French GP: Hamilton outpaces Bottas by 0.069s in FP1

The Mercedes duo led the lead Ferrari of Charles Leclerc by almost four tenths of a second at Paul Ricard.

Mercedes took control of a largely uneventful session heading towards the final half-hour, while Ferrari's influence was limited after a bout of early running and then a late rise up the order.

Bottas put Mercedes on top for the first time after half an hour of running but was displaced by second round of runs approaching the one-hour mark.

Pierre Gasly's Red Bull and the McLaren of Lando Norris had very brief spells in P1 as they switched to fresh soft tyres.

However, Bottas then moved to the top on his own new set of softs, before Hamilton surged ahead on a 1m33.272s.

That got whittled down to a 1m32.738s, which Bottas was just unable to match and had to settle for a time 0.069s slower.

Leclerc ended the session third, 0.373s off the pace, after demoting Max Verstappen's Red Bull.

Verstappen was 0.8s off the pace in fourth as his team had a scruffy session, with the Dutchman and teammate Gasly both suffering spins.

Sebastian Vettel languished down the order for most of FP1 as Ferrari opted for a lot of running early on as it evaluated new aero parts.

That meant Vettel was among the last of those to go out for a second run, initially improving to 12th and then to fifth, albeit a full second off the pace.

Gasly managed to haul himself into sixth and avoid being beaten by a member of the non-big three teams, but by less than 0.02s.

Norris finished best-of-the-rest for McLaren, just behind Gasly – who was lucky not to plough his Red Bull into the wall after a lurid off at Turn 4.

Gasly lost the rear of his car through the Turn 3 right-hander and slid sideways off track to the right of Turn 4, coming to a rest just before the barriers.

Carlos Sainz completed a seventh-eighth result for McLaren in FP1 and Daniel Ricciardo's Renault was ninth, 0.28s off having lost time when he clipped a kerb and the team had to check for damage.

Alex Albon completed the top 10 for Toro Rosso.

A water leak consigned Romain Grosjean to the Haas garage for most of the session.

The Frenchman managed just nine laps and was 4.8s off the pace, behind the two Williams drivers as FP1 stand-in Nicholas Latifi outpaced Robert Kubica but 0.025s.

Cla	Driver		Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Lewis Hamilton		Mercedes	21	1'32.738
2	Valtteri Bottas		Mercedes	20	1'32.807	0.069
3	Charles Leclerc		Ferrari	21	1'33.111	0.373
4	Max Verstappen		Red Bull	20	1'33.618	0.880
5	Sebastian Vettel		Ferrari	22	1'33.790	1.052
6	Pierre Gasly		Red Bull	20	1'34.091	1.353
7	Lando Norris		McLaren	23	1'34.110	1.372
8	Carlos Sainz Jr.		McLaren	26	1'34.261	1.523
9	Daniel Ricciardo		Renault	18	1'34.540	1.802
10	Alex Albon		Toro Rosso	25	1'34.804	2.066
11	Sergio Perez		Racing Point	21	1'34.809	2.071
12	Nico Hulkenberg		Renault	25	1'34.810	2.072
13	Lance Stroll		Racing Point	22	1'35.063	2.325
14	Daniil Kvyat		Toro Rosso	24	1'35.326	2.588
15	Kevin Magnussen		Haas	19	1'35.410	2.672
16	Kimi Raikkonen		Alfa Romeo	22	1'35.522	2.784
17	Antonio Giovinazzi		Alfa Romeo	22	1'36.102	3.364
18	Nicholas Latifi		Williams	25	1'37.147	4.409
19	Robert Kubica		Williams	27	1'37.172	4.434
20	Romain Grosjean		Haas	9	1'37.620	4.882
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