Formula 1 2019 French Grand Prix

After dominating a processional French Grand Prix last weekend, Hamilton was critical of F1’s rulemaking process and said the series is nowhere near where it needs to be with its 2021 rules overhaul. The five-time world champion attended a meeting at the FIA earlier this month that delayed the finalisation of F1’s major new regulations package.<br>In his regular post-race review, Brawn said ...

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Any desire for the stewards to be out of any post-race debates were scuppered when they were forced to make calls on incidents involving Renault's Daniel Ricciardo and Racing Point's Sergio Perez.<br>Possibly the most controversial decision of the race was to hand Perez a five-second time penalty for leaving the track at turn three - after a lock-up - and gaining an advantage, despite following ...

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Perez was handed a five-second penalty at Paul Ricard for having gained an advantage when he cut across the run-off areas at Turns 3 and 4 on the opening lap of the race.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>Perez baffled by French GP penalty<br><br><br>The Mexican was especially annoyed because he had gone around the track limits bollard as the rules demanded.<br>But the FIA was unhappy because Perez ...

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Hamilton was told several laps before the end of the race that fifth-placed Sebastian Vettel had a window in which to comfortably make a pitstop and go for fastest lap on new tyres.<br>Despite taking that information onboard with hard tyres that had run 29 laps, Hamilton posted a time of 1m32.764s on his final lap to briefly grab the fastest lap point.<br>However, having taken fresh soft tyres ...

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Russell ran wide trying to overtake Williams teammate Kubica around the outside at the fast Signes right-hander early in the French Grand Prix and hit a polystyrene board with the front left of his front wing.<br>Unseen to television viewers, he managed to get ahead of Kubica later on but the slight strike of the braking distance board eventually prompted a second pitstop and dropped him to the ...

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At Paul Ricard, Haas driver Kevin Magnussen qualified 15th and finished 17th, ahead of only the Williams drivers.<br>His teammate Romain Grosjean started 17th and was running 16th when he was pulled in to retire in order to save engine mileage and get the Frenchman a new gearbox for the next race in Austria. The team has now scored only one point in the last three races.<br>“In the four-year ...

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Norris had been on course to follow teammate Carlos Sainz home to take seventh place at Paul Ricard, but began to suffer problems 20 laps from home as his car started to lose hydraulic pressure.<br>This affected a number of systems, including the DRS, the brakes, differentials and power steering as he fell back into the clutches of the cars behind.<br>He eventually was classified ninth, following ...

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Sebastian Vettel was one of a few drivers to admit that he had been taken aback by just how fast the lights had gone out at the start.<br>"I think everybody was a bit surprised how quickly the lights went off, because they were hardly on and then they were off," explained the Ferrari driver. "I wasn't the only one that probably reacted a little bit late."<br>But although the lights were only on ...

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Discussions over the major rules change first started in April 2018 but teams retain a number of concerns over the latest proposals and the summit in Paris two weeks ago shuffled the deadline to finalise the rules back to October, to buy stakeholders more time.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>Why F1 has delayed releasing its 2021 rules overhaul<br>Todt "not worried at all" about F1 2021 rules ...

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Alfa Romeo driver Kimi Raikkonen now moves up to seventh, with McLaren's Lando Norris eighth, Ricciardo's teammate Nico Hulkenberg ninth and Red Bull's Pierre Gasly moving into the points in 10th.<br>Ricciardo was involved in a fraught battle for seventh place with Norris and Raikkonen which saw him twice go off the track, firstly while battling the McLaren driver at Turns 8/9, and secondly while ...

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Hamilton dominated Sunday's French Grand Prix, winning by 18 seconds after a straightforward race with little action to earn his sixth victory in eight races maintained Mercedes' 100% record at the start of the season.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>French GP: Hamilton leads processional Mercedes 1-2<br>Vettel: Ferrari "failed" French GP objective<br><br><br>He said he understood why races were being ...

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Ferrari brought revised wings and brake ducts as part of an update package for Paul Ricard, but the new parts earned mixed reviews - particularly from Vettel, who said the team “reverted on most of them” before qualifying.<br>The fastest Ferrari in qualifying – that of teammate Charles Leclerc – was some six tenths slower than the pole-sitting Mercedes, although Leclerc went on to pressure ...

