While Lewis Hamilton romped to a decisive French Grand Prix win which restored him to the head of the points tables, the two drivers who started closest to him had to climb back to the the front after their first-lap collision.
Despite a five-second penalty for hitting Valtteri Bottas at the first corner, Sebastian Vettel made it to a damage-limiting fifth place. Bottas, who was compromised more seriously by the contact, ended up seventh.
As was widely expected, one-stop strategies were favoured throughout the field, and drivers were able to use which combination of ultra-soft, super-soft and soft tyres suited them best. Sergey Sirotkin did almost the entire race distance on a single set of soft tyres.Ferrari performed the quickest pit stop of the race for Kimi Raikkonen. He left his pit stop late, emerging on a fresher set of tyres than his rivals, which allowed him to successfully pass Daniel Ricciardo for third place.
However Vettel’s two visits two the pits were the slowest of the race – one of these was because he had to serve a five-second penalty for the Bottas collision.
Bottas set the fastest lap of the race for Mercedes, though Max Verstappen was just five-hundredths of a second away from setting another fastest lap for Red Bull.
Explore the French Grand Prix in greater detail with the interactive graphs and tables below.
2018 French Grand Prix lap chart
The positions of each driver on every lap. Click name to highlight, right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:
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2018 French Grand Prix race chart
The gaps between each driver on every lap compared to the leader’s average lap time. Very large gaps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:
2018 French Grand Prix lap times
All the lap times by the drivers (in seconds, very slow laps excluded). Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and toggle drivers using the control below:
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2018 French Grand Prix fastest laps
Each driver’s fastest lap:
| Rank | Driver | Car | Fastest lap | Gap | On lap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1’34.225 | 41 | |
| 2 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull-TAG Heuer | 1’34.275 | 0.050 | 47 |
| 3 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1’34.398 | 0.173 | 48 |
| 4 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1’34.485 | 0.260 | 42 |
| 5 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1’34.509 | 0.284 | 49 |
| 6 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren-Renault | 1’35.133 | 0.908 | 48 |
| 7 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull-TAG Heuer | 1’35.382 | 1.157 | 37 |
| 8 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas-Ferrari | 1’35.425 | 1.200 | 50 |
| 9 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Renault | 1’35.638 | 1.413 | 46 |
| 10 | Romain Grosjean | Haas-Ferrari | 1’35.695 | 1.470 | 47 |
| 11 | Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | 1’35.873 | 1.648 | 46 |
| 12 | Charles Leclerc | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’35.977 | 1.752 | 45 |
| 13 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’36.494 | 2.269 | 37 |
| 14 | Stoffel Vandoorne | McLaren-Renault | 1’36.675 | 2.450 | 48 |
| 15 | Brendon Hartley | Toro Rosso-Honda | 1’36.839 | 2.614 | 40 |
| 16 | Sergey Sirotkin | Williams-Mercedes | 1’38.300 | 4.075 | 35 |
| 17 | Sergio Perez | Force India-Mercedes | 1’38.319 | 4.094 | 25 |
| 18 | Lance Stroll | Williams-Mercedes | 1’38.319 | 4.094 | 35 |
| 19 | Esteban Ocon | Force India-Mercedes | |||
| 20 | Pierre Gasly | Toro Rosso-Honda |
2018 French Grand Prix tyre strategies
The tyre strategies for each driver:
| Stint 1 | Stint 2 | Stint 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Esteban Ocon | |||
| Pierre Gasly | |||
| Sergio Perez | Soft (27) | ||
| Lance Stroll | Ultra soft (1) | Soft (47) | |
| Fernando Alonso | Super soft (1) | Soft (45) | Ultra soft (4) |
| Lewis Hamilton | Super soft (33) | Soft (20) | |
| Max Verstappen | Super soft (25) | Soft (28) | |
| Romain Grosjean | Ultra soft (34) | Super soft (18) | |
| Kimi Raikkonen | Ultra soft (34) | Super soft (19) | |
| Stoffel Vandoorne | Super soft (40) | Ultra soft (12) | |
| Daniel Ricciardo | Super soft (28) | Soft (25) | |
| Marcus Ericsson | Super soft (35) | Ultra soft (17) | |
| Brendon Hartley | Ultra soft (38) | Super soft (14) | |
| Sergey Sirotkin | Ultra soft (1) | Soft (51) | |
| Sebastian Vettel | Ultra soft (1) | Soft (39) | Ultra soft (13) |
| Kevin Magnussen | Ultra soft (28) | Soft (25) | |
| Valtteri Bottas | Super soft (1) | Soft (38) | Super soft (14) |
| Carlos Sainz Jnr | Ultra soft (26) | Soft (27) | |
| Nico Hulkenberg | Soft (37) | Ultra soft (16) | |
| Charles Leclerc | Ultra soft (31) | Super soft (22) |
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2018 French Grand Prix pit stop times
How long each driver’s pit stops took:
| Driver | Team | Pit stop time | Gap | On lap | |
| 1 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 24.289 | 34 | |
