2019 French GP Review

2019 French GP Review

This review is a bit late because I haven't actually watched the race. With the youtube highlights and in particular the onboard ones, the Toro Rosso battle and the Williams battles were fantastic to watch but completely missed from the TV footage. However, the last lap drama involving both Renaults, Kimi's Alfa Romeo and Norris' McLaren is the kind of last lap battling you want to see.

How the teams fared

Now that Lewis is getting into his stride and understanding his car and the tyres better, he is going to be almost unstoppable for the rest of the year, it's hard to see how Bottas can get close.

Vettel had a miserable weekend, a poor qualifying and a poor getaway from the lights meant he was miles away from his teammate, Leclerc, who had a pretty strong weekend.

Gasly continues to struggle, only finishing in the points thanks to Ricciardo's double penalty. Verstappen continues to be my driver of the year.

It was a welcome sight to see both McLaren's having such strong pace in qualifying and converting them to good race finishes, despite Norris' hydraulic issue.

The Renaults showed good race pace and their engine seems to have made a good step. It will be a good fight between them and McLaren for the rest of the year. Hulkenberg is getting mauled in qualifying head-to-head with Ricciardo, though it's competitive between the two in the races. But it's Daniel's flair and all or nothing attacks that makes him stand out.

Alfa returned to form after a few races in the doldrums, with Kimi finishing in the points, whilst Giovinazzi beat Kimi in qualifying but hampered race strategy as a result.

Poor old Haas. They need to understand how to get these Pirelli's to work quick otherwise we'll all be subjected to more of Grosjean's moaning.

Racing Point dropped the ball a bit when Perez went off at turn 1 on lap 1 and gained an advantage and there could have been much better communication to make sure he gave back the spots he had gained. Stroll had a reasonably good race, but it's his poor qualifying that is his own undoing, failing yet again to make it out of Q1.

As we mentioned above, both Toro Rosso and Williams team-mate battles were some of the highlights of the race even though they were at the back of the field. Russell and Kvyat are both doing really good jobs at the moment.