Carlos Sainz leads Ferrari 1-2 in French GP practice

WElcome again to our coverage of the 2022 French Grand Prix from the Circuit Paul Ricard at Le Castellet. After a couple of crackers at Silverstone and the Red Bull Ring in the last month or so we return to a track where the racing has not been, in general, all that good.

The 2019 edition of this race will live long in the memory for how bad it was, which is ironic. The year before was not exactly a classic, either. In 2021 the race returned after a coronavirus-enforced hiatus. That was actually entertaining, though it owed its excitement to the duel between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.

What are the chances of a decent race this year? I wouldn’t count on it, but the searing temperatures and clear skies might increase the chances of high degradation and perhaps an interesting race. We can only hope. In any case, it looks like this track and maybe even the French Grand Prix entirely will drop off the Formula One calendar. Will that be a great loss? Probably not.

Anyway, as well as the races being decent in the last month, the championship fight has come to life a little, with Charles Leclerc chipping away at Verstappen’s lead. Heading into the race the deficit to the Dutchman is now 38. It’s still a healthy advantage and so big an advantage that Leclerc really needs to head into the summer break with it further eaten away. The Ferrari showed decent race pace (surprisingly so, perhaps) in Austria and we can only hope for that now. It’s hard to shake the feeling that the Red Bull is the quickest overall, though.

And what about Mercedes? Can they put in a performance where they contend for the victory again? This race has been earmarked as one where they might be able to get the best from their package for a little while, but doing that and beating two teams who have been quicker over the season is a big step.