Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team Finishes French Grand Prix in Third Place
Monaco’s Charles Leclerc manages to ‘maximize the potential of the car’ to finish French race with promising outlook for Scuderia Ferrari F1.
Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 comes away from the French Grand Prix in third place courtesy of Charles Leclerc, the Monegasque driver finishing right behind Valtteri Bottas and a fifth place from Sebastian Vettel, who thus finished two places higher than he started, following a difficult qualifying on June 22. The German also set the fastest race lap, which is a new lap record.
When the five red lights went out, Leclerc went wheel to wheel with Max Verstappen, getting the better of the Dutchman before closing in on Lewis Hamilton and Bottas. Vettel hung onto seventh place, keeping out of trouble which is often a factor in the middle of the pack.
Overtaking
In the opening laps, Leclerc managed to pull away from Verstappen, while a bit further back, Vettel thrilled the French crowd with a handful of spectacular passing moves. He stuck to the McLaren of Lando Norris, getting by on lap 5. At this point he set his sights on the other orange car, that of Carlos Sainz. The German closed up to him on lap 6 and passed him to go fifth on the following lap.
Pitstop
Both men started on the Medium tyres and Leclerc was the first to stop on lap 21, taking on the Hard tyres, rejoining fourth behind Vettel. The German came in a few laps later, the aim was for him to have fresher rubber at the end of the race so that he could profit from any drop off in performance from the Dutchman rival. Sebastian rejoined fifth on lap 26, just over six seconds behind Verstappen.
‘I am satisfied because we managed to maximize the potential of the car.’
Tire Management
At this point, for both drivers the main task became tire management, as there was a risk of degradation because of the high track temperature. Leclerc made a very good job of this so that, towards the end, he was able to close right up on Bottas, sitting on his tail for the final lap and tried to get alongside him a couple of times, although a pass was never really on the cards.
Fastest Lap
Sebastian also managed his tyres well, but he couldn’t really close the gap to Verstappen. So on lap 51, the team brought him in for a set of Soft tyres and he went off in pursuit of the race fastest lap. The German took the chequered flag in fifth place having achieved that goal with a time of 1’32”740, which was also a new lap record. This was Leclerc’s third F1 podium following on from those in Bahrain and Canada. The World Championship resumes in only a few days with next Sunday’s Austrian GP at the Spielberg circuit.
“Overall, this weekend was pretty positive,” said Leclerc. “I’m pleased I was able to fight for second place right at the end, even if I never had a real chance to attack Valtteri. I am satisfied because we managed to maximize the potential of the car.
“It was about time, because after a few so-so weekends, everything went smoothly right from the start of free practice and then in qualifying and the race, where our strategy was perfect both in terms of the timing of the pit stop and our tire management in the second part of the race,” he added. “I believe hard work always pays off and I feel we proved that this weekend. Now we go straight to Austria where I hope we can maintain this same good form.”