The wider significance of Hamilton's French GP masterclass

Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton reigned supreme in the French Grand Prix, a race that was ostensibly straightforward and fitted in with the pattern that we've seen almost continuously since the start of 2014. But sometimes the less obvious trends are the more important ones, and what was exposed in the beating Paul Ricard sunshine were some subtle, but significant, storylines.

As a race, the French GP was not a thriller, with Hamilton dominating and only denied a sixth 'grand slam' of his career by the narrowest of margins thanks to Sebastian Vettel taking a free pitstop late on and nabbing fastest lap. It's legitimate to ask why anyone should do anything beyond shrugging their shoulders at another Mercedes victory parade? But, as always, in the detail there are always significant things to learn.

First, it reveals much about the world championship battle. The chances of Ferrari hitting a run of form strong enough to get back into contention are already desperately slim given Vettel lags 76 points behind Hamilton. So realistically it's down to the revitalised Valtteri Bottas to take the fight to Hamilton. At Paul Ricard, he was simultaneously so near to doing so and yet so far, falling back in the race thanks to an old weakness that needs to be tackled.

Bottas has made great strides with his qualifying pace to the point where, on average, the gap has only been 0.061 seconds this season. But when it came to the crunch in Q3, after Bottas had edged Hamilton on single-lap pace up to that point, it was the world champion who nailed it with two laps good enough for pole position. His virtuoso second attempt was compromised by having to correct a wind-induced rear-end snap in the penultimate corner, but he was still almost three tenths faster than Bottas - who was struggling in the gusty conditions.

When Bottas has got ahead of Hamilton on Sunday this year, he has won, so the start was always going to be the main flashpoint between the pair. But Hamilton led away with Bottas too far back to attack, giving him an advantage of just over a second over his team-mate at the end of the first lap.

For the next 13 laps, Hamilton was, on average, 0.147s quicker and built up a lead of 2.995s. But in the next eight complete laps, taking us to the start of Bottas's in-lap, that average rose to 0.575s to extend the gap to 7.598s. Even though traffic played a part, Hamilton's tyre management advantage was clear.

"In the beginning when tyres were fresh, there was no issue keeping up with him," said Bottas. "My issue was keeping the front tyres in a good state. Halfway through the stint, my front tyres were starting to be finished and the gap started to build. That was the difference to Lewis - he was quick and efficient on the tyres and that's how he made the gap."

Bottas was under no real threat from Charles Leclerc at this stage but Mercedes called the second-placed car in at the end of lap 23 for its stop to prevent the risk of falling into the clutches of the Ferrari, which had pitted two laps earlier. Hamilton went a lap longer before he stopped to change from the mediums he, and all of the top eight, started on to take hards. All of this added up to Bottas being just over 11s behind once things had shaken out.

"Valtteri has shown great pace on the single lap," said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff. "I think he's ramped up his game tremendously from last season to this. Now the second weakness he needs to attack is the tyre management. He's very aware of where he needs to improve.

"There are tracks where he is as strong as Lewis or stronger when it's not rear- or slip-limited. And on the tracks where that is more of a factor he just needs to change the driving style a little and that is not trivial for a racing driver - but he has all the abilities to do that."

Bottas was now out of touch. Hamilton simply needed to manage the gap, albeit amid concerns about the shallow but distinct front tyre blistering that led him to fear a blowout, and that's exactly what he did. At the end of lap 46 of 53 the gap back to Bottas was much the same at 12.536s.

The waters were muddied by what proved to be a tricky run to the end for Bottas. A misfire set in and cost him time in the final seven laps on top of the concerns about the front Pirellis. Then the brevity of the virtual safety car caused by Alex Albon skittling a bollard at Turn 1 compounded the problem.

"The VSC period was much shorter than anticipated and he lost a few seconds being positive on his delta time," said Wolff. "So it was simply that he was caught out by the shortness of the VSC."

Earlier this year, Hamilton described his performances as "average". But there were hints that the French GP was the weekend during which he really clicked with the car

This meant Bottas started the final lap with Leclerc suddenly within DRS range. He held firm, taking the chequered flag less than a second clear and 18s behind Hamilton.

"We were suffering with some front tyre blistering in the last stint, so we were a little bit concerned and just wanted to be on the safe side so we would definitely make it to the end without any failure on the front tyre," said Bottas.

"I had to take care a lot of the fronts in many of the corners and maybe being on the conservative side, losing some big chunks of time just by managing. In the end, that's why it became a bit close with Charles. After the VSC, we struggled to restart the tyres and lost some temperature."

Hamilton had no such pressure, which brings us to the second significant point of his burgeoning form. This year has mirrored the previous two in that Hamilton has started the season struggling a little by his own lofty standards and then built up an unstoppable head of steam. Earlier this year, he described his performances as "average", but there were hints that the French GP was the weekend during which he really clicked with the car.

If he really has cracked it - and we can't be sure of that based on one weekend at a circuit that was always going to play to the strengths of Mercedes - then Bottas might not see him for dust. Hamilton is an all-time great whose incredible feats behind the wheel can be appreciated even if you find it predictable, and it could be that he's just getting started for the year. This was Hamilton at his best, with even the minor problems that he faced in the race not slowing him down.

"It was relatively eventful," said Hamilton. "Something broke in my seat, like one of the seat stays. As I was going through one of the corners, all of a sudden the thing kind of dropped and was moving around a little bit.

"The start was good, then the first couple of laps with the tyres was not so easy. After that, I got into my rhythm and it was quite comfortable. I was not expecting the medium tyre to go as far as it did. They stopped me too early, I could have kept going for at least another five, maybe even 10 laps. Then I got onto the next tyre, which felt good initially but then I got a lot of graining.

