French Grand Prix – Free Practice 2: Ferrari dominate ahead of Verstappen

Always an overwhelming heat and increasingly crowded stands for this second free practice session of the French Grand Prix at Le Castellet. At the beginning of it, the drivers took advantage to do long stints on medium tires in preparation for Sunday’s race.

The session started with an alert at Red Bull, where the mechanics spent a long time under the Austrian cars, notably Sergio Pérez’s. A few errors to note at the beginning of the session, with Mick Schumacher spinning out after fifteen minutes of driving, and George Russell going off track.

Carlos Sainz was the first driver from the top teams to put on soft tires. Immediately followed by his teammate, the two Ferraris took advantage of it to monopolize the first two positions from the middle of the session and never let them go. The Varois track seems to perfectly suit the characteristics of the F1-75 for now.

The dominance of Ferrari during this session needs to be put into perspective with the underperformance of Red Bull. In the third and tenth positions, Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez finish this first day far behind the red cars in terms of time. The Mexican driver seems to be facing particular difficulties and will have to bounce back tomorrow if he wants to help his team in their struggle against Maranello.

For his return to the wheel of the Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton matched his teammate. The two Britons placed the two silver arrows in fourth and fifth positions. Toto Wolff’s men will have to be reckoned with as referees in the Red Bull-Ferrari duel. The Mercedes team may even have higher ambitions on this track, which seems to suit them.

Like in the first session, Pierre Gasly shone. Seventh fastest time, the AlphaTauri driver once again outperformed his teammate Tsunoda, who finished only fourteenth. It was also a great performance for both McLarens, once again in the Top 10 with Norris ahead of Ricciardo.

On the other hand, things still aren’t improving for Alpine. Once again relegated to the lower half of the standings, the men in blue have yet to find a solution to make the most of their cars on this long track with its various corners.

Note that several drivers complained about the traffic during this session. Pierre Gasly, for example, wondered if Kevin Magnussen was not participating in his first Formula 1 practice session after the Danish driver hindered the French driver.