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The Racing Point driver was handed a five-second penalty for going off track and gaining an advantage at the start, despite going around the outside of the Turn 3 bollard as instructed by race direction at the beginning of the weekend.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>French GP: Hamilton leads processional Mercedes 1-2<br><br><br>Perez, starting from 14th on the grid, believes he had done nothing wrong ...

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Hamilton dominated the race at Paul Ricard, beating teammate Valtteri Bottas by 18 seconds as he extended his championship lead to 36 points.<br>However, Hamilton – who reported something broke on his seat during the race – said it “wasn’t easy at all”.<br>“There’s always things happening, everything’s on the edge with these cars,” he said immediately after the grand ...

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Hamilton comfortably defeated teammate Valtteri Bottas at Paul Ricard as Charles Leclerc completed the podium for Ferrari, whose lead driver Sebastian Vettel is now 76 points behind Hamilton after finishing fifth.<br>Vettel failed to make much progress from seventh on the grid, although a bonus point for fastest lap after making a late pitstop for fresh tyres provided a thin silver ...

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On Friday the Montreal stewards reconvened in Paul Ricard and looked at the evidence that Ferrari had provided in its attempt to reopen the case, under the provisions of the International Sporting Code.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>Why FIA shrugged off Ferrari's "overwhelming" evidence<br>Ferrari "unhappy, disappointed" with stewards' decision<br><br><br>The stewards looked at what the Italian team ...

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Renault has faced some reliability struggles this year, but the progress its power unit has made in power terms was evident at Paul Ricard as McLaren just missed out on beating both Red Bulls on the grid.<br>Lando Norris ended up in fifth position, just 0.009 seconds behind Max Verstappen, with Sainz sixth. It was McLaren's best overall qualifying effort since the 2014 Italian Grand ...

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Thirty years ago Jean Alesi established himself as the most exciting driver of his time, announcing his presence on the Grand Prix grid with an astounding F1 debut with the Tyrrell team at Paul Ricard. With legendary talent spotters Eddie Jordan and Ken Tyrrell behind him, Alesi became the hottest prospect on the grand prix grid at the start of the Nineties.<br>When asked to reflect on it all ...

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Lewis Hamilton prompted a renewed focus on the difficulties of competing in F1 when he suggested recently that driving the current generation of cars was too easy.<br>His remarks prompted Grosjean to reveal that he had been left more tired from driving a few laps in a kart than he ever is from racing in F1. <br><br>Read Also:<br><br>Karting left Grosjean "more tired" than an F1 race<br>Power ...

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The American outfit has been one of the hardest hit by this year's specification of tyres, which are harder to get into their optimum working range, and regularly found it difficult to get sufficient performance to fight at the front of the midfield.<br>However, after both Haas drivers failed to qualifying in the top 10 in France, Grosjean – who was eliminated in the first phase – said the ...

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Hulkenberg has raced for the works team since 2017 and played a key role in its rise up the grid, beating his teammates over the two full seasons completed so far and finishing seventh in the drivers’ championship last year.<br>He has now been joined at Renault by ex-Red Bull driver and multiple race winner Daniel Ricciardo, who has a deal for next season whereas Hulkenberg’s current ...

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The Spaniard has an ongoing relationship with McLaren as an ambassador, and conducted a Pirelli tyre test for the team in Bahrain earlier in the year.<br>But despite his availability now his Indy 500 project has finished and he has signed off from WEC, McLaren is clear that it is not considering slotting Alonso in for either a Friday run or a future tyre test.<br><br>More F1 ...

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Hamilton's car required a precautionary sensor change before qualifying but its location gave Mercedes a significant job to complete before qualifying began.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>French GP: Hamilton beats Bottas to pole, Vettel seventh<br><br><br>The Mercedes control electronics and energy store in George Russell's Williams was also changed ahead of qualifying, following the previous race in ...

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On his first run in the top-10 qualifying shootout Vettel couldn’t get into fourth gear out of Turn 9, so he opted to abort the lap without recording a lap time. The German didn’t feel comfortable with his car on the second and final run, and he could not better seventh, losing out to teammate Charles Leclerc, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and the two McLarens of Lando Norris and Carlos ...

