Sebastian Vettel finished seventh in qualifying for the F1 French Grand Prix.
Sebastian Vettel stumbled to a seventh-place in qualifying for the Formula 1 French Grand Prix as Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc qualified third.
With only a faint hope of mounting a championship challenge in 2019, Vettel was unable to deliver when the time came in France. Third place, a position taken eventually by Leclerc, was the target — behind the Mercedes tandem of pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton and No. 2 qualifier Valtteri Bottas — but several mistakes and a reported upshift problem saw Vettel bail out of his first attempt in Q3 before a poor final effort left him just seventh.
“I don’t know what happened, but I lost so much momentum that there was no point to finish the lap,” said Vettel. “It was up and down. Some laps I felt really good and others I didn’t so obviously, in the end I didn’t get the best out of the car which is not satisfying. But as I said, it was difficult for me because some laps it was really good and was just coming but other laps, I don’t know why, I didn’t have the grip that I seemed to have before.”
“It’s a shame that it happened in Q3. It would have been better to have been slower in the other segments, but that’s what it is today.”
As if to rub salt in the wound, Vettel went on to confirm that most of the upgrades brought to the track by Ferrari for France had failed to improve performance. As a result, most were not used in qualifying.
“We reverted on most of them, so they were obviously not the step we had expected but, tomorrow I think we have good pace to race. Obviously, Mercedes is too far away but, we should be in the mix with Red Bull.”
At the other end of the scale was Leclerc. Having made costly errors in previous qualifying sessions, most notably in Azerbaijan, the Monegasque driver secured third place. Behind only the two Mercedes cars, although by some margin, Leclerc feels he got the most out of the car on Saturday.
“At the end, I’m pretty happy with my lap,” said Leclerc. “Unfortunately, today it was not enough, but we need to keep working and I’m pretty sure we will close the gap at some point. Today I think it was the best we could have done.”
With Mercedes having a massive pace advantage on the rest of the field, Leclerc is targeting turn one as the best opportunity to mix it with the Silver Arrows and to put himself in the mix for a maiden race win.
“Well that’s certainly the target,” said Leclerc. “It will be very important. We are very strong on the straights, they are quite strong in the corners so, hopefully tomorrow will be a good race.”
Qualifying Results
Pos.
Driver
Constructor
Q1
Q2
Q3
1
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport
1:30.609
1:29.520
1:28.319
2
Valtteri Bottas
Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport
1:30.550
1:29.437
1:28.605
3
Charles Leclerc
Scuderia Ferrari
1:30.647
1:29.699
1:28.965
4
Max Verstappen
Aston Martin Red Bull Racing
1:31.327
1:30.099
1:29.409
5
Lando Norris
McLaren F1 Team
1:30.989
1:30.019
1:29.418
6
Carlos Sainz
McLaren F1 Team
1:31.073
1:30.319
1:29.522
7
Sebastian Vettel
Scuderia Ferrari
1:31.075
1:29.506
1:29.799
8
Daniel Ricciardo
Renault F1 Team
1:30.954
1:30.369
1:29.918
9
Pierre Gasly
Aston Martin Red Bull Racing
1:31.152
1:30.421
1:30.184
10
Antonio Giovinazzi
Alfa Romeo Racing
1:31.180
1:30.408
1:33.420
11
Alexander Albon
Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda
1:31.445
1:30.461
12
Kimi Raikkonen
Alfa Romeo Racing
1:30.972
1:30.533
13
Nico Hulkenberg
Renault F1 Team
1:30.865
1:30.544
14
Sergio Perez
SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team
1:30.964
1:30.738
15
Kevin Magnussen
Rich Energy Haas F1 Team
1:31.166
1:31.440
16
Daniil Kvyat
Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda
1:31.564
17
Romain Grosjean
Rich Energy Haas F1 Team
1:31.626
18
Lance Stroll
SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team
1:31.726
19
George Russell
ROKiT Williams Racing
1:32.789
20
Robert Kubica
ROKiT Williams Racing
1:33.205
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