The 2022 French Grand Prix was one filled with ups and downs. The biggest up was for Max Verstappen, picking up his seventh win of the season to extend his lead at the top whereas Charles Leclerc was on the receiving end, picking up his third DNF of the season, and this time there was more blame on himself than Ferrari’s strategy team. Let’s take a look at the winners and losers from the French Grand Prix.
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For a second year running, Max Verstappen is a French Grand Prix winner. After Leclerc’s crash in the first half of the race, the Dutchman took the lead of the race and never looked back. This victory marked his seventh race win of the season, with his championship lead extending to 63 points and it’s starting to look like the 2022 World Championship is Verstappen’s to lose.
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Apart from the Canadian Grand Prix, Mercedes have managed to bag points in almost every race and this time they did it with a double podium finish, their first of this season. Like most races this season, Mercedes were ready to pick up the scraps except this time they had the pace on track to go toe-to-toe with the big boys of 2022. With Leclerc going out, both Lewis Hamilton and George Russel moved up a place (P2 & P4 respectively) but then a late yellow to green flag caught Perez napping as Russell made a quick move to ensure a double podium for the Silver Arrows.
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After taking a grid penalty and starting at the back, Carlos Sainz fought his way up the grid picking up a crucial 11 points for Ferrari. There was a point in the race where the Spainard had an intense battle with Perez for P3 but the Ferrari team absurdly called the driver into the pits, pegging him back, and losing a couple of places – with part credit to the time-penalty he received for unsafe release in the pits. Apart from that though, Carlos Sainz looked at his best and certainly had the pace to win the race if he had started at the front of the grid.
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Both Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon have been exceptional in the second half of the season which has helped the French team get the better of their rivals McLaren. Fernando Alonso had a stunning start and defended well against the Mclarens while Estaban Ocon put aside his chassis problems to take P8 ahead of Daniel Ricciardo.
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For the third time this season, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc bowed out of the race while leading the race. The Ferrari driver looked on course to pick up back-to-back victories in F1 for the first time in his career, but a tiny error cost him the race and quite possibly the World Championship as he now finds himself with a two race-win gap from leader Max Verstappen.
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Before going into the race, the Alpha Tauri looked good and showed decent pace to finish in the points but things went south pretty quickly for the Red Bull junior team as they finished the race with 0 points. Yuki Tsunoda was taken out of the race by a collision with Estaban Ocon and all hopes were on the local hero Pierre Gasly who did his best but could not finish anywhere above P12. This race marked Alpha Tauri’s fourth consecutive race without a point finish.
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It seems like the Ferrari Engine is something that’s not moving out of our Loser’s list for any races as two drivers went out of the race after reporting engine failures. The first driver to bow out was Kevin Magnussem who picked up his 3rd DNF in six races and joining him was F1 rookie Zhou Gyanyu who also lost power in the final ten laps of the race.
[Featured Image Credit: Red Bull Content Pool]
Shashank Iyer