What did you think of today’s race? Share your verdict on the French Grand Prix.
RaceFans has held polls on every F1 race since 2008 to find out which fans thought of each round of the season.
Join in the latest poll and give your verdict on the race: 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest. Please vote based on how entertaining and exciting you thought the race was, not on how your preferred driver or team performed.
What were the best and worst moments of the race? What was the main thing you’ll remember about it? Rate the race out of ten and leave a comment below:
Rate the 2018 French Grand Prix out of ten
- 10 (2%)
- 9 (3%)
- 8 (18%)
- 7 (35%)
- 6 (19%)
- 5 (12%)
- 4 (4%)
- 3 (5%)
- 2 (2%)
- 1 (2%)
Total Voters: 264
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2018 French Grand Prix
- Hamilton has now won at every track on the F1 calendar
- 2018 French Grand Prix Star Performers
- Hamilton regains points lead in F1’s forgettable return to France
- Top ten pictures from the 2018 French Grand Prix
- Woeful organisation spoils F1’s return to France
Debates and polls
- Will Alonso win a world championship title with Aston Martin?
- How long should Red Bull give Ricciardo to prove he’s not lost his touch?
- Were stewards right to penalise Alonso over his driving before Russell’s crash?
- Are Williams right to bench Sargeant so Albon can race after crash?
- Is the FIA right to make ten seconds the new standard for penalties?
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
24th June 2018, 16:46
Thought that was a really good race.
Lots of good racing & a decent amount of overtaking through the field at a few different spots around the track.
My only complaint is that DRS was way too powerful at times.
8/10 from me.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
25th June 2018, 8:26
Yes, I thought this was a fairly decent race too. There were two points that I thought were interesting, one of which was the amount of overtakes on a track where few were expected. The other was the highlighting of the many little battles going on around the track.
The presence of the chicane in the middle of the straight seemed to be a focus for many successful overtakes, so maybe there’s hope for improving the spectacle by altering tracks to encourage overtaking.
I think the TV broadcast was very good too.
Jere (@jerejj)
24th June 2018, 16:47
A rather exciting race overall. Definitely a lot better than the three previous ones.
Mashiat (@mashiat)
24th June 2018, 16:47
8/10. Was a surprisingly decent race compared to expectations, especially the first half. The DRS seemed quite powerful today, especially in the Mistral straight, and I wonder if that was perhaps due to a strong headwind helping cars tow each other. The Mistral is supposed to be famous for its strong and somewhat erratic winds right? Also, did anyone else notice Alonso going super slow at the end? Wonder if he had a problem, or just wanted to reduce as much time as possible spent in the McLaren garage.
Martin
24th June 2018, 17:05
It was suspension damage for Alonso at the end
hahostolze (@hahostolze)
24th June 2018, 16:47
I liked that race. It had a lot. The circuit’s twisty bits were actually quite good for some close racing.
BUT. DRS was too powerful. And Hamilton now leading the championship by a good margin feels wrong based on the season. Not really the race’s fault, but still sticks.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
24th June 2018, 16:51
@hahostolze – I get what you’re saying, but Vettel’s thrown away good points due to driver error – first at Baku (spooked into an aggressive lunge), and now here (trying to hard to make one up on Bottas), and he really needs to look to himself first, now that he has a rather impressive car. Hamilton has some races where he snoozes on autopilot, but he does safely collect points instead of getting nervous.
bosyber (@bosyber)
24th June 2018, 17:29
Well said @phylyp, I think that Vettel is the lesser champion due to things like this, where he not only ruins his own race, but also that of others (similar to how many claim Verstappen is too aggressive, but he’s not a 4 times champion, and could improve).
Well, that race was quite interesting (apart from the lead), good to see Kimi finally go for it and win a podium on strength (not like china, by default); DRS seemed too effective, and that chicane really did give opportunities, though I mostly liked that Bottas move on Grosjean. I gave it a 7/10. I do really hope that Vettel in the end misses the WDC in the last race by a some 6-8 points, which is about what he lost today.
MG1982 (@mg1982)
24th June 2018, 17:53
Seriously now, do you really compare that t-bone VER applied to VET with what VET did to BOT given overall situation of each case?!?! I reckon VET is ridiculous at times and mostly because of this HAM seems to be the better racer indeed, but VER still has to prove he’s past the rookie period. The fact that he did not mess up 3 races in a row doesn’t change things much.
Mashiat (@mashiat)
24th June 2018, 18:30
@phylyp China is what comes to mind. Vettel lost several points there, and also in Baku, where the safety car cost him the lead, although that is cancelled out by Australia. I felt like Vettel was the better of the two in Bahrain, China, Baku, Monaco and Canada. Whereas Hamilton outperformed Vettel in Australia, Spain and France, so I’d personally say Vettel has been doing the better of the two. Hard to tell due to differing cars, but that’s just what it looks like on the outside.
HUHHII (@huhhii)
24th June 2018, 18:50
@phylyp Yeah Vettel has been throwing points away but what about Bottas? He’s having a really strong season and should be right up there with Hamilton fighting for the championship. So in that way I agree with what @hahostolze said. Hamilton has been really good as well (most of the time at least), but not as convincing as what his championship lead suggests.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
24th June 2018, 18:55
@huhhii – ah, very good point: I wrongly took @hahostolze ‘s point of comparison to be Vettel instead of Bottas. With respect to Bottas, yes, I fully agree that his performance has been really up there, and more tellingly, he has tended to be more consistent (e.g. Canada).
Bcoliver
24th June 2018, 17:48
It is not Lewis’ fault that Vettel keeps making these stupid mistakes. He has the best car at his disposal this year, no excuses this time.
BasCB (@bascb)
24th June 2018, 20:18
To me it is pretty bad how Bottas keeps getting bad luck – he could have won in China if not for the SC, he could have won Baku, if not for the puncture. He could have been on on the podium here if not for Vettel hitting him.
When you look at all those points, it could be Bottas leading the championship. Instead Hamilton had about half of the races really good and is leading while Vettel has a slightly better overall car, but already threw away a few of his chances too.
Gabriel (@rethla)
24th June 2018, 16:48
Good solid race. A bit dissapointing crash in lap1 but it happens.
8
Phylyp (@phylyp)
24th June 2018, 16:49
If not for Vettel’s first lap collision with Bottas, this would have been an exceptionally boring race. And the performance advantage of the top 3 is ridiculous, Vettel zoomed through the grid until he hit his other 5 competitors, Bottas nearly there as well but apparently his car damage held him back.
Grateful that Ferrari – for once – favoured Kimi and didn’t waste him trying to hold up Hamilton, or making him swap places with Vettel.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
24th June 2018, 16:56
@phylyp
I disagree.
There was a lot more good racing/overtaking going on through the field other than Vettel/Bottas.
Something I would point out is that I saw a lot more on the OnBoards & timing feed than what was actually shown on the world-feed.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
24th June 2018, 17:00
@stefