This weekend the Formula One show was in France at the Circuit Paul Ricard for the FORMULA 1 LENOVO GRAND PRIX DE FRANCE 2022. At the start, it was Charles Leclerc’s race to lose and a costly mistake or mechanical failure caused him to do so, giving the race victory to his championship rival.
When the lights went out, Charles Leclerc had the better start from pole position as Max Verstappen was forced to slot in behind the Ferrari. Further back, Sergio Perez had a relatively poor start, allowing Lewis Hamilton to climb up into third place and even challenge Verstappen into the first corner.
In the mid-field, Esteban Ocon and Yuki Tsunoda were side-by-side into the turn 8 chicane. Ocon had to fight oversteer on the inside of the corner, wiggling into the side of Tsunoda and spinning the AlphaTauri driver. Ocon was handed a 5 second time penalty for the incident. Tsunoda retired later in the race.
Early on, Leclerc and Verstappen were able to clear a large gap to Hamilton, who was under immense pressure from Perez behind. With DRS, both Red Bulls were able to stay in striking distance to their respective battles.
Verstappen was able to stay within DRS range of Leclerc for a long time, having a few looks around the outside of some corners. However, he was not close enough to get around the leading Ferrari. By lap 13, Verstappen fell out of DRS range, having burned through his first set of tyres. He pitted for new ones a few laps later.
On lap 18, drama struck Ferrari. Charles Leclerc spun into the barriers from the lead of the race on the outside of the long turn 11. His car was stuck nose-first into the tyre barriers and he was unable to reverse out, ending his race.
The safety car was deployed, prompting all of the drivers to pit. Carlos Sainz landed himself in hot water as he left his pit box in front of Alex Albon, who had to lock up the brakes to avoid colliding with the Ferrari. This incident earned Sainz a 5 second time penalty for unsafe release.
When the race resumed, Sainz made quick work of George Russell and went on to battle Perez for P3. With just over ten laps remaining in the race, Sainz asked the team to pit, but the team wanted him to stay out for the rest of the race. After Sainz got by Perez, the team shocked the world by calling Sainz into the pits with 10 laps left in the race. He rejoined the race in P9.
Russell made a dive on the inside of the chicane, but he tapped the Red Bull sidepod and Perez had to take evasive action and cut the chicane to avoid a collision. Russell immediately complained that Perez had turned into him and gained an advantage by cutting the chicane, while Perez complained that the Mercedes driver had hit him.
By lap 48, Sainz had charged his way up to P5, but the gap to Russell and Perez ahead was more than 20 seconds and he only had 5 laps left. This was an impossible task, even though he was able to set multiple fastest laps.
As Russell and Perez continued to battle over the final podium position, Guanyu Zhou’s car came to a stop with a mechanical failure, triggering the virtual safety car with just a couple of laps remaining in the race.
Russell timed the end of the VSC perfectly, catching Perez sleeping and taking the bottom step of the podium. Perez tried to fight back in the closing laps, but was not able to make any overtaking attempts.
This allowed Russell to finish on the podium with Lewis Hamilton, giving Mercedes their first double podium finish of the 2022 season. But it was Max Verstappen who brought home the big prize of 25 points, further strengthening his lead in the World Drivers’ Championship over Charles Leclerc, who scored no points.
Only one race remains before the summer break. Next week the teams and drivers will be in action in Hungary for one final time before starting their month-long vacation. The race will be held on the weekend of July 31.
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| Race Results | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | M. Verstappen | 25 | |
| 2 | L. Hamilton | 18 | |
| 3 | G. Russell | 15 | |
| 4 | S. Perez | 12 | |
| 5 | C. Sainz | 11 | |
| 6 | F. Alonso | 8 | |
| 7 | L. Norris | 6 | |
| 8 | E. Ocon | 4 | |
| 9 | D. Ricciardo | 2 | |
| 10 | L. Stroll | 1 | |
| 11 | S. Vettel | ||
| 12 | P. Gasly | ||
| 13 | A. Albon | ||
| 14 | V. Bottas | ||
| 15 | M. Schumacher | ||
| DNF | G. Zhou | ||
| DNF | N. Latifi | ||
| DNF | K. Magnussen | ||
| DNF | Y. Tsunoda | ||
| DNF | C. Leclerc | ||
