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Formula 1
French GP
F1 French GP Live Commentary and Updates - FP3 & Qualifying
Saturday's action ahead of the F1 French GP at Paul Ricard
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Ferrari heads into the race at the Le Castellet circuit on the back of two victories: Carlos Sainz took his maiden win at Silverstone, while Charles Leclerc claimed the spoils last time out in Austria.
Max Verstappen still leads the title battle, but now 38 points clear of Leclerc as the Monegasque displaced Sergio Perez from second in the standings.
Sainz's power unit fire meant he left the Red Bull Ring without any points, and now faces a 10-place grid penalty for a change in control electronics.
The Spaniard led Friday's timesheets from Ferrari team-mate Leclerc, who was fastest in FP1, while Verstappen led the Ferrari duo in Saturday's FP3.
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Both Mercedes drivers are out on used soft tyres at the start of Q2.
The stewards are clearly standing firm as Schumacher is now out of his car. Hard luck, but the replay is pretty conclusive.
Q2 is underway!
The late lap deletions proved useful for Albon, who sneaks into Q2 in 15th despite his spin.
Haas says it is talking to race control about his lap deletion and is still in his car as he's been told "we're getting ready to run".
Leclerc went unchallenged at the end of Q1, so he heads into Q2 as the driver to beat ahead of the Red Bull of championship leader Verstappen and the sister Ferrari of Sainz.
So, out of qualifying is Gasly, Stroll, Zhou, Schumacher, Latifi. A late improvement for Vettel put Gasly out. Magnussen has got into Q2 in sixth on his only lap right at the end of Q1.
Schumacher went 10th at the end of the session but had his lap deleted for exceeding track limits, dropping him to 19th.
Checkered flag
Chequered flag is out on Q1.
Zhou does not improve on 16th. He is out of qualifying.
Looks like both Mercedes drivers may have been caught out by Albon's spin as they were behind the Williams driver at that point and would have come through a yellow flag zone.
Meanwhile, Albon has had a spin in his Williams. He's currently 13th and in the danger zone.
Zhou has a big snap going through Turn 6 and has squandered his chances of getting into Q2 by the looks of it.
Despite his back-of-the-grid start, Magnussen is out on track right now. Perhaps Haas hopes he can give Schumacher a tow to help him into Q2.
Both Mercedes drivers are back out again, suggesting the team isn't feeling particularly comfortable with its current efforts in eighth and ninth.
Stroll is the driver on the cusp at the moment, just 0.065s clear of Zhou in 15th. Incidentally, Zhou heads back out on a fresh set of soft tyres on his Alfa Romeo.
With just under five minutes to go, Sainz's lap has put Zhou into the drop zone.
It's not yet clear what Ferrari's strategy is for Sainz, but it seems with a fairly solid flying lap it wants him to play tailgunner for Leclerc this afternoon.
Sainz goes third fastest, but is 0.570s.
Leclerc radios his team questioning why he was asked to do a second push lap. He remains top with his 1m31.727s.
As always, the bottom five drivers in this session will be knocked out. Sainz is on a flying lap right now.
In the elimination zone currently is Latifi, Schumacher, Vettel, Sainz and Magnussen.
Hamilton also came up on some traffic in the form of an Alpine and was also not very pleased.
Verstappen makes a small complaint about team-mate Perez towards the end of his flying lap: "What was Checo doing there, man?".
Mercedes felt it wasn't particularly spectacular on Friday in its updated car, with Hamilton leading that charge in seventh - by 1.3s off the pace, behind an Alfa Romeo, an Alpine and a McLaren.
Norris has put in a solid lap in his updated McLaren, currently 0.945s off the fastest time.
So, there's 10 minutes to go in Q1 with Leclerc fastest in his Ferrari ahead of Verstappen and Perez in the Red Bulls. Norris, Bottas, Hamilton, Russell, Ricciardo, Tsunoda and Zhou are your top 10.
Verstappen's first lap puts him second, 0.164s behind Leclerc.
Stopwatch
But Leclerc smashes that out of the water with a 1m31.727s, with Perez second - 0.627s off the pace in his Red Bull.
Stopwatch
Gasly sets the early pace with a 1m33.696s.
Such is the fragility of these soft tyres, the outlaps have been immensely steady. We're about to get a few times on the board.
Everyone who has headed out right now is on soft tyres.
Lance Stroll leads the field out of pitlane for their first runs.
Q1 is underway!
This is your five-minute warning for qualifying!
The wind has picked up this afternoon, which could play a big role in how the coming qualifying session plays out.
Just 10 minutes to go till Q1 gets underway. Time enough to sort yourself a lovey cheese board and settle in for the afternoon.
Couple of grid penalties to be aware of. Both Kevin Magnussen and Carlos Sainz will start from the back tomorrow after taking on a raft of new power unit parts.
With air temperatures touching a toasty 31 degrees C, the track is sitting at 56. As we saw earlier in FP3, drivers are seemingly having to be extremely gentle on their soft tyres through flying laps to keep them sharp for the final sector.
Red Bull comes into this afternoon's session looking like the favourites after Max Verstappen ended FP3 fastest.
By: autosport.com
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