2018 French Grand Prix interactive data: lap charts, times and tyres

2018 French Grand Prix

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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:

RankDriverCarFastest lapGapOn lap
1Valtteri BottasMercedes1’34.22541
2Max VerstappenRed Bull-TAG Heuer1’34.2750.05047
3Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’34.3980.17348
4Sebastian VettelFerrari1’34.4850.26042
5Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’34.5090.28449
6Fernando AlonsoMcLaren-Renault1’35.1330.90848
7Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-TAG Heuer1’35.3821.15737
8Kevin MagnussenHaas-Ferrari1’35.4251.20050
9Carlos Sainz JnrRenault1’35.6381.41346
10Romain GrosjeanHaas-Ferrari1’35.6951.47047
11Nico HulkenbergRenault1’35.8731.64846
12Charles LeclercSauber-Ferrari1’35.9771.75245
13Marcus EricssonSauber-Ferrari1’36.4942.26937
14Stoffel VandoorneMcLaren-Renault1’36.6752.45048
15Brendon HartleyToro Rosso-Honda1’36.8392.61440
16Sergey SirotkinWilliams-Mercedes1’38.3004.07535
17Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’38.3194.09425
18Lance StrollWilliams-Mercedes1’38.3194.09435
19Esteban OconForce India-Mercedes
20Pierre GaslyToro Rosso-Honda

2018 French Grand Prix tyre strategies

The tyre strategies for each driver:

Stint 1Stint 2Stint 3
Esteban Ocon
Pierre Gasly
Sergio PerezSoft (27)
Lance StrollUltra soft (1)Soft (47)
Fernando AlonsoSuper soft (1)Soft (45)Ultra soft (4)
Lewis HamiltonSuper soft (33)Soft (20)
Max VerstappenSuper soft (25)Soft (28)
Romain GrosjeanUltra soft (34)Super soft (18)
Kimi RaikkonenUltra soft (34)Super soft (19)
Stoffel VandoorneSuper soft (40)Ultra soft (12)
Daniel RicciardoSuper soft (28)Soft (25)
Marcus EricssonSuper soft (35)Ultra soft (17)
Brendon HartleyUltra soft (38)Super soft (14)
Sergey SirotkinUltra soft (1)Soft (51)
Sebastian VettelUltra soft (1)Soft (39)Ultra soft (13)
Kevin MagnussenUltra soft (28)Soft (25)
Valtteri BottasSuper soft (1)Soft (38)Super soft (14)
Carlos Sainz JnrUltra soft (26)Soft (27)
Nico HulkenbergSoft (37)Ultra soft (16)
Charles LeclercUltra soft (31)Super soft (22)

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2018 French Grand Prix pit stop times

How long each driver’s pit stops took:

DriverTeamPit stop timeGapOn lap
1Kimi RaikkonenFerrari24.28934
2Marcus EricssonSauber24.2950.00635
3Brendon HartleyToro Rosso24.2970.00838
4Daniel RicciardoRed Bull24.3090.02028
5Lewis HamiltonMercedes24.3100.02133
6Max VerstappenRed Bull24.3950.10625
7Stoffel VandoorneMcLaren24.3990.11040
8Fernando AlonsoMcLaren24.7880.49946
9Nico HulkenbergRenault25.0160.72737
10Charles LeclercSauber25.0260.73731
11Kevin MagnussenHaas25.4191.13028
12Carlos Sainz JnrRenault25.4231.13426
13Fernando AlonsoMcLaren25.7891.5001
14Sergey SirotkinWilliams26.2731.9841
15Lance StrollWilliams26.5762.2871
16Valtteri BottasMercedes27.9553.6661
17Romain GrosjeanHaas29.9965.70734
18Valtteri BottasMercedes30.6666.37739
19Sebastian VettelFerrari31.0296.74040
20Sebastian VettelFerrari32.6128.3231

2018 French Grand Prix

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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16 comments on “2018 French Grand Prix interactive data: lap charts, times and tyres”

  1. What happened to Dan’s pace towards the end of the race? Did he have issues again?

    1. @homerlovesbeer As someone reminded me in another thread, Ricciardo hit debris and damaged his front wing, losing a lot of downforce.

      1. 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?

        1. 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.

          1. 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.

    2. @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.

  2. 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.

    1. Yes, that would make the races more interesting I think.

  3. 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.

    1. And the suspension broke!

    2. 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.

      1. Now they know how bad their car.

    3. 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.

    4. 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.

    5. Miguel Bento
      25th June 2018, 8:38

      GP2 Chassis! GP2 Chassis!!

  4. 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.

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