Motor racing-Ferrari’s Leclerc fastest in first French practice

Ferrari made a strong start to the French Grand Prix weekend, and their bid for a third win in a row, on Friday with Charles Leclerc fastest in first practice at Le Castellet.

The Monegasque, the most local of any of the drivers who will be competing in Sunday’s race and winner of the previous round in Austria, lapped with a best time of one minute 33.930 seconds on the soft tyres. Red Bull’s championship leader Max Verstappen was second and 0.091 slower, despite running slightly wide on his best lap, also on softs on a hot afternoon in southern France.

Leclerc did 23 laps to Verstappen’s 19. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, winner of this month’s British Grand Prix, was third on the timesheets but the Spaniard will have a grid penalty of at least 10 places after Ferrari changed his car’s control electronics.

George Russell was fourth for Mercedes, a team under plenty of expectation after three podiums in a row for seven times world champion Lewis Hamilton and some positive talk. Hamilton sat out the session, with Formula E champion Nyck de Vries taking his place under new rules that oblige teams to run drivers with limited F1 experience in two Friday first free practices this season.

De Vries ended the session with the ninth fastest time, with Hamilton — preparing for his 300th race — watching the new occupant of his car from the pitwall. Team boss Toto Wolff said the car’s performance, despite fresh updates, was generally ‘a bit underwhelming’ in the session.

“We are still not getting the tyres in an optimum grip window,” the Austrian, who hoped for better in the second session, told Sky Sports television. “It’s a matter of downforce and we’re losing in all corners against Ferrari, on the straights also against Red Bull but they are having a lower rear wing.”

Frenchman Pierre Gasly was fifth, ahead of Red Bull’s Mexican Sergio Perez who spun at turn three but managed to keep his car out of the barriers. McLaren’s Lando Norris was seventh fastest and again outperformed his Australian team mate Daniel Ricciardo in 10th place, with the team bringing plenty of new parts to the Paul Ricard circuit.

Polish reserve Robert Kubica replaced Valtteri Bottas at Alfa Romeo for the session and was 19th of 20.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)