The 2022 French GP was BANANAS!

July 27, 2022

The 2022 French Grand Prix was bananas! Stakes were high for many teams and the temperature was even higher. Most of the world is going through a heatwave at the moment, and France is no exception. The weekend saw boiling temperatures that teams had to worry about. They can’t have their cars, tires, or drivers overheating when they race in such heat. Charles Leclerc and Ferrari needed a win, Alpine and McLaren were going into the weekend equal on points, and most teams were debuting new upgrades. Here is a recap of everything that happened at the French Grand Prix:

Free-Practice 1: July 22, 2022

The FIA requires teams to allow junior and reserve drivers opportunities to drive F1 cars. This means that the junior driver will drive the car for a practice session instead of the F1 driver. For FP1, we had Nyck De Vries take over Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes and Robert Kubica drove Valtteri Bottas’ Alfa Romeo.

Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari topped the time charts with Max Verstappen closely behind by 0.091s. Carlos Sainz put the other Ferrari in P3.
Sergio Perez had a tough time during the session, spinning at Turn 4 and struggling to control the car. He finished in P6.
Mercedes had a decent session with George Russell in P4 and Nyck De Vries in P9.
Pierre Gasly’s upgraded AlphaTauri seems to be new and improved. He had engine problems at the beginning of the session but the mechanics quickly fixed it and he went on to finish the session in P5. His teammate Yuki Tsunoda didn’t run the upgrades for FP1 because the team wanted to test them and compare data first. The upgrades seem to be doing the trick though, because Tsunoda finished in P18 while Gasly was P5.
Haas was supposed to run upgrades for this weekend but they have changed the debut for next weekend, in Hungary. Many of the other teams on the grid are running their upgrades in France, so we can expect Haas to be further down the grid this weekend.

Free-Practice 2: July 22, 2022

The Ferraris were at the top. This time with Carlos Sainz P1 and Charles Leclerc P2.
Max Verstappen of Red Bull was in P3 after he caught some understeer that affected his ability to catch the Ferraris.
Mercedes had a good result again, with George Russell in P4 and Lewis Hamilton in P5.
Lando Norris was right behind the top three teams again! He finished P6.
Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri was fitted with the upgrades after Pierre Gasly found them to be a success in FP1. However, Gasly was in P7 while Tsunoda was in P14. I hope this difference in performance was just because Tsunoda is getting used to the new upgrades, not because the upgrades aren’t good.

Free-Practice 3: July 23, 2022

Max Verstappen went fastest during the session, with his teammate in P5. Sergio Perez has been really struggling to keep up with Verstappen and the Ferraris this weekend.
Carlos Sainz was P2 and Charles Leclerc was P3. Leclerc was six-tenths off of Verstappen’s pace and complained that his tires were quickly losing performance. Hopefully this isn’t too big of an issue because Leclerc needs a good weekend.
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were right in the middle of things again, finishing P4 and P6 respectively.
The Williams upgrades seem to be working! Alex Albon finished in P8 and for once, Nicholas Latifi wasn’t last. He finished the session in P12. This is a really good sign for Williams.

Qualifying: July 23, 2022

Carlos Sainz and Kevin Magnussen both got new power units this weekend, giving them engine penalties that set them to start the race at the back of the grid. Their qualifying positions will determine who starts P19 and who starts P20.

Q1:

Charles Leclerc went P1 with his first flying lap of the session. Max Verstappen tried to beat his time, but couldn’t and went P2. Carlos Sainz was P3.
Lando Norris was P5 and the last driver to be within one second of P1. This is a really good sign for McLaren because it means they have the speed to be at the top of the midfield.
Sebastian Vettel finally got Aston Martin out of Q1! His lap time put him in P11.
Alex Albon’s upgrades seem to be working since he got into Q2.
Eliminated: Gasly (P16), Stroll (P17), Zhou (P18), Schumacher (P19), Latifi (P20)

Lance Stroll got caught in traffic that slowed down his final effort to get out of Q1.
Zhou Guanyu got a snap of oversteer that messed up his flying lap.
Mick Schumacher was in BEAST MODE during his final flying lap and it was enough to get him to P11. However, his lap time was deleted for exceeding track limits, so he went from P11 to P19.

