French GP : Post-Friday reaction from Lewis and Mercedes

Mercedes AMG Formula One team can’t wait for Sunday’s 2021 French Grand Prix to put behind their struggles at last two street circuits and come back to winning ways.

They needed a very good Friday here in Circuit Paul Ricard after a pointless Azerbaijan GP. And the team delivered very good performance in both Free Practice sessions.

The Chassis swap worked for both drivers it seems, they looked comfortable in the new car. Valtteri Bottas led the way for Mercedes by topping the windy morning session with a best lap of 1:33.448. The Fin, suffered front wing damage when running over the sausage kerbs at Turn 2 early in the first session but managed to complete 24 laps.

Lewis finished morning session in P2, +0.335s down on his team mate’s session toping time. The Brit managed to complete 21 laps.

In the afternoon session, Mercedes rivals Red Bull turned up the engine to go fastest overall, while Bottas and Lewis managed to come home in P2 & P3 respectively.

Valtteri managed to complete 27 laps in the afternoon session, with a best time of 1:32.880.Which is +0.008s down on Max Verstappen’s P1 time. Lewis managed to complete 23 Laps and posted best lap time of 1:33.125, +0.253s down on P1 time.

Lewis Hamilton

“It was quite a struggle out there, probably for everyone. I don’t know if it’s the track surface, the temperature or these inflated tyres – the pressures are higher than ever before – but we were all sliding around out there. We’ll be doing a lot of analysis tonight with the hope that it’s better for tomorrow but the times don’t look terrible and we’re in the battle, so that’s positive.

The Hard compound is the better-feeling tyre, it felt heavy-duty which is important with the temperatures here – the softer you go the worse it feels so I imagine the Hard tyre will be the one everyone wants to get onto in the race on Sunday.”

Valtteri Bottas

“I have a lot better feeling than a couple of weeks ago, that’s for sure. We started the weekend on the front foot, everything felt OK and the car has been pretty fast so far. The balance is good, the tyres are working well, I’m confident with the car and I can trust the car – I think that’s the biggest difference from Baku. It’s going to be close between us and Red Bull, I’m sure they have lots more to come, but so do we.” 

Andrew Shovlin

“It’s been a busy day trying to fit in a programme with low fuel work and decent length long runs but that’s always going to be the case with just one hour in each session. In terms of pace we look reasonable and getting a single lap out of the tyres has seemed easier than it was in Baku or Monaco. 

However, neither driver is totally satisfied with where we have the car, so we’ve got a bit of investigation to do overnight to try and understand how we can get the balance to be a bit more predictable.”