To see him lead a Mercedes one-two, Lewis Hamilton had to beat Valterri Bottas by just about 0.118s thus qualifying for the French Grand Prix. This came on the heels of Formula 1’s return to Paul Ricard.
Practice time had Mercedes show off strength and throughout the qualifying hour, they had all the advantage as rain threatened to shower down. However, it ended up resulting to no serious impactful conditions.
The Q3 top 10 shootout had Hamilton in control in his first run as he posted a 1m30.222s lap on ultrasofts. This was enough to put him a tenth ahead of Bottas.
It saw him also get clear of Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari by almost two tenths as well.
All these happened before the session came to a stop after Romain Grosjean, Haas driver crashed at Turn 4.
At the restart of the session, it became a battle between the two Mercedes drivers after Vettel failed to improve on his earlier 1m30.400s lap.
