What’s the hardest Grand Prix to watch on television? Probably the 2021 French Grand Prix at the Circuit Paul Ricard. With the blue and red lines around the track destined to keep cars from hard-crashing into the barriers, (most of the time) my eyes get heavy and I have to look away. It is a wide-open track, but they still think that this is the best way forward.
Lewis takes P2 and Valtteri P4 for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team at the 2021 French Grand Prix
- Lewis took the lead on the opening lap before losing it to a powerful undercut from Verstappen after the team triggered the pit stop sequence with Valtteri on lap 17 owing to a growing tyre vibration.
- Verstappen pitted again for the Medium tyre on lap 32 but the Team was prevented from following a two-stop strategy by the prospect of ceding track position to Perez further behind.
- Lewis and Valtteri held track position and managed their wearing tyres well but VER caught Lewis on the penultimate lap. PER also managed to pass Valtteri to round out the top three with the Finn on the oldest tyres of the four.
- Lewis secured the 170th podium of his F1 career with his P2 finish.
- Max Verstappen (131 points) leads the Drivers’ Championship by 12 points from Lewis (119) and Sergio Perez in P3 (84), with Valtteri (59) moving up to P5.
Red Bull (215 points) lead the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team (178 points) by 37 points in the Constructors’ Championship
Lewis Hamilton
Congratulations to Max, he did a great job today. The Red Bulls had better straight-line speed all weekend but considering that we had such a difficult Friday, I’m really happy with this result.
Of course, we didn’t win and we had the lead but I had no tyres left at the end so unfortunately, we lost the position, but it was still a good race. We’ve got to find some pace, that’s for sure. Most of the time we lost today was on the straights, so we’ve got to dig deep, try and figure out where that is, and whether it’s power or drag but overall, we’ve still got a good package.
We didn’t know how strong the undercut was going to be but what was really surprising was just how we ran out of that front tyre so early on but obviously, they had a good strategy and it worked really well for them.
Valtteri Bottas
I gave it everything I could to try and finish on the podium, we thought with the cooler temperatures the tyres would hold on for longer but they didn’t, our predictions in terms of tyre life didn’t quite match the reality.
I was one of the first to stop for the Hard tyre, my front-left tyre wear was quite high and the last stint wasn’t fun at all today, the last 10 laps with the Hard tyre were terrible – I had no front tyres left. We didn’t pit for fresh tyres at the end to set the fastest lap because Sergio was under investigation, so we wanted to stay out.
A disappointing race, especially because my overall pace this weekend was good but at least I got some points.
Toto Wolff
Today went back and forwards, we were in the lead because Max made the mistake but our overall pace was good – maybe a little bit of a margin, even.
We created a 3-second gap for the undercut, to protect it, but it wasn’t enough and we came out of the pits a few tenths behind. In the first stint, Valtteri’s tyre started to have a vibration early on and we were really worried. We knew that by pitting we were going to trigger the stops too early but we had no choice. The guys managed their hard tyres well after that but in the end it wasn’t enough. We have lots to learn from today and we need to understand the great pace of the Red Bulls on their out laps.
It’s something we’ll look at to help us improve but I think we had a solid racing car today and I’m glad it was an exciting race, we love entertainment too.
-Advertisement-
Hello. I’m Bob Aldons, the owner and editor of The Car Guy. The Car Guy is an independently owned car review website. I’m currently testing cars for Mazda, Nissan, Kia, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Renault, Hyundai and Genesis.
Through Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport I’m also writing about the 2021 Formula 1 season.
I’m not paid by any car company for my opinion and my companies don’t receive advertising revenue to say nice things about them. I call it as I see it.
However, I also own a new car broker company – Car Business. Being able to review new cars gives me an opportunity to provide accurate information on these brands. If you’re in the market for Any New Car Cheaper, contact me at Car Business and see how I go about saving you some serious money.
Perhaps you think that you can do the job of buying a new car yourself? If you’re after any advice at all, give me a call and ask me any question that you need to be answered.
If you’re an Aussie Veteran or serving in the military, I take particular pride in taking care of you. For every car that I source and deliver, I donate part of my fee to Mates4Mates.
Australian Results
Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo, driving for McLaren, finally showing his class, finished in 6th position. A great result. Teammate Lando Norris finished one place better in 5th.
Recent Car Reviews – Hyundai Palisade