"But I was working on my craft, continuing to learn about this track, where you can and can't push, where you save, where you don't save. With that, I started finding more and more time and every time Valtteri and Charles put a good time in, I was a tenth or two ahead."

Leclerc led the line single-handedly for Ferrari in the race after Vettel's disappointing qualifying performance. He comfortably had the legs of Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, who held off the feisty Carlos Sainz Jr on the first lap then settled into fourth place. Initially, it seemed Leclerc might be held within undercut range, but under instructions to press on he had built up an advantage of six seconds when Verstappen pitted at the end of lap 20.

The gap at the finish was 16 seconds on a weekend where Verstappen and the Red Bull weren't entirely at one with each other despite the Honda V6 and turbocharger 'Spec 3' upgrades that delivered a little extra performance.

Vettel could only recover to fifth after starting seventh thanks to a dismal Q3 session. A missed upshift left him bouncing off the rev limiter coming out of the chicane on his first run, then he struggled more with Ferrari's weak front end than Leclerc on his second attempt and couldn't extract the pace from the car. This meant he started behind not only Verstappen, but the flying McLarens of Lando Norris and Sainz.

Vettel picked Norris off into the chicane on lap five for sixth before dispatching Sainz with a pure DRS pass two laps later. But by then he was already more than 15s off the lead and almost eight seconds behind Verstappen. For the next 12 laps, he was on average 0.430s a lap quicker than Verstappen and closed the gap to around three seconds by the time Verstappen made his stop.

With no chance of an overcut pass, Vettel went longer - partly in the hope of a safety car intervening - but that came to an end when he flat-spotted the front-left and called himself into the pits at the end of lap 25.

Verstappen was then able to inch away from Vettel on the hards, which condemned Vettel to fifth. What was clear from mid-race was that fastest lap could be his for the taking, but it was not the foregone conclusion it appeared to be when we first heard the radio message telling him to go to "Plan F" (for fastest lap), late on.

After the briefest of VSC interruptions, Vettel peeled into the pits at the start of the penultimate lap. Hamilton attempted to defend the fastest lap point, banging in a time 0.956s quicker than anything he had done previously on the last lap - on hard Pirellis on their 29th time round Paul Ricard. But Vettel had fresh softs and a clear track, so even with what he later described as a "small battery issue" on that lap he was able to take it by 0.024s.

"It was really tight," said Vettel. "I don't know if we had a problem, I couldn't discharge the battery completely otherwise it should've been a bit safer to get the fastest lap. But it also shows how much pace they have in hand, if they want to then they just go a lot faster."

"What would you do in our shoes? You would continue to push relentlessly for performance. Equally, the fan in me sees races that are less enjoyable to watch" Toto Wolff

It was a chastening event for Ferrari. A raft of upgrades was introduced at the start of the weekend, but only the new front and rear wings, and brake ducts, were kept for the race. It was another blow in a season of disappointments for the Scuderia.

The top five were in a class of their own, with the second Red Bull of Pierre Gasly absent without leave from the scrap at the front. He finished 11th on the road (10th after post-race penalties were applied), compromised by being one of only two drivers - along with Alfa Romeo's Antonio Giovinazzi - to have to use soft Pirellis to make Q3. But his first stint, which lasted 17 laps, was less of a problem than the struggle for pace that left him unable to avoid being jumped by the long, hard-shod, first stints of Kimi Raikkonen and Nico Hulkenberg.

This left the way clear for McLaren, having an outstanding weekend, to take best of the rest with Sainz. The Spaniard made a great start to get past Norris and then challenged Verstappen through the first sector of the opening lap before settling in to what was a comfortable 'Class B' win.

The only downside for McLaren was a hydraulics problem for Norris that contributed to him sliding from seventh to 10th on the final lap thanks to Daniel Ricciardo's attempt to pass him at the chicane. Ricciardo ran deep and, in rejoining the track, forced Norris off it. This allowed Raikkonen, Ricciardo and Hulkenberg past.

Ricciardo then again went off the circuit on the drag to Signes while passing Raikkonen. That briefly gave him seventh, but after the race he was justifiably given two five-second penalties, one for each offence. This relegated him to 11th behind Gasly and handed Raikkonen seventh place.

These last-lap antics would have been a dot in the rear-view mirror of Hamilton, who was more than a lap ahead. And this brings us to the third point. Mercedes dominating may be predictable but, just as Hamilton's virtuosity should be celebrated, so should the feats of what is now beyond question one of grand prix racing's greatest teams in terms of sustained success over a period of six seasons.

It's not the fault of Mercedes that Ferrari can't make a fight of it this year, and has squandered the opportunities that it has had the potential to benefit from, and the Silver Arrows is a team with no weakness. Great drivers make the exceptional look mundane and so do great teams. Ferrari hasn't had a bad season, it's just that its imperfect one is made to look that way by Mercedes.

"What would you do if you were in our shoes?" asked Wolff when the question of a 'boring' race was put to him. "You would continue to push relentlessly for performance. It's what we do in all areas. Equally, the fan in me sees races that are less enjoyable to watch."

The French GP may have been one of those races, but that doesn't mean the brilliance of team and driver cannot be appreciated and enjoyed. Just because it might look easy, it doesn't mean it is, and Wolff, Hamilton and their team deserve to be celebrated not just down the line when the history books are digested, but today when in their pomp.

As for the world championship fight, Bottas has done a commendable job this season and will still improve. But the most ominous thing for him is that Hamilton, already well ahead in the standings, is only now settling into his stride. That could make the five-time world champion unstoppable.