F1: Mercedes & Bottas Lead French GP FP1, Ferrari Struggles 

In France, at Paul Ricard, we are back to a traditional race track and that also means seemingly, the silver arrows have seemingly found their mojo back. Valtteri Bottas leads FP1 with the fastest time of 1 minute 33.448 seconds, a good three tenths ahead of teammate and defending world champion Lewis Hamilton. This is of the back of a couple of terrible races for the Finnish driver who could possibly lose his prized Mercedes seat to George Russell next year. In the last two races, the Mercedes duo found themselves in uncomfortable street circuits in Monaco and Baku which resulted in the team scoring very few points with Hamilton's P7 only accounting for something on the scoreboard. 

Hamilton's chief rival Verstappen was just a tenth behind him in P3 which means things could be very tight between the Red Bull and Mercedes considering Perez was also P4. But one thing is clear, Mercedes is back from its street circuit blip. 

Valtteri Bottas is under pressure to protect his seat at Mercedes AFP
Photo Credit: AFP

Below the top runners, expectedly Ferrari was struggling after its highs of the low-speed street circuits as the SF21 doesn't like the long straights and winding high-speed corners. The Ferrari duo only managed P11 and P16 which means crossing Q3 on Saturday could be a challenge for the red cars. 

Their main competitors in the world title podium position McLaren looked in better shape with Ricciardo in P6 and Norris in P9. Surprisingly the Alpine cars were looking more competitive with Esteban Ocon energised with his new contract coming P5 and former world champion Alonso P7. The French team could be shaping up for a good weekend at its home track. AlphaTauri's Frenchmen Pierre Gasly also looked quick in P9 and his teammate Tsunoda was P10. 

The Alpha Romeo pair of Giovinazzi and Raikkonen was behind Leclerc in P12 and P13. Similarly, the Aston Martin pair of Stroll and Vettel were P14 and P15, ahead of Sainz. The P1 grid was wrapped by Latifi in the Williams in P17 leading Mazepin in the Haas at P18 while Mick Schumacher was P19. Roy Nissany ran the second Williams instead of Russell came P20.