Q2:

Carlos Sainz set the fastest lap with Charles Leclerc closely behind. Max Verstappen was P3 and Sergio Perez was P4.
Yuki Tsunoda went P10 and made it to Q3 for the first time since Baku 2022
Eliminated: Ricciardo (P11), Ocon (P12), Bottas (P13), Vettel (P14), Albon (P15)

Daniel Ricciardo missed Tsunoda by less than one tenth of a second.

Q3:

Ferrari played a team game during Q3. Since Sainz was going to start at the back of the grid, his qualifying result didn’t really matter. So, Ferrari had Sainz give Leclerc a tow to get Leclerc pole position. A tow is when two cars stay close, one behind the other. The car in front will essentially “punch a hole through the air” to give the car behind less resistance. This helps the car behind go faster. The tow helped Charles Leclerc set a lap time of 1m 30.872s and got him pole position.

Carlos Sainz giving Charles Leclerc the tow

Max Verstappen was able to improve his lap times throughout Q3, but it wasn’t enough to beat Leclerc. Perez got P3, so Leclerc will have to watch out for both Red Bulls during the race start.
Lewis Hamilton got P4 and George Russell was P6. Lando Norris and his McLaren split the Mercedes with P5!

Race: July 24, 2022

The sweltering heat would mean that the track was at very high temperatures and tire management would be key to winning the race. Pit stops would have to be perfectly timed and drivers wouldn’t be able to push their tires too hard.
Charles Leclerc had a good start from pole position and kept the lead. Max Verstappen wasn’t able to keep on Leclerc’s tail right away because he was being threatened by Lewis Hamilton, who had come from P4 to P3 at the start. Verstappen quickly got away from Hamilton and was in Leclerc’s mirrors within the first few laps. He used DRS to his advantage, tormenting Leclerc and forcing him to use up his tires as he tried to get away. This went on for a while. Then on Lap 17, Verstappen pitted for hard compound tires and came out at P6. Ferrari didn’t immediately respond to the pit stop and Leclerc carried on in the lead. One lap later, he lost control of the car’s rear at Turn 11 and spun into the barriers. As his race ended and he screamed “NO!”, a Safety Car was brought out. During the Safety Car, Hamilton, Sergio Perez, and George Russell pitted, allowing Verstappen to retake the lead. When the Safety Car ended on Lap 22, Verstappen drove off into the sunset and won the race with a 10 second lead. My Ferrari heart is still broken.

Leclerc spun into the barriers

Lewis Hamilton had a great start, going from P4 to P3 before Turn 1. Sergio Perez, who had lost P3 to Hamilton, was going after him at the early stages of the race. By Lap 10, Hamilton was getting away and the other Mercedes of George Russell was gaining on Perez. The order remained Hamilton, Perez, Russell for a while. Russell tried overtaking Perez on Lap 42 but the two ended up nearly making contact instead. Perez had to go wide to avoid a collision and cut across the runoff area to retain his position. This led Russell to call for a penalty, but reviews and Mercedes themselves acknowledged that Russell was behind Perez at the beginning of the turn, meaning that Perez didn’t do anything wrong. A late Virtual Safety Car allowed Russell to move past Perez because Perez was slow to start racing again. Red Bull has said that miscommunication between Race Control and the team led to their drivers not knowing the VSC was ending. Perez tried to chase after Russell and almost got P3 back, but in the end he finished eight-tenths behind Russell, in P4. GEORGEEEEEE got a podium in P3 and Hamilton finished in P2. This was a major moment for Mercedes as it was their first double podium of the season.
Carlos Sainz started the race in P19 after his engine penalty for getting a new power unit. This didn’t matter though. By Lap 5, Sainz was up to P14 and he was among the top ten drivers by Lap 13. During the Safety Car from his teammate’s crash, he pitted and got a five-second penalty for an unsafe release that saw him nearly crash into the Williams of Alex Albon. This didn’t faze Sainz and he continued his fight through the pack, making his way to P4 by Lap 30. This was where things became a bit tricky. Sainz was pushing hard on his tires to make all of these overtakes, but he was on medium compound tires. Mediums wear faster than hard tires and it wasn’t clear if the mediums would last the rest of the race. While Ferrari tried to figure out if they should pit Sainz, he went head to head with Perez in P3 on Lap 41. Sainz ultimately overtook him but in the middle of the move, his race engineer went on the radio to ask him to box. It was very poor timing. Anyway, Sainz was now in P3 but had worn tires and a five-second time penalty. On Lap 43, the team decided it was time to box and Sainz served his penalty, got new tires, and came out in P9. In the last ten laps of the race, Sainz chased down the Alpines and McLarens and finished the race in P5. He also got an extra point for setting the Fastest Lap of the race. While I am not thrilled with the Ferrari strategists’ decisions, I guess I am happy with the points and recovery that Sainz made.

