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Ferrari have a slight advantage over Red Bull on the French Grand Prix grid, but Charles Leclerc’s team will have to work hard to hold the lead on Sunday.
Leclerc clinched pole position on Saturday with help from Sainz. Charles used the wake of Carlos’ car to take the lead in the second half of the track and set faster lap times than both Red Bull drivers.
Ferrari used this strategy because Sainz had received a grid penalty for replacing parts of its power unit. Carlos helped his teammate to pole position on Saturday as his qualifying position didn’t matter. He will start from 19th place.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez start second and third respectively and should put pressure on Leclerc from the start.
Red Bull should have a race-long advantage as they can attack Leclerc with two drivers and maybe two different strategies to take the lead.
Sainz and Kevin Magnussen start from the back row, but both drivers have plenty of potential to move up the grid. Sainz has one of the fastest engines available to him and Magnussen proved his speed in qualifying.
Ferrari took advantage of Sainz’s penalty and put Leclerc in first place on the grid. The Scuderia’s idea is that Charles can start faster than anyone and get away from the Red Bull cars on the first lap.
Recent history in France shows that it was the right decision. Each of the last three winners of Le Castellet has taken pole. Lewis Hamilton won in 2018 and 2019, while Max Verstappen took first place in 2021. Prior to Hamilton’s victory in 2018, there had been a ten-year gap between races in France.
Pole position doesn’t guarantee victory for Leclerc, but it does at least put him in the best possible position.
Red Bull’s first strategy will be to get Verstappen Leclerc through on the first lap. Max was three hundredths of a second behind Charles in the final qualifying run, but that was because Sainz was distributing Leclerc’s slipstream for part of the course.
Red Bull has the speed to match Ferrari and that could give Verstappen the confidence to overtake Leclerc from the start. This will likely take Ferrari away from its core racing strategy.
If Leclerc holds off Verstappen, Red Bull could try to match Ferrari in speed later in the race or could use pit stops to get fresher tires than Ferrari.
Of course, there is always a chance that Ferrari itself will give the race to the Red Bull team. The Scuderia’s season was littered with poor pit stop strategies that cost Leclerc race wins and engine failures. Two weeks ago Sainz retired from the Austrian Grand Prix after his engine exploded during the race.
Ferrari could put its internal issues aside and have a strong race, but as strong as the Scuderia may look, they have to fend off not one but two strong Red Bull drivers behind Leclerc for 53 laps. And Carlos Sainz won’t help him anymore.
Sainz has the fastest speed in his car from behind and should be able to pass multiple cars in the opening laps.
Ferrari’s plan for Carlos should be for the Spaniard to regain as many positions as possible before his first pit stop.
Sainz has two potential strategies. Ferrari could put him on the grid with a hard drive so he can regain places while others go to pit stops. Or Ferrari could call Sainz into the pits before the others, so they have fresh tires and get ahead of the rivals when they themselves go to the pits later.
Regardless of strategy, Sainz should be in the top ten for the rest of the race. Its toughest competition will come from Mercedes, Alpine and McLaren, who will battle it out for fourth place.
Magnussen could repeat Sainz’s climb up the grid if he showed the same speed in his Haas as on Saturday. Magnussen had the eighth fastest car on the second qualifying lap. He missed the last qualifying time to save tires for Sunday.
The Haas cars performed well, despite the fact that the last few weeks have not been good in qualifying. Magnussen finished 10th at the British Grand Prix after starting 17th. Mick Schumacher finished eighth after starting from 19th at Silverstone. Two weeks ago in Austria, the team finished in sixth and seventh places. Magnussen must rush with Schumacher, who starts 17th, to enter the top ten.
McLaren and Alpine will take to the track on Sunday with 81 points and fourth in the constructors’ standings.
Fourth place is a reward for the best of the rest after Red Bull and Ferrari.
McLaren’s Lando Norris had the only car not in the top 3 teams (Red Bull and Ferrari and Mercedes) to finish in the top 6 in qualifying. Norris starts from fifth place, two places ahead of Alpine’s Fernando Alonso. McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo starts ninth, with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon next to him in the fifth row. Ricciardo and Ocon gained two grid positions while Sainz and Magnussen were penalised.
McLaren will probably not be in contention for victory, but the improvements made to the car by the team in France give the impression that it could have an advantage over Alpine at Le Castellet.
The Norris-Alonso battle will be interesting to follow throughout the race. Norris is the only non-Ferrari, Red Bull or Mercedes driver to reach the podium this season. He finished eight times in the top ten and four times in the top six.
Alonso has been in the top 10 in each of the last six races, but once in the top five.
Ocon has been more consistent than Ricciardo this season and needs to ride with extra motivation to secure a top spot in his home Grand Prix.
Formula 1. French Grand Prix. Race. Direct
Source: Sport
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