With this beautiful victory in the seventh race of the season, Max Verstappen maintains the lead in the standings. He remains seven-time champion Hamilton by 12 points.
Red Bull driver Sergio Pérez, who celebrated on the podium in Azerbaijan two weeks ago, finished third, keeping Finn Valtteri Bottas out of the top 3.

Fifth pole position for Verstappen

Apart from the first free practice session, Verstappen had a great time on the former Paul Ricard test circuit, which is located on the windy plateau at Le Castellet near Marseille. With his fast times, Verstappen was able to compete with team Mercedes, which had been lord and master here until now. After a super exciting qualifying on Saturday afternoon, Verstappen took his fifth pole position, ahead of Hamilton, Bottas and Pérez.

French Grand Prix

A number of heavy rain showers had washed the asphalt clean on Sunday. Not really nice for the drivers who had less grip on the track. It was nice that the asphalt had dried before the start of the race. Everyone could start on sliks.
The lights went out and Verstappen was well away, with Hamilton close behind. It looked like the Dutchman could maintain the lead in the race, but in the first corner he briefly lost control of his car and ended up slightly off track. Hamilton seized his chance and took over the lead. Fortunately, Verstappen recovered quickly and limited the damage. The Dutchman gave chase to Hamilton and at the same time had to take into account a strong driving Bottas, who came dangerously close from third position.

New Honda engine in RB19B

All drivers made it through the first corners and laps without damage. Behind the top 4 were Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), Pierre Gasly (Alpha Tauri), Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) and Fernando Alonso (Alpine). P9 and P10 were the two McLaren drivers, Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris. At the back of the field, Yuki Tsunoda (Alpha Tauri) quickly made up a few places after starting from the pitlane.

Hamilton was unable to drive away from Verstappen. That said a lot about the speed of the RB19B, which in France was equipped with a new Honda engine. After 15 laps Charles Leclerc dived in first for his tire change. The Monegask performed a lot worse than during qualifying in Monaco and the race in Azerbaijan. His teammate Sainz fared significantly better.

Verstappen takes advantage at pit stops

Mercedes brought in Valtteri Bottas on lap 17. Team Red Bull Racing answered a lap later with the pit stop for Verstappen. That worked out well: Max joined Bottas back on track. Now the top 4 consisted of Hamilton, Pérez, Verstappen and Bottas. And the first two still had to go in. The well-known 'box box' sounded for Hamilton a lap later. According to the calculations he had to come back to P2 just before Verstappen, but Max had such a strong first lap on his new tires that he took P2 and not Lewis! This was the start of a series of exciting laps, in which two Mercedes chased the one Red Bull Racing car number 33. Pérez held the lead until lap 24 and then had to go in for new hard tires. Now Verstappen was on his own. Several times Hamilton came within a second of Verstappen, but this did not lead to overtaking. Bottas even had a better race pace than his teammate, but there were no team orders for Hamilton to overtake Bottas… Verstappen held his ground and eventually managed to drive about 4 seconds away from Hamilton.

Meanwhile, Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren) was having a good time, overtaking rider after rider with ease. Followed by teammate Norris. Together they outsmarted the Ferraris. Alonso (Alpine) and Vettel (Aston Martin) also had a good Sunday in France.

Homemade cookie!

Just after halfway through the race, a stressed Verstappen sounded over the on-board radio: he had already asked too much of his tires. That way he wouldn't make it to the end of the race. Not much later Hamilton and Bottas also confirmed that their tires could not last much longer. The teams waited for a moment to see who would act first. That became Red Bull Racing. Verstappen relinquished the lead and returned mediums behind Pérez on P4 on another move. A tactical move that we have seen Mercedes do successfully twice before: Hungary 2019 and most recently in Spain. That's right, this was a homemade cookie: the hunt was on!
Pérez let Verstappen pass and also kept in touch. Verstappen was the first to set course for Bottas, whom he quickly approached and overtook fairly easily. Shortly afterwards, Pérez did the same and definitively referred the Finn to fourth place. Bottas was able to easily make another pit stop without losing position to steal the fastest lap from Verstappen on new tires. But that pit stop never came.

I will leave you to it

Verstappen continued. Hamilton, who still had good speed despite the older tires, squeezed everything out of the car that was in it. For a moment it seemed that Verstappen would not make it. The gap was 4 seconds and didn't get any smaller... But suddenly he was behind the Brit with two laps to go. What an exciting battle! Max' engineer gave him the latest information and concluded with 'I will leave you to it'. In the DRS zone on the long straight, Verstappen placed his RB19B convincingly next to the Mercedes and successfully overtook him. Survive one more round and there was the black and white checkered finish flag! Verstappen wins the French Grand Prix and takes 26 points: 25 for P1 plus the extra point for the fastest lap! Behind Bottas, Norris (P5) and Ricciardo (P6) finished; a great day for team McLaren. Sebastian Vettel (P9) and Lance Stroll (P10) also just finished in the points for team Aston Martin.
And so Red Bull Racing celebrated victory for the third race in a row. Mercedes still has some homework to do to stay connected in the first of two races in Austria. In any case, this season can't go wrong for F1 fans.

Racing Art

With Racing-Art you bring the racing experience into your home. Racing Art has a beautiful collection of Mnichamps scale models and works of art by Eric Jan Kremer. For example, take a look at the Max Verstappen 1/18 collection or the Red Bull 1:18 scale models.