2022 French Grand Prix interactive data: lap charts, times and tyres

Charles Leclerc spent the opening laps of the French Grand Prix withstanding a ferocious attack from his championship rival. Once he’d done that, it seemed the win was on.

Max Verstappen headed for the pits after spending 15 laps trying to pass Leclerc on track without success. Red Bull fitted a set of hard tyres which lasted him until the end of the race.

Leclerc would have to do the same. But with Verstappen being instructed to bring his new tyres in gently, Red Bull were clearly concerned about their tyre life. Ferrari were in a promising position.

That came to an end when Leclerc spun into the barrier at both say on the 18th lap of the race. His crash also triggered a safety car. Which put the majority of the remaining drivers on the same strategy.

In the searing heat, almost the entire field opted to start on the mediums. The soft tyre compound wouldn’t go far enough (no one used them all day) and hards brought a risk of costing a driver positions at the start. Among the three drivers to opt for the latter were Carlos Sainz Jnr, who lined up on the back row of the grid due to a power unit component penalty.

While Ferrari couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a low-cost pit stop for Sainz during the Safety Car period, switching him to the medium tyre compound so early ended his hopes of making it to the end of the race on a single pit stop.

Ferrari agonised over whether to bring Sainz in for a third set of tyres, and when to do it. Eventually they concluded that the risk of hitting severe tyre problems at the end of the race was too great to risk keeping him out.

That led to the bizarre situation where Sainz was called in on the lap after he’d overtaken Perez for third place. As he was only able to recover as far as fifth it inevitably led to questions over whether Ferrari had got their strategy right. Team principal Mattia Binotto was adamant they had.

It’s always easy to judge these things in retrospect, and difficult to tell whether Sainz’s tyres would have held up had he not changed them. But given he was carrying a five-second time penalty, Perez and the pursuing Russell didn’t even have to overtake Sainz on-track to get ahead of him. Therefore, Ferrari’s decision to pit him was logical, though with the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to say they should have committed to it earlier. Of course, the Virtual Safety Car late in the race didn’t help his cause either.

The upside to Sainz’s strategy was he set the fastest lap of the race, picking up a bonus point. That deprived Verstappen of one point on a day when the Red Bull driver otherwise took a huge step towards a second world championship.

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2022 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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2022 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:

Position change

Driver	Start position	Lap one position change	Race position change
Lewis Hamilton	4	1	2
George Russell	6	0	1
Max Verstappen	2	0	1
Sergio Perez	3	-1	0
Charles Leclerc	1	0
Carlos Sainz Jnr	19	1	4
Lando Norris	5	-2	-1
Daniel Ricciardo	9	1	2
Esteban Ocon	10	1	2
Fernando Alonso	7	2	3
Pierre Gasly	14	-1	1
Yuki Tsunoda	8	-12
Lance Stroll	15	5	6
Sebastian Vettel	12	1	2
Alexander Albon	13	1	2
Nicholas Latifi	18	1
Valtteri Bottas	11	-5	-3
Zhou Guanyu	16	-3	0
Mick Schumacher	17	3	5
Kevin Magnussen	20	7

2022 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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2022 French Grand Prix fastest laps

Each driver’s fastest lap:

Rank	Driver	Car	Fastest lap	Gap	On lap
1	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	1’35.781		51
2	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1’37.491	1.710	30
3	George Russell	Mercedes	1’37.548	1.767	51
4	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’37.668	1.887	30
5	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	1’37.780	1.999	45
6	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’37.963	2.182	52
7	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’38.088	2.307	4
8	Fernando Alonso	Alpine-Renault	1’38.160	2.379	53
9	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	1’38.684	2.903	53
10	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri-Red Bull	1’38.786	3.005	53
11	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	1’38.985	3.204	28
12	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’39.044	3.263	43
13	Mick Schumacher	Haas-Ferrari	1’39.068	3.287	48
14	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren-Mercedes	1’39.133	3.352	27
15	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’39.185	3.404	52
16	Alexander Albon	Williams-Mercedes	1’39.199	3.418	53
17	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’39.265	3.484	11
18	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’39.368	3.587	25
19	Nicholas Latifi	Williams-Mercedes	1’39.650	3.869	40
20	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Red Bull	1’40.216	4.435	4

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2022 French Grand Prix tyre strategies

The tyre strategies for each driver:

	Stint 1	Stint 2	Stint 3
Max Verstappen	C3 (16)	C4 (37)
Lewis Hamilton	C3 (18)	C4 (35)
Sergio Perez	C3 (18)	C4 (35)
Fernando Alonso	C3 (18)	C4 (35)
George Russell	C3 (18)	C4 (35)
Lando Norris	C3 (18)	C4 (35)
Daniel Ricciardo	C3 (18)	C4 (35)
Esteban Ocon	C3 (18)	C4 (35)
Lance Stroll	C3 (18)	C4 (35)
Sebastian Vettel	C3 (19)	C4 (34)
Alexander Albon	C3 (18)	C4 (35)
Mick Schumacher	C3 (9)	C4 (9)	C4 (35)
Pierre Gasly	C4 (18)	C3 (35)
Valtteri Bottas	C4 (18)	C4 (18)	C3 (17)
Carlos Sainz Jnr	C4 (18)	C3 (24)	C3 (11)
Zhou Guanyu	C3 (9)	C4 (13)	C4 (25)
Nicholas Latifi	C3 (19)	C4 (19)	C3 (2)
Kevin Magnussen	C3 (8)	C4 (10)	C4 (19)
Charles Leclerc	C3 (17)
Yuki Tsunoda	C3 (11)	C4 (6)

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2022 French Grand Prix pit stop times

How long each driver’s pit stops took:

	Driver	Team	Pit stop time	Gap	On lap
1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	35.266		16
2	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	35.969	0.703	18
3	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	36.264	0.998	18
4	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	36.403	1.137	18
5	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo	36.444	1.178	9
6	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	36.520	1.254	36
7	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	36.524	1.258	18
8	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	36.671	1.405	19
9	Mick Schumacher	Haas	36.704	1.438	9
10	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	36.779	1.513	8
11	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	36.942	1.676	38
12	Mick Schumacher	Haas	37.003	1.737	18
13	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	37.189	1.923	18
14	Alexander Albon	Williams	37.380	2.114	18
15	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	37.497	2.231	19
16	Lando Norris	McLaren	37.539	2.273	18
17	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	37.648	2.382	11
18	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	37.855	2.589	18
19	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	38.061	2.795	18
20	George Russell	Mercedes	38.277	3.011	18
21	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	39.844	4.578	18
22	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	41.458	6.192	18
23	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	42.292	7.026	42
24	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	44.747	9.481	18
25	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo	50.790	15.524	22

2022 French Grand Prix

• Ferrari’s season of missed chances led to “difficult” criticism for Binotto
• McLaren looking into why their starts are “more inconsistent” this year
• Mercedes expect Hungarian GP will ‘expose our qualifying weakness’
• Hamilton and Russell ‘out-performing a car that’s not good enough’ – Wolff
• “We need to decide now”: Inside Sainz and Ferrari’s French GP strategy dilemma

Browse all 2022 French Grand Prix articles