The Monegasque Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), winner two Sundays in Austria, will try to confirm that he is ready to fight for the title at the French Grand Prix, the twelfth of the Formula 1 World Championship, which will be held this weekend at the circuit Paul Ricard of Le Castellet; where he will have to cut points from the Dutchman Max Verstappen (Red Bull), the clear leader of the championship.
Leclerc, 24, relegated Verstappen -of the same age- to second place in his team’s circuit, where the seven-time English world champion Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) seemed to straighten the course somewhat with his third consecutive podium finish. He did it at Spielberg’s Red Bull Ring, in which the Mexican was abandoned Sergio Perez, companion of ‘Mad Max’, and Carlos Sainz -colleague of the Monegasque, with the engine of his Ferrari on fire and when he was aiming for second place-; in a race in which the other Spaniard, the double Asturian world champion Fernando Alonso (Alpine), was also a victim of misfortune before finishing tenth.
Whatever happens at the Paul Ricard, Verstappen, winner in Austria of the sprint test that decided the qualifying -which also distributed points, among the top eight- will lead France. The Dutchman leads the championship with 208 points, 38 more than Leclerc, who took second place overall from ‘Checo’, now third, with 151 points.
Sainz, who had just achieved his first victory in F1 at Silverstone (England), by scoring the British Grand Prix -one day after signing his first pole position in the premier class-, could not maintain his winning streak; but the fourth place in the championship, which occupies with 133 points.
Leclerc, who signed his third victory of the year in Styria, will have to try to cut as much as he can – if Ferrari does not experience new reliability problems – the advantage that the new sporting idol from the Netherlands has; that he also leads, together with ‘Checo’, the Constructors’ World Cup. With 359 points, 56 more than the ‘Scuderia’; and with 122 over Mercedes, winner of the last eight team titles and which, still far from what it was in past seasons, seems to be gradually recovering its rhythm.
After the World Cup crossed its halfway point on the beautiful Austrian track, in France the second half of a contest scheduled for 22 races begins, which will close on November 20 in Abu Dhabi; and that he will play the last test before the holiday break next weekend at the Hungaroring, on the outskirts of Budapest, home of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Paul Ricard is a track of 5,842 meters, with long straights and 15 curves -nine to the right and six to the left-, some very technical and high-speed, and with two DRS zones, before the first and the eighth; to which next Sunday it is planned to give 53 laps to complete a route of 309.6 kilometers.
The Mistral straight is fractured with a ‘chicane’ to reduce the speed of entry into Signes, one of the fastest corners in the entire World Championship.
Free practice will start this Friday, which will be completed on Saturday; hours before qualifying, again with the usual format -with three rounds-, which will organize the grid for the twelfth race of the year. In a Grand Prix where high temperatures are expected, tire management will be vital.
In the dry, at the Le Castellet circuit, a track where numerous overtaking is expected -especially at the entrances to the first and eighth turns, where the two DRS zones start- will be rolled with tires from the intermediate range of compounds , that is, the C2 -hard, recognizable by the white stripe-, C3 -medium, yellow stripe- and C4 -soft, red-.
In Austria, where he experienced a few moments of high tension, when his car – which was, unfixed, on an adjacent ramp – began to burn strongly, before he was finally able to get out of it and the commissioners put out the fire, Sainz lost options to fight for the World Cup -he is 75 points behind Verstappen-, but the talented driver from Madrid recalled that his performance always improves notably in the second half of his seasons.
‘Checo’ had to cede second place in the competition to Leclerc, after suffering the second retirement in the past three races; so he has a special interest in reversing his luck at Paul Ricard, where last year he finished third in a race won by his Dutch teammate. “I’m still in the fight for the World Cup, so personally, it’s also important not to lose any more points,” said the brave driver from Guadalajara. “Last year I achieved my second podium finish with the team in France and I look forward to repeating that,” he added.
Alonso achieved one of his 32 victories in France, although he did it at Magny Cours; in 2005, the year of his first title, which he would revalidate a year later, again with Renault.
Two Sundays ago the double Asturian world champion was once again a victim of bad luck. His car didn’t start and he couldn’t contest sprint qualifying, so he entered the race from the back of the grid. And when he was about to complete another great comeback, he had to repeat a ‘pit stop’, as the front left tire was poorly adjusted; so he finished tenth, when -without that double stop- he could have finished sixth.
Fernando occupies tenth place in the World Championship -with 29 points-, in which he is fighting with his team for fourth place in the constructors’ championship, in which Alpine is fifth, although with the same points as McLaren: 81.
A week after having scored points for the first time in F1 -by finishing eighth in Silverstone (England)-, at the Red Bull Ring he confirmed his progression, by finishing sixth with the Haas, the German Mick Schumacher, the son of seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher: whose eight victories in France -in a Grand Prix that reaches its sixty-second edition- is unmatched by anyone.
The ‘Kaiser’ achieved all his eight wins on French lands at Magny Courswhere it was run on numerous occasions -alternating with other tracks- and continuously between 1991 and 2008.
That, before the parenthesis that existed between 2009 and 2017, when a test that was recovered in 2018 was not disputed and that since then -except in 2020, in the worst of the covid-19 pandemic, when it was suspended- houses the Paul Ricard. A circuit in which in 2019 Lewis Hamilton repeated the triumph of the previous year; and where last year he won, on the way to his first title, Verstappen.
