French Grand Prix 2018: Lewis Hamilton claims pole position as Mercedes’s new engine upgrade comes up trumps

Hamilton stormed to the 76th pole of his career on Formula One's first visit to France in a decade

The British driver saw off his rival team-mate Valtteri Bottas by more than one tenth (EPA)

Delaying the introduction of their latest power unit by a race might have cost Mercedes in Canada recently, where Sebastian Vettel regained the lead of the world championship fight by a point after scoring a runaway victory, but here in France on Saturday afternoon the Silver Arrows regained the initiative in qualifying as the new version was deployed for the first time.

Polesitter Lewis Hamilton and his team-mate Valtteri Bottas were separated by just 0.118s as they kept Vettel off the front row, and both were very happy with their new propulsion.

“It feels good, the new engine,” the Finn said, after having to play catch-up after a minor water leak lost him time on Friday and then heavy rain ruined the final practice session on Saturday afternoon. “It feels very fresh and powerful, and the team have done an amazing job on that, and hopefully tomorrow we can also prove that it’s good.”

Hamilton said on Friday that he liked the motor, and that he had yet to open it out fully. But he did that at times this afternoon, though in the second qualifying he elected not to complete a lap which was already four-tenths up on his pace-setting best by the end of the first of the three sectors, since he was already in control at the top of the timesheets.

In the final qualifying session he set the pace again with a lap in 1m 30.222s, and after Bottas had trimmed that on his second run to 1m 30.147s, Hamilton responded with 1m 30.029s to take his 75th pole position. In reality, a lap of 1m 29s had not been out of the question.

“It was a good qualifying session,” he said. “I think the team have done a great job throughout the weekend. I think we have all pulled together and done a great job in putting the car where we need it, for both Valtteri and I.

“The session was pretty straightforward, it was a really simple session to be honest. I think Q1 and Q2 were particularly good and then Q3 was okay. It could always be better. But I’m really, really happy to have the pole. It’s something we have been working on for so long. And you can see how close it is between us all. It’s really, really great to have this result, and a one-two. Our bosses are here watching us, so I think it’s a good showing for Mercedes and the team.”

Hamilton is armed with a new engine this weekend (Getty Images)

Bottas admitted it was disappointing to hold the pole so briefly.

“I wasn’t quite sure, you know,” he said when asked whether he thought he had done enough to oust his team leader. “When you know Lewis has still to finish his lap you can never be sure. He did again a great job in the qualifying and I think for me missing a bit of track time in FP2 yesterday and with limited running for everyone in FP3 it felt like during qualifying I was catching up all the time and I was finding the gains run by run.

“In the end it was decent, still not quite perfect, but enough to put us on the first row. And like Lewis said, it’s been an amazing job that the team has been doing with the car. Every single upgrade we put on it this weekend has been making the car better, including the engine, of course.”

It was yet another disappointing race for Alonso and McLaren (AP)

Vettel was not too upset with third, believing that by qualifying on Pirelli’s softest tyre, the ultrasoft, he has a potential race-day advantage over Mercedes and Red Bull, who qualified on the harder supersofts.

“I didn't know whether pole was possible,” the points leader said, though against Hamilton’s initial 1m 30.222s he had lapped in 1m 30.400s. “For us, qualifying started a bit slow; obviously with the conditions it was a little bit tricky. Starting slow meant it got better throughout and, yeah, I was confident I could improve a little bit for the final attempt.

Lewis Hamilton took pole position at Paul Ricard (Getty)

“But already at the beginning I tried to push hard and probably pushed a little bit too much so I lost a little, the tyres lost their edge and the car started sliding around. So then you’re playing catch-up. I just didn't get a great feeling closing the lap. It wasn’t as strong as the lap before. It was also slower. I thought that there was a tenth or maybe a tenth and a half, maybe enough to pip Valtteri, but obviously both of them improved.

“I think we can be happy with third. For tomorrow I think we have a good car. Yesterday looked really good, we have a little bit different strategy on tyres, so let’s see.”

The last time Pirelli brought their thinner-tread tyres to avoid the possibility of overheating, Hamilton thrashed Vettel in Barcelona, but the Ferrari driver doesn’t believe that will happen here.

“Well, it’s not Barcelona, this track’s not easy on tyres but we saw yesterday that we had pretty good long runs and no problems with the tyres,” he said. “Obviously we also start on a different set, so I don’t wish for an extra stop, compared to the others. The pitlane is quite long here. But we’ll see. First we focus on the start and then we see the true pace in the race, but it should be good for us. The tyres… then we see. Obviously in Barcelona Mercedes were very strong, so we couldn’t go with them, but for here I hope it’s going to be different.”

Mercedes claimed a one-two as Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas start ahead of Sebastian Vettel (Getty)

With Red Bull teammates Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo fourth and fifth, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari, the prospects look reasonable for a better race than we saw in either Monaco or Canada. Meanwhile, the French may have to adopt Charles Leclerc and cheer for him after he qualified eighth fastest for Sauber as local heroes Romain Grosjean (who crashed at the start of Q3 and caused it to be momentarily red flagged), Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly qualified 10th, 11th and 14th respectively.

The Monegasque, who has been highly impressive all season, did his reputation another power of good with a superb performance that boosted rumours that Ferrari are ready to promote their 20 year-old protege to Raikkonen’s race seat for 2019.

“I saw his result on the screen and I’m pretty happy for [team boss] Fred Vasseur,” Vettel said of his potential team-mate. “Eighth is an impressive result as Sauber are still quite a long way behind with their car. He’s doing the job, so it’s good for him and for Sauber.”

Charles Leclerc gained praise for putting the Alfa Romeo Sauber in eigth for the French Grand Prix (Getty)

Hamilton was also congratulatory.

“I just saw that he was in Q3, so that was very, very impressive, particularly with all the pressure for him being here in the south of France. That’s really, really good, and I’m very happy for him, particularly in that car. He’s doing a great job with what he has and probably delivering more, which is what you would hope from a good driver.”

Final Times after Qualifying:

1 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) Mercedes GP 1min 30.029secs

2 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Mercedes GP 1:30.147

3 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Ferrari 1:30.400

4 Max Verstappen (Ned) Red Bull 1:30.705

5 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Red Bull 1:30.895

6 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 1:31.057

7 Carlos Sainz (Spa) Renault 1:32.126

8 Charles Leclerc (Mon) Sauber-Ferrari 1:32.635

9 Kevin Magnussen (Den) Haas F1 1:32.930

10 Romain Grosjean (Fra) Haas F1 No Time

11 Esteban Ocon (Fra) Force India 1:32.075

12 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Renault 1:32.115

13 Sergio Perez (Mex) Force India 1:32.454

14 Pierre Gasly (Fra) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:32.460

15 Marcus Ericsson (Swe) Sauber-Ferrari 1:32.820

16 Fernando Alonso (Spa) McLaren 1:32.976

17 Brendon Hartley (Nzl) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:33.025

18 Stoffel Vandoorne (Bel) McLaren 1:33.162

19 Sergey Sirotkin (Rus) Williams 1:33.636

20 Lance Stroll (Can) Williams 1:33.729