Fernando Alonso has qualified ninth and Carlos Sainz fifth for the French Grand Prix . Red Bull and Mercedes have been unattainable for the rest of the team at Paul Ricard and Sainz obtained the best possible result by being fifth; that is to say, the first of mortals. Alonso, for his part, will be a bit more delayed.
Max Verstappen will do it from pole, Lewis Hamilton from second position and in the second row will be Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Pérez , who have been third and fourth respectively. All of them will come out ahead of Carlos Sainz . However, the Ferrari driver will have an advantage over Hamilton and Bottas and that is that his car warms up the tires much better than the Mercedes. While Carlos Sainz will have to overtake two cars to catch up with Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas starts just ahead of him in the clean zone.
From the first lap, any of these four drivers, if they had lost position in favor of Carlos Sainz , will be in a position to regain it. What is not ruled out is that at the start, or during the French Grand Prix, a Red Bull or a Mercedes may suffer a mishap. If so, Carlos Sainz will have options to get on the podium, something he already did with Ferrari in Monaco.
A crazy race in France would give Carlos Sainz and Alonso options
Curiously, in the last race both Max Verstappen and Hamilton and Bottas suffered mishaps. With the victory in his pocket, Verstappen suffered a puncture that knocked him out of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, while Lewis Hamilton made a mistake when he tried to try to overtake Sergio Pérez. Valtteri Bottas , meanwhile, was hampered by a poor pit stop. All these incidents gave Sergio Pérez victory in Baku on a tray. It also allowed Sebastian Vettel and Pierre Gasly to get on the podium.
Precisely Carlos Sainz must contain the latter in the French Grand Prix, since he will start sixth behind him. Leclerc will do it from seventh position, who could play a different strategy than his teammate. It seems clear that the Madrilenian is increasingly devoted to Ferrari, something he has celebrated: “We are on the right track. Let’s see if tomorrow we can get the start and the strategy right . First clean ranking in quite a few weekends. We have been able to show the progress we are making with the car and I am feeling more comfortable ”.
Carlos Sainz also highlighted the behavior offered by his tires in the qualifying session: “There was not much difference between the tires. Yesterday with the medium tire I could not improve, today I put it on and we improved a second . In the end it has surprised us all, I am happy to be able to start with that one ”.
“The soft tire was doing well. When you are comfortable with the car and you understand the car, it is what it has . We’re on that. That there were no red flags has helped. From Monaco I have gone very fast. Little by little the races go by and I am improving, which I think is something natural ”, he concluded after the qualifying session for the French Grand Prix.
Alonso and the bad clients he has surrounded himself with
Fernando Alonso also attended to the press and commented: “ It was a good time . We have made the most of it. Tomorrow everything is going to be very tight, we have bad clients around us . The points are going to be expensive , I don’t think it will be a race in which we add a lot. Of course, we will be there to take advantage of any opportunity ”. For Oviedo, what has not worked for him is the soft tire and he wanted to record this: ” The soft tire is the one that costs us the most and we thought it would be a little better .”
Regarding the bad customers to which Alonso has referred, the two-time champion comes out behind Lando Norris and ahead of Daniel Ricciardo . That is to say, it does it between two McLaren, cars that could be a little better than its Alpine in France. And, despite the good results achieved by the French team in free practice, Esteban Ocon has not managed to qualify for Q3. Fernando Alonso’s teammate will start eleventh and will be able to change his strategy for the race, which will make him a rival for the Spaniard. As with Carlos Sainz , Alonso’s options to progress will depend on the start and the possible incidents that may occur at the French Grand Prix. Although it is unlikely that there will be as many as in Baku, as it is not a street circuit, up to two red flags were seen in the qualifying session held at Paul Ricard.
