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Formula 1 French GP

French Grand Prix race day

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Crash
Stroll has gone off the road.
Radio Comms
"Ah come on!" says Sainz, and both Magnussen and Bottas sweep past his suddenly-limping Renault.
Sainz is still running but Magnussen and Bottas are right on him.
Crash
"No power!" reports Sainz.
Ericsson is now past both Williams and into 13th. Hartley completes the same process into 14th.
Bottas's pursuit of Magnussen still hasn't been fruitful, but they've both closed right in on Sainz after some slow laps from the sixth-placed Renault.
Radio Comms
Sounds from McLaren radio like Alonso's taken those tyres to have a punt at setting fastest lap.
Christian Horner tells Sky Sports Ricciardo has some front wing damage from a piece of debris hitting his car.
Ricciardo to Vettel is 30 seconds at the moment, and the Red Bull's pace isn't that bad so there shouldn't be anything to fight for between those two.
Ericsson has managed to pass Sirotkin for 14th and get between the Williams.
Though Alonso has a fresh set of ultrasofts to play with, he's 12s behind Hartley with four laps to go.
Verstappen has Hamilton's lead down to 3.7s, but no signs of alarm for the Mercedes just yet.
Pit stop
Alonso pits for some new ultrasofts and rejoins 17th and last.
Only five laps left and even if Bottas can pass Magnussen he's not going to catch Sainz at this rate, The Renault 4s clear of the Haas/Mercedes dice now.
1 Hamilton, 2 Verstappen, 3 Raikkonen, 4 Ricciardo, 5 Vettel, 6 Sainz.
Raikkonen passes Ricciardo on the outside into the chicane, and the Red Bull locks up behind him into the corner. Third place for the Ferrari.
That's a four-car battle developing right at the back, with Ericsson and Hartley having caught the two Williams after their pitstops. Stroll in 14th is fending the whole pack off.
Raikkonen tries again on the run to Turn 3, but Ricciardo hangs on again. Can he survive the DRS zone?
Ricciardo is moving around on the start/finish straight trying to keep Raikkonen at bay, and it works temporarily.
Bottas is just about within DRS range of Magnussen for seventh now.
Lap 46/53: Hamilton, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Raikkonen, Vettel, Sainz.
Vandoorne is through on Alonso and into 12th. There's now a 16s gap to Grosjean ahead so 12th is probably going to be where Vandoorne ends up today.
Stroll evens the score a little by letting Ricciardo through and then chopping back in front of Raikkonen for a couple of corners, so the gap goes out to 1.1 seconds again. Now the battle for third is taking place in clear air.
Ricciardo and Raikkonen are trying to get through traffic, and Stroll is holding Ricciardo up through the final sector. Raikkonen is right there!
Sirotkin is right with Stroll's tyre-hobbled sister Williams for 14th but unable to pass.
Raikkonen is now just 1.4 seconds behind Ricciardo. A podium finish is there for the taking.
Vandoorne is now within 1.5s of Alonso's tail for 12th.
Hamilton has pulled away from Verstappen to increase his lead to 5.3 seconds. Lap 45/53.
Bottas's pace quickly tails off after that fastest lap. He's still catching Magnussen, that gap is down to 2s, but he was only 0.2s faster than sixth-placed Sainz that time.
Vandoorne is catching Alonso extremely rapidly for 12th on fresh tyres, lapping 2.5s faster last time around - though both are having to jump out of the way of the leaders at present.
Radio Comms
Raikkonen is told "Ricciardo may have a problem in front of you, so keep on pushing". Ricciardo is 2.5s ahead of the Ferrari at the moment, and lapping significantly slower.
Hulkenberg, Leclerc and Grosjean are now quite spread out in ninth, 10th and 11th. Then the McLarens and the Williams are the only lapped cars.
Stopwatch
In fact Bottas's pace is so scorching he sets a new fastest race lap of 1m34.225s - 2s quicker than Sainz and Magnussen ahead.
Sainz is back into sixth with Bottas's pitstop and has a 3.6s cushion over Magnussen behind. Bottas is scorching up behind both.
Lap 43/53: Hamilton, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Raikkonen, Vettel, Sainz.
Vandoorne quickly passes Stroll for 13th, and Stroll then has a huge lock-up that will destroy the tyres he's trying to take to the end. That gives Sirotkin chance to attack him.
Things are evened out at the front as Verstappen has to deal with the traffic that held up Hamilton last time around, and the gap is back up to 4.6 seconds.
Radio Comms
Verstappen says his vibration is "OK, but still annoying". A wheel weight fell off as he exited the pits earlier.

By: Geoff Creighton

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