French Grand Prix – Free Practice 3: Verstappen leads before the qualifications

The tension is rising on the Paul Ricard circuit! With three hours before qualifying, the drivers have been pushing for performance on the Varois track. Before putting on the soft tires, some of them tested the hard tires with white sidewalls. It was with these tires that Charles Leclerc went wide (very) at the end of a fifteen-minute session.

From mid-session, three quarters of the single-seaters had fitted the soft tires. Despite these supposed faster tires, both Ferrari drivers remained behind Max Verstappen on the time charts for a long time, even though he was on medium tires.

It was only ten minutes before the end of the session that a Ferrari took the lead thanks to Carlos Sainz, before the Dutchman reclaimed his position once the soft tires were on.

The Dutch driver continued to work for the race during this session before seeking performance and setting the best time. A good sign for the qualifications. The Red Bull driver could have even improved his time if he hadn’t been hindered by Mick Schumacher on his last flying lap.

Contrary to what we might have thought yesterday, the Ferraris seemed to be behind the world champion’s Red Bull. Leclerc, whose Ferrari seems to be using up its tires a lot, finishes more than half a second behind the reigning world champion, notably.

Sergio Pérez climbed up the hierarchy to fifth position but remained quite far behind his teammate in terms of time. The Mexican driver finished behind Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes, who can aim for a Top 4 or even better in tomorrow’s race.

Compared to yesterday, Alpine has raised the bar somewhat. Seventh, Fernando Alonso can aim for Q3 in qualifying, unlike Esteban Ocon, who is only seventeenth.

The surprise of the qualifications could come from Williams. The Grove team has positioned Alex Albon in eighth place and Nicholas Latifi in twelfth. The improvements made to the FW44 finally seem to be working.

Finally, after Pierre Gasly yesterday, it was his teammate’s turn to complain about the traffic on track. This is something that the drivers will have to take into consideration during qualifying. The Frenchman, who was more reserved during this session, finished thirteenth, three places behind his teammate Yuki Tsunoda.