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French GP: Max Verstappen moves just ahead of Valtteri Bottas to set Practice Two pace

One session apiece to Red Bull and Mercedes on Friday, with Verstappen pipping Bottas to the quickest afternoon time at Paul Ricard; Lewis Hamilton third quickest, with Alpine's Fernando Alonso a surprise fourth

By Praise Adekoyejo

Last Updated: 18/06/21 4:23pm

Max Verstappen just moved back ahead of Valtteri Bottas to top Practice Two at the French Grand Prix, with Red Bull and Mercedes appearing closely matched on pace.

In an unusual session in which some drivers struggled to make on the quickest soft tyre last for a full lap of the technical Paul Ricard circuit, Verstappen sneaked ahead of Bottas on his qualifying simulation by just 0.008s with a Friday-best lap of 1:32.872.

Bottas' quickest lap was set on the supposedly slower medium compound, with the Finn then lapping slower on his own attempt on the softer compound. Lewis Hamilton was third after his soft-tyre run, two tenths behind his Mercedes team-mate

It looks very good for Bottas. I think the lap time he did on the medium tyres was exceptional. But Mercedes seemed to struggle when they fitted the soft, fitted tyres. 

Fernando Alonso was within half a second of the pace on an encouraging opening day for France's own Alpine team, finishing fourth fastest. Team-mate Esteban Ocon was sixth behind Ferrari's Charles Leclerc.

Fourth fastest on the timesheet had been Sergio Perez's in the morning session but Red Bull's Baku race winner slipped to 12th in the afternoon on single-lap pace, although looked characteristically strong on the later race runs on higher fuel.

Some changes that we probably took a wrong direction with," said Perez, who also experienced traffic on his qualifying simulation. "I don't we are as bad as it looks."

More to follow...

French GP Practice Two Timesheet

Driver	Team	Time
1) Max Verstapen	Red Bull	1:32.872
2) Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	+0.008
3) Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+0.253
4) Fernando Alonso	Alpine	+0.468
5) Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	+0.678
6) Esteban Ocon	Alpine	+0.813
7) Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	+0.824
8) Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	+0.826
9) Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	+0.914
10) Lando Norris	McLaren	+0.950
11) Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	+0.959
12) Sergio Perez	Red Bull	+1.049
13) Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	+1.083
14) Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	+1.207
15) Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	+1.575
16) Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	+1.760
17) George Russell	Williams	+2.394
18) Nicholas Latifi	Williams	+2.459
19) Mick Schumacher	Haas	+2.640
20) Nikita Mazepin	Haas         +2.679  Race