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Gasly added downforce after final practice, but in Q1 he found he had lost performance.<br>While most of the top contenders went for medium tyres in Q2 in order to avoid having to use the fragile softs for the start, Gasly opted to stick with them to help his passage into Q3.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>French GP: Hamilton beats Bottas to pole, Vettel seventh<br><br><br>He made it through and ...

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While the team has made good progress this season, and produced its best qualifying performance of the year in France with Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz ending up fifth and sixth on the grid, the team is aware that it is lacking on the aero front.<br>Following a deep analysis by new team principal Andreas Seidl about where improvements need to be made, McLaren's board has given the sign-off for ...

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Grosjean is set to share the eighth row of the grid with Magnussen for Sunday's race, but was almost half a second slower in Q1, from which only Magnussen advanced for Haas.<br>The Frenchman, who previously estimated he might not have the updated suspension on his VF-19 until after the summer break, said he was “paying a heavy price” for this discrepancy between the two Haas cars at Paul ...

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Raikkonen went off on his first effort in Q1 in avoidance of the Renault of Daniel Ricciardo at Le Beausset, the Turn 11 right-hander after the high-speed Signes corner, before attempting to rejoin the track.<br>Grosjean had been on a flying lap but backed out of that he came across Raikkonen's Alfa Romeo as it rejoined between Turns 11 and 12.<br>The matter was referred to the stewards, who ...

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Five-time world champion Hamilton missed Thursday’s media day in the Paul Ricard paddock, with Mercedes’ permission, to attend the memorial service for fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld in Paris.<br>On the same day, the FIA summoned Ferrari to a hearing over the Italian team’s petition for a review into Sebastian Vettel’s Canadian Grand Prix penalty, which handed Hamilton the win in ...

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 <br>The Finn had looked to hold the edge over Hamilton heading into the Q3 shoot out session, but says his hopes were dashed when a change of wind direction meant gains in the chicane were wiped away on his first run.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>French GP: Hamilton beats Bottas to pole, Vettel seventh<br><br><br>"From my side, Q3, the first lap felt okay but the wind direction changed throughout ...

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Leclerc, who qualified third, was heard twice asking the team to encourage Vettel - the car immediately ahead - to go faster and open a bigger gap.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>French GP: Hamilton beats Bottas to pole, Vettel seventh<br><br><br>However, he insisted that the German had not compromised his laps in any way.<br>"No, not at all," Leclerc said. "The only thing is that I think twice, I can't ...

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Teammate Valtteri Bottas had a slender advantage at the top of the timesheets in both Q1 and Q2, but Hamilton took top spot on the first runs in Q3 with a lap of 1m28.448s.<br>Hamilton then improved to a 1m28.319s on his second lap to secure pole position.<br>Bottas had a scruffy lap and was unable to improve on his first run pace, meaning he ended up 0.286s behind Hamilton.<br>Charles Leclerc was ...

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The outfit felt it had “pretty overwhelming” evidence to show but, in rejecting a review, FIA stewards deemed the material presented featured “no significant and relevant new elements” that had not been available in Montreal.<br>Speaking from the French GP paddock at Paul Ricard, Edd Straw and Scott Mitchell examine Ferrari's case, and explain why it was not strong enough to take the ...

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Leclerc has admitted that one of the key areas he needs to improve is in extracting the best from himself in the final shoot-out for grid positions, and especially to stop making the mistakes that are proving so costly in the fight for pole.<br>Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto said Ferrari was aware that it was an area of concern, which is why he wanted the team to look in detail at what can ...

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Mercedes’ command of the Paul Ricard event continued in FP3 as the two Silver Arrows enjoyed a four-tenth advantage over the Ferraris.<br>Charles Leclerc edged the internal fight at Ferrari, which at least appears well clear of Red Bull – the lead RB15 of Max Verstappen was 1.3s off the pace.<br><br>Latest F1 news:<br><br>Verstappen opted not to "screw" Hamilton in investigation<br>Drivers not ...

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Pirelli has opted for the middle three compounds in its five-tyre range for the race at Paul Ricard, making its C2 (hard), C3 (medium) and C4 (soft) compounds available to teams.<br>Air temperature in the mid-to-high 20Cs and track temperatures of more than 50C meant many drivers struggled on the softest tyre during practice.<br>Renault driver Daniel Ricciardo said: “It felt pretty ugly, I ...

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