt to complete Q2 on medium tyres as the cars will start the race on the tyres they set their fast time in Q2 on. What is unusual is for most of the grid to attempt this; high track temperatures and soft tyres, that seemed to disintegrate quickly, led to most of the teams having at least one attempt on the mediums. There was some excitement with Ricciardo and Raikkonen at Turn 11 that will be investigated by the stewards after the session. A mistake from Hulkenberg would see him go out in an important GP for his team, Renault, and Gasly seemed to struggle at his home GP just sneaking into 10th place for Q3. It was good news for Antonio Giovinazzi who managed to out-qualify his teammate and make it into Q3 for the first time this season.
It looked like Bottas might have the edge over Hamilton going into Q3 but a strong lap would see him go ahead on his first run that ultimately nobody other than Hamilton managed to better. A strong performance from Leclerc put him in third behind Bottas but in a shock that even the team did not expect Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz locked out the third row of the grid for McLaren. Sebastian Vettel never looked happy in the car and aborted his first lap with problems on an upshift and the best he could manage was seventh.
The race should see an exciting battle between Hamilton and Bottas for first but things should be more interesting further down the grid with Renault and McLaren looking close. What can Sebastian Vettel do to bring his race to life?
Image: F1.com

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