| 2 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber | 24.295 | 0.006 | 35 |
| 3 | Brendon Hartley | Toro Rosso | 24.297 | 0.008 | 38 |
| 4 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull | 24.309 | 0.020 | 28 |
| 5 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 24.310 | 0.021 | 33 |
| 6 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 24.395 | 0.106 | 25 |
| 7 | Stoffel Vandoorne | McLaren | 24.399 | 0.110 | 40 |
| 8 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren | 24.788 | 0.499 | 46 |
| 9 | Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | 25.016 | 0.727 | 37 |
| 10 | Charles Leclerc | Sauber | 25.026 | 0.737 | 31 |
| 11 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | 25.419 | 1.130 | 28 |
| 12 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Renault | 25.423 | 1.134 | 26 |
| 13 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren | 25.789 | 1.500 | 1 |
| 14 | Sergey Sirotkin | Williams | 26.273 | 1.984 | 1 |
| 15 | Lance Stroll | Williams | 26.576 | 2.287 | 1 |
| 16 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 27.955 | 3.666 | 1 |
| 17 | Romain Grosjean | Haas | 29.996 | 5.707 | 34 |
| 18 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 30.666 | 6.377 | 39 |
| 19 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 31.029 | 6.740 | 40 |
| 20 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 32.612 | 8.323 | 1 |
2018 French Grand Prix
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- 2018 French Grand Prix Star Performers
- French GP traffic problems due to “stunning location” – Brawn
- Hamilton regains points lead in F1’s forgettable return to France
Homerlovesbeer (@homerlovesbeer)
24th June 2018, 23:07
What happened to Dan’s pace towards the end of the race? Did he have issues again?
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
24th June 2018, 23:59
@homerlovesbeer As someone reminded me in another thread, Ricciardo hit debris and damaged his front wing, losing a lot of downforce.
Johnvl
25th June 2018, 8:51
Yes but in his interview RIC said he hit debris 2 laps before his pit stop. (on lap 28) This doesn’t make sense looking at the lap times, as they drop after lap 40. Why is he lying about this?
F1 in Figures (@f1infigures)
25th June 2018, 10:40
His lap times started to fade just before his stop as his front wing got damaged. After the stop his front wing got damaged even further and then he was stuck in traffic, which cost him a lot of time.
Johnvl
25th June 2018, 10:51
Meanwhile I have seen pictures of Daniels pit stop, and the wing was indeed damaged there. I can imagine further damage by vibration after that. Lap times after the stop where pretty decent in my opinion though. Guess they started dropping after the wing got further damage.
anon
26th June 2018, 9:48
@homerlovesbeer, as others have noted, after the upper cascades on both the left and right side of his front wing came off (officially due to debris, but the fact that the same piece fell off on both sides of his front wing doesn’t really match with the “debris” claim), he was suffering from severe understeer.
Given that Paul Ricard is said to be a front limited circuit, having a heavily understeering car would be particularly problematic here, hence why his lap times worsened towards the latter stages of the race.
John H (@john-h)
24th June 2018, 23:10
Once again, I can’t help but think scrapping the mandatory stops and having a car try and get to the end without pitting would be an interesting addition with these tyres.
F1 in Figures (@f1infigures)
25th June 2018, 10:42
Yes, that would make the races more interesting I think.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
24th June 2018, 23:58
The saddest thing here is that McLaren intentionally pitted Alonso right at the end of the race to give him his best shot of getting fastest lap…. and they’re still 0.9 seconds off what the others can do on older tyres.
Homerlovesbeer (@homerlovesbeer)
25th June 2018, 0:16
And the suspension broke!
Sumedh
25th June 2018, 5:04
Why sad. They voted for this. They voted to go for Renault and are paying 25 mn per year for that.
I will start feeling for them only once the ineffective top brass of Eric, Jonathan and Zak is removed.
Thunder (@thunder1115)
25th June 2018, 6:56
Now they know how bad their car.
MG1982 (@mg1982)
25th June 2018, 7:06
Not so sure things are like that. The last laps were under VSC and double yellow flags, so nobody could push to the max. By the time he got the tyres into temp and rhythm, he couldn’t push anymore. VET tried to get the FL but had to slow down because of the same reasons.
Trespasser (@trespasser)
25th June 2018, 7:06
But Alonso never got rally the chance to go for it because of Stroll and his puncture.
I’m not saying he would have managed the fastest lap, that McLaren is not the quickest one, but Alonso could have been really close to it.
Miguel Bento
25th June 2018, 8:38
GP2 Chassis! GP2 Chassis!!
Matthijs (@matthijs)
25th June 2018, 6:56
Behind the big three teams, the pack is incredibly close. Shame that it’s only a fight for 7th or 6th maximum otherwise it would be a thrilling championship.