Hamilton romps to dominant victory in France, Bottas a distant P2; Leclerc P3, Vettel P5 as Ferrari’s hopes dim

Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton was untouchable at Circuit Paul Riccard as he went on to dominate the French Grand Prix from pole and blow away the field for a dominant win on Sunday. On the hunt for his remarkable sixth F1 title the Englishman scored the Grand Slam in this eighth round of the World Championship — pole position, fastest lap, leading all race laps and the win — and aced his nearest competitor, teammate Valtteri Bottas in ostensibly the same equipment, by a whopping 18 seconds to the checkered flag. It was Hamilton’s fourth win on the trot and he has now won six out of the eight contests so far in 2019 and already leads Bottas by 36 Drivers’ points. That’s bad news for anyone hoping that either Bottas or Ferrari would take down the most dominant driver of this new turbo hybrid era, as man and machine once again look to be in perfect harmony and Hamilton is beginning to demoralize his closest rivals.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

With Bottas’s performance fading after a splitting the first four races with his peerless Silver Arrows rival, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel is also showing signs of losing the metal war to Lewis. After a controversial penalty at the Canadian GP stripped him of victory two weeks ago the German four-time champ seemed to be suffering the psychological hangover during a very poor qualifying run on Saturday that saw Vettel related to a P7 start from the grid. While Vettel raced hard and kept it clean he was only able to claw back two positions to come home a rather tepid P5. His younger teammate Charles Leclerc finished where he qualified, P3, an encouraging sign for the Monegasque after some inconsistent quali runs lately. But it was all a bit of cold comfort for the legendary Scuderia from Maranello, who have been outclassed for the most part by mighty Mercedes and have seen potential victories in Bahrain and Canada undone by mechanical reliability and driver error respectively. While the Ferrari camp were still keeping their heads high and talking up their chances for major improvements going forward it’s becoming harder to see that happening because Mercedes, already the dominant car, will hardly be resting on their laurels as the summer moves along.

Further back in the pack, Max Verstappen did his usual fine work to finish ahead of Vettel in P4 but the Red Bull simply doesn’t have the pace to compete for victory unless one of the front running teams has a major mishap. That was confirmed by Verstappen’s far less talented teammate Pierre Gasly running far behind the Dutchman and crossing the finish line a very pedestrian P10. It was a very good day for McLaren, as the team, which has struggled in recent years with power plant issues, got their best points haul in ages. Carlos Sainz ran a solitary but effective race to take an impressive P6 and, while it could have been even better for the team and their rookie driver Lando Norris, Norris still persevered through a late system-wide slow hydraulics failure to secure a P9 finish, a valuable and rare double-points finish that will hopefully herald brighter days for once-great McLaren.

Daniel Ricciardo, who ran a strong first stint with a string of audacious passes from his initial P8 starting position, was demoted from his original P7 finish after the race by time penalties for exceeding track limits. This is something that is easy to do at Paul Riccard due to the fact that the multicolored blue and red abrasive strips off-track that give the circuit its strange and characteristic appearance substitute for more forbidding gravel traps and astroturf runoff that would ordinarily give an F1 driver a bit more pause before putting all four wheels off the racing surface. Riccardo’s infractions benefited both his Renault teammate Nico Hulkenberg, as well the veteran Kimi Raikkonen. Raikkonen drove a sterling race, using tire strategy by running an extra long first stint on Hard Pirelli tires to gain track position and then having just enough grunt in his Alfa Romeo to pass the ailing McLaren of Norris in the final laps for P8 with a promotion to P7 after Ricciardo’s penalties. Hulkenberg also got the benefit of the McLaren’s difficulties and his teammate’s naughtiness was able to claim P8 once all had been adjudicated post-race.

Tope 10 finisher of the French GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in but a week’s time — the Austrian Grand Prix from the Red Bull Ring in Speilberg. Hamilton’s competitors have only a little recovery time to get their heads together and try to elevate their efforts and thwart what is beginning to look like an unstoppable juggernaut. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!