French GP: Bottas beats Hamilton by 0.041s in FP3

Mercedes’ command of the Paul Ricard event continued in FP3 as the two Silver Arrows enjoyed a four-tenth advantage over the Ferraris.

Charles Leclerc edged the internal fight at Ferrari, which at least appears well clear of Red Bull – the lead RB15 of Max Verstappen was 1.3s off the pace.

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Bottas, who set the pace in Friday’s second practice session, led the way after the first runs on Saturday as he posted a 1m30.853s to lead Hamilton by 0.25s.

By this point the Ferraris already looked a little too far behind, although Leclerc had lapped only a hundredth slower than Hamilton.

When everybody switched to a fresh set of soft tyres though for the second runs, Mercedes’ flexed its muscles further.

Both its drivers made mistakes, with Hamilton aborting his first run after a wobble exiting the Turn 6 right-hander before the long back straight.

In the meantime, Bottas extended his advantage by nailing a 1m30.159s on his first lap of the second run.

Bottas then locked up on his second effort, while Hamilton hooked a lap together – albeit with a slower first sector – that yielded a 1m30.200s.

Behind the Mercedes duo, Leclerc’s 1m30.605s on the first lap using his second set of tyres was enough to anchor third place heading into qualifying.

Vettel was two tenths adrift after his first flying lap on fresh softs but whittled that gap down to just 0.028s with an improvement on his next effort.

Though Ferrari looks too far behind Mercedes to challenge in qualifying, it does not appear under threat from Red Bull.

Verstappen’s best lap of 1m31.538s came after constant complaints about a lack of grip, and was not even a tenth quicker than teammate Pierre Gasly could manage.

A similar margin covered Gasly to the next-quickest car, which like on Friday was the McLaren of Lando Norris.

McLaren’s chunky advantage over the rest of the midfield has closed overnight, with Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo splitting the MCL34s in eighth – 0.18s slower than Norris.

Carlos Sainz finished the session ninth, while Kimi Raikkonen’s Alfa Romeo completed the top 10.

The 60-minute session passed without major incident, and the only real problem struck the Williams of George Russell.

Williams’s reigning Formula 2 champion propped up the times 9.8s off the pace with just four laps to his name after a loss of power early on.

Session results

Cla	#	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	77	Valtteri Bottas	18	1'30.159			233.267
2	44	Lewis Hamilton	15	1'30.200	0.041	0.041	233.161
3	16	Charles Leclerc	15	1'30.605	0.446	0.405	232.119
4	5	Sebastian Vettel	13	1'30.633	0.474	0.028	232.047
5	33	Max Verstappen	11	1'31.538	1.379	0.905	229.753
6	10	Pierre Gasly	14	1'31.599	1.440	0.061	229.600
7	4	Lando Norris	14	1'31.654	1.495	0.055	229.462
8	3	Daniel Ricciardo	12	1'31.802	1.643	0.148	229.093
9	55	Carlos Sainz Jr.	14	1'31.887	1.728	0.085	228.881
10	7	Kimi Raikkonen	16	1'31.943	1.784	0.056	228.741
11	27	Nico Hulkenberg	15	1'32.023	1.864	0.080	228.542
12	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	15	1'32.171	2.012	0.148	228.175
13	23	Alex Albon	16	1'32.178	2.019	0.007	228.158
14	8	Romain Grosjean	15	1'32.385	2.226	0.207	227.647
15	20	Kevin Magnussen	13	1'32.400	2.241	0.015	227.610
16	11	Sergio Perez	15	1'32.491	2.332	0.091	227.386
17	26	Daniil Kvyat	22	1'32.540	2.381	0.049	227.266
18	18	Lance Stroll	14	1'32.678	2.519	0.138	226.927
19	88	Robert Kubica	21	1'33.902	3.743	1.224	223.969
20	63	George Russell	4	1'39.987	9.828	6.085	210.339
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