Mercedes one-two yet again in extremely tricky FP2 conditions in France!
F1 News
- Nicolás Quarles van Ufford
Mercedes have dominated the second free practice session of the day as well, with the Silver Arrows finishing one-two with Valtteri Bottas in first place, but Lewis Hamilton will be under investigation for rejoining the track in an unsafe manner.
Bottas' 1:30.937 was over six-tenths quicker than Charles Leclerc in third place, who led teammate Sebastian Vettel in P4 and Lando Norris in P5.
Hamilton could be in trouble, with the reigning champion potentially having rejoined the track in an unsafe manner as Max Verstappen had to take evasive action and went off-track at turn 5.
The session was also highlighted by the very tricky conditions, with the track temperature of 55 degrees Celsius combined with the wind proving difficult as nearly every driver went off-track at some point.
Same old, same old
Mercedes being utterly dominant is hardly a surprise at this point, but it's still amazing in his own right. Bottas was 0.424 seconds clear off Hamilton and over six-tenths from Leclerc.
It was said that the very hot track would get the top three teams closer together, but Pierre Gasly in P8 being 1.5 seconds off the pace suggests otherwise. The Ferrari's in P3 and P4 were nowhere near either on the hot laps. But, it's only FP2.
Punishment for the tyres
A hot and windy day on an already tricky track proved to be a lethal cocktail for the grid. Romain Grosjean kicked things off with a massive lock-up just a few minutes into the session, followed by a lot of oversteering cars at turn 8 by the likes of Hamilton and Vettel. We won't bother to talk you through every car that went wide or off track, because we'd just be naming every single driver.
This should be interesting as we get closer to Sunday, with drivers like Grosjean having flat-spotted multiple sets of tyres. Could it force teams into certain, non-optimal tyre strategies?
Marauding Macca's
McLaren have once again proven how much progress they've made. Norris in P5, Carlos Sainz in P7, they split the Red Bulls! Again, it's only FP2, and Sainz did have a problem with his diffuser which left him in the pitlane for a long time, but you got to hand it to the Woking-based team, who hired Sergey Sirotkin earlier today as their reserve driver.
They've turned things around.