Sainz's unsafe release

Alpine and McLaren went into this race equal on points in the Constructors Championship. Fernando Alonso of Alpine got a great start from P7 and came to P5 to be ahead of the both McLarens and George Russell. He was quickly overtaken by Russell, but stayed ahead of Lando Norris for the rest of the race. Esteban Ocon, Alonso’s teammate, and Daniel Ricciardo kept switching positions throughout the race. In the end, the order was Alonso (P6), Norris (P7), Ocon (P8), Ricciardo (P9). Alpine gained more points and is now ahead in the championship. So, not only is my Ferrari heart broken, but my McLaren heart also took a beating. It was not the best weekend for my favorite teams and drivers.
The Aston Martins were fighting each other for points (well, a point). Lance Stroll was in P10 and Sebastian Vettel was in P11. Vettel gave Stroll a run for his money, but Stroll held his place and finished with the singular point.
Pierre Gasly only finished in P12 and Yuki Tsunoda retired from the race. The beginning of the race saw an incident between Esteban Ocon and Tsunoda that led to the AlphaTauri spinning and Ocon getting a five-second penalty. The damage Tsunoda sustained in the incident was too much for him to keep going and he was the first car to retire from the race.
On Lap 50, Zhou Guanyu stopped on the side of the track due to a mechanical failure. This brought the Virtual Safety Car that helped Russell overtake Perez. The French GP is the fifth time Zhou has retired from a race this season and most of his retirements were due to mechanical issues. His Ferrari powered Alfa Romeo has had many issues, and it is sad that they don’t seem to be getting fixed. Hopefully Zhou can have better luck and a better car after the summer break.
Mick Schumacher finished the race in P15 after pitting right before the Safety Car and losing positions. Haas didn’t have the pace in their car this weekend to have a good result, so while I am disappointed, it wasn’t surprising. The other Haas of Kevin Magnussen started in P20 after taking an engine penalty. KMag had quite the start, going from P20 to P13 as drivers tried to avoid Ocon and Tsunoda’s incident. Unfortunately, on Lap 38, Magnussen and Nicholas Latifi were racing each other and made contact when Magnussen ran out of room on the track. Both cars had to retire from the race due to damage and race control deemed it a racing incident. Sadly, we had zero points for Haas this weekend.

Honorable Mentions:

THEY GOT RID OF THE GORILLA TROPHY! I was in shock when I saw Max Verstappen being handed a basic and boring rectangular trophy. Rest In Peace gorilla trophy, you will always have a special place in our hearts.

Max Verstappen with The R*ctangle

Fernando Alonso broke the record for most Grand Prix laps raced! Kimi Raikkonen held the record of 18,621 laps. Three laps into the French GP, Alonso broke the record and by the end, he had 18,672 laps. This is quite the impressive feat!
Lewis Hamilton also reached a great milestone with his 300th F1 Grand Prix appearance!

Lewis Hamilton during his first F1 season

As I wrote this article, I realized how sad this Grand Prix really was. One of the only positive results was GEORGEEEEEE getting his podium. My Ferrari heart is fully broken and beyond repair, my McLaren heart is slowly recovering from the beating it took, and my Mick Schumacher heart is still stinging. Yes, I now have three hearts (and the gorilla trophy will live on in each and every one of them). I still think that Ferrari needs to hire at least one new strategist (ME!) because they keep making mistakes that could have been avoided. I wouldn’t bet on Verstappen making too many errors, so Leclerc needs to have a flawless rest of the season if he wants to win the championship. I won’t be too mad if Verstappen wins the Championship again, but it would be sad for Leclerc. Hopefully McLaren can catch up with Alpine and outperform them in Hungary. There is only a four point difference between the two teams, so McLaren still has a chance.

That’s it for France! See you guys tomorrow because we need to prepare for the Hungarian Grand Prix. Only one race left until Summer break! I hope all of our hearts heal soon!

~ Divya

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The 2022 French GP was BANANAS!

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