French Grand Prix: Double Victory for Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton celebrated one of his most impressive victories in Le Castellet. Daniel Ricciardo lost all points after double penalty. All information about the race here:

Mercedes Dominates the Race

Even Lewis Hamilton was embarrassed by the boredom in Formula 1.

“You should put the pressure on the people that are at the head, that should be doing the job.
“I think they are trying to. But for many, many years they’ve made bad decisions.”

Hamilton won the race ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas – with no real threat from the rest of the field.

Charles Leclerc was able to chase Valtteri Bottas to the very end, but overtaking wasn’t realistic. The Finn struggled with tire problems.

One thing is certain, Mercedes will go down in history for dominating 2019. It celebrated its 50th double victory in Formula 1 on Sunday and already the sixth this season.

For Hamilton, it was the 79th GP triumph, also the sixth of the year and also the sixth out of the last seven races.

But it is this strangling dominance that makes Formula 1 so boring this year. Hamilton, however, rejected any blame:

He said he understood why people are frustrated and feel F1 as “boring” but urged them not to “point the finger at the drivers”.

“We don’t write the rules,” he said. “We have nothing to do with the money shift and all that stuff.

He also referred to Pirelli as he didn’t know who decided the tire specification for this season. It seemed that he actively tried to practice damage control:

“I have the confidence that it can be better. That’s why I went to Paris last week to get involved. It was discussed to make the cars heavier (2021) That’s not the way to go.”

Also Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas summarized the race as boring:

“In my view, not much happened.”

The Rest of the Field

Charles Leclerc came in third ahead of Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and Sebastian Vettel. The German changed to soft tires to secure a point for the fastest lap.

Only the last laps we were able to see some action. First Alex Albon cleared a post and caused a virtual safety car phase. Then in the final lap, four drivers in the mid-field gave it all in the fight for more points:

Lando Norris fought with a power steering issue in his McLaren. Renault driver Daniel Ricciardo saw an opportunity and overtook the Briton, but ran off the track and returned while pushing Norris off-tracks.

The lucky winners of the whole incident were Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo) and Nico Hulkenberg (Renault). For the fans, the McLaren rookie was still the driver of the day.

Meanwhile, the race director initiated an investigation against Ricciardo – and it had consequences. He got 5-second penalties for both for the action against Norris, as well as for his next overtaking maneuver against Raikkonen.

The final result for him – dropping out of the top ten! Ricciardo’s reaction was more than understandable: “F *** them all!” A little later, he followed up on Twitter:

French GP 2019 Results

Drivers’ standings

Constructors’ standings

Saturday Qualifying

Hamilton beats Bottas to pole. Sebastian Vettel only seventh.

We all expected it. Mercedes, once again, occupied the front row. This time at the French Grand Prix in Le Castellet. On Sunday, Lewis Hamilton will start the race on pole (his 86th). He was 0.866 seconds ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas.

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc qualified third ahead of Red Bull driver Max Verstappen. Surprisingly, the McLaren-Renault Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz ranked fifth and sixth.

Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari), however, was only seventh with almost a second behind his teammate Leclerc. German TV RTL expert Christian Danner: “That’s a disaster.”

Background: Vettel had only one try for his best lap. The first outing in Q3, he reported a switching problem (“missed upshift”), is also seen in a crossbar. Apparently, this has hindered him for his second run.

In general, the qualifying was a disappointment for Ferrari. Already in Q2 there were discrepancies: Leclerc asked his race engineer if Vettel could drive faster in front of him. German’s answer: “How big should the gap be? I will not try to kill. “

The German Nico Hülkenberg didn’t make it to the last qualifying session at his home race for the French Renault team. His teammate Daniel Ricciardo came in eighth.

Last as usual both Williams and George Russell ahead of Robert Kubica. Even local driver Romain Grosjean came in only 17.

Q2: Toro Rosso driver Daniil Kvyat didn’t make it into Q2. However, after replacing the turbocharger and the heat-electric machine, it has to go further back, just like George Russell after replacing his battery and control unit …

Provisional starting grid

*This article was first published in German at autobild.de/motorsport.