Leclerc, good start in France against Verstappen

“We believe in it”, says Mattia Binotto at the back of Austrian F1 GP. Also the Italian press, with a resounding: “The comeback is possible!”. His short-term plan was to cut as many points as possible Verstappen won the last races before the summer break. Charles won Silverstone but ferrari failed at Leclerc. And then came the Monegasque’s great victory in Austria, at the home of Red Bull. The red car, although there are concerns about reliability problems, comes in an upward line and there is a new floor for Leclerc in Paul Ricard. And the sensations are excellent from start to finish Charles and to those Maranello. Not only because Leclerc was fastest in Free Practice 1, but also because of the good performance of the car and its lap times despite the fact that the Italians are more conservative with their engine on Fridays.

Charles Leclerc overtook in 0″091 to Verstappen in the first session, at 0″338 to Carlos Sainz (3rd) and in 0″951 to George Russell (4th). The Monegasque has made a strong start to a weekend where he wants to continue putting strong pressure on a Max who arrived at Paul Ricard with a fly behind his ear after Red Bull’s problems with his high breakdown of the tire in Austria, something that his boss, Chris Horner, referred to as “strange”.

Verstappen arrived in France with the aim of preventing this from happening again and as such he reiterated that he needed to find the key to his car’s set-up. And with that goal in mind he took to the track in the first session this Friday.

while, Carlos Sainz began rolling with a large sensor grid where data was collected to compare the flow of air from the front tires to the ground in relation to the new background it had Leclerc. The Spaniard is third, but knows this weekend he needs to focus on minimizing damage. The most logical thing is for Ferrari to take the opportunity to change all its engines on this track, where it is easier to overtake than the next one in Hungary, to optimize its results in the next ones which is round. Ferrari have now announced a switchboard change for the Spaniard which will take him up 10 positions but they won’t announce if they will replace the entire engine until Saturday so as not to give hints to Red Bull. The same thing happened in Canada and eventually Charles replaced the entire power unit. The same should happen to Carlos.

Alpine, quiet start

Expected more from the start Alpineafter the French team presented some novelties in the background of their car, evolutions of which Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon they are optimistic. However, they have to focus all their efforts on testing these new parts in this first training session, without looking at the time table, because Fernando Alonso finished 15th in 1″945 and Or with he was 13th in 1’898.

Alpine stepped up a few races ago with the new package it introduced Silverstone Y Paul Ricard, the home circuit, should be favorable to his car so that he can continue to show the good performance of the last rounds. But we have to wait to see if this trend is confirmed.

The French team will seek to rule the central zone behind a Mercedes that, with the new update, is expected to come close Ferrari and Red Bull. McLaren Also wanted to jump as one of the teams that showed the most evolution, with an almost new car Paul Ricard where they started in 7th position with Norris.

De Vries, of Hamilton; Kubica, by Bottas

So, the first free training session is full of tests. I’m not here Lewis Hamilton, leaving his place in this Free 1 to Nyck De Vries, Valtteri Bottas, leaving his car to Robert Kubica.