F1: Verstappen Wins in France As Leclerc Retires Again

Max Verstappen has now established a commanding 63-point gap over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc after the Monegasque driver retired again. After holding off the reigning world champion in his fast Red Bull, Leclerc made a critical driving error after the Dutchman made his first stop of the race. The safety car that ensued allowed Carlos Sainz Jr who was storming from P19 along with the entire grid god a free pit stop. Sainz ended up P5 after he received a 5-second penalty for an unsafe release by his pit crew. On pace, he was perhaps the fastest driver of the day.

At the start of the race, Lewis Hamilton got the jump on Sergio Perez in the other Red Bull. George Russell in the other Mercedes tailed the Mexican driver after getting the jump on him in the dying moments of the race after an issue resulted in Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou retiring from the race. This meant that this was the first time in 2022, that Mercedes had two cars on the podium in P2 and P3.

Fernando Alonso was again brilliant both in race pace and strategy which allowed his Alpine to come home in P6 at its home race in Paul Ricard. Alonso has now completed the most Grand Prix laps of any F1 driver and is on track to beating Kimi Raikkonen’s record of most F1 race starts. His former teammate from McLaren, Lando Norris managed P6 ahead of Esteban Ocon who is the Spaniard's current teammate. Daniel Ricciardo again finished behind Norris in P9.

Lance Stroll got the last points position in P10 just ahead of his teammate at Aston Martin. Vettel, the former 4-time world champion, in fact, duelled Stroll till the final corner of the race for that last point, and apparently, both teammates touched as well, but disaster was averted at Aston Martin.

Pierre Gasly who was also in his home race along with Ocon finished in P12 for AlphaTauri but at least managed to finish the race something his teammate Yuki Tsunoda couldn’t. Alex Albon came P13 for Williams, his teammate Latifi also retired from the race.

Valtteri Bottas finished P14 in the Alfa Romeo while Mick Schumacher was the final finishing car in P15 for the Haas. Even his teammate Kevin Magnussen retired from the race.

Carlos Sainz Jr managed also the fastest lap of the race, but seemingly a blunder from his Ferrari strategists made sure he didn’t get P4. If it had not been for this error and 5-second penalty thanks to the pit crew, he could’ve been on the podium from P19 as he clearly was the fastest driver over the weekend. For Red Bull, another Ferrari implosion basically means near certainty to win the constructor’s and driver’s world championship as now just 10 races are left.

2022 Formula 1 World Championship Round 12, French GP: Race Results

2022 Formula 1 World Driver's Championship Standings After Round 12, French GP