Assessment of the French: A Bitter Taste for the Paul Ricard Audience
Only Romain Grosjean managed to reach Q3 and the Top 10 among the three French drivers on the grid, but by losing control of his car, the Haas driver dashed all hopes of the French public to see one of their compatriots securing a good position on the starting grid. Esteban Ocon placed his Force India in 11th position, and Pierre Gasly, who was in the Top 10 for a long time, ended up in a disappointing 14th position.
The happiest Frenchman on the grid might be Esteban Ocon. With his Force India, the man from Normandy outpaced his teammate, and even though he’s only 11th on the grid, he’ll be aiming for points in the race tomorrow.
« After a difficult Friday, we managed to get back on track and it was quite tight for Q3. I’m still ahead of my teammate, which is good, but we need more budget and more grip to aim for better. That’s how it works in Formula 1 right now. We’ll still aim for points tomorrow. » confirms the Force India driver.
On Pierre Gasly’s side, the disappointment was palpable and the lack of straight-line speed was highlighted: “I am disappointed but at the same time happy because we didn’t have the performance to reach the Top 10. I am six-tenths ahead of my teammate, but this performance is not enough to get into Q3. We had less performance than yesterday, and for my home Grand Prix, I would have liked to have more. We weren’t very fast on the straight, especially in the second sector. We’ll have to try to understand why. I still felt pretty good in the car, it’s a matter of very little, three or four tenths.”
But the most difficult moment was probably experienced by Romain Grosjean, brilliantly qualified in Q3 but who lost control of his Haas in the Sainte Baume turns, prematurely ending his session: « We don’t know yet what happened. We are going to check the data. At the beginning, in Q3, we tried to go out on new tires and when we saw that Renault was going on used ones, we changed our plans at the last minute to align with them since they were our challengers. In terms of driving, I did exactly the same as the previous lap, everything the same in turn 3 and I had oversteer out of nowhere so we need to see what could have happened. »
The Frenchman could have set off again if the front nose of his car hadn’t been stuck in the railing. A truly persistent bad luck: « The nose was stuck in the barrier, I couldn’t reverse otherwise I would have rejoined and returned to the pits but I don’t think the impact was strong. It just broke the front nose, laments Grosjean.
Not what Grosjean wanted at his first home race weekend 😩#FrenchGP 🇫🇷 #F1 pic.twitter.com/DcJSf9WfqY
— Formula 1 (@F1) 23 juin 2018
From our special correspondent in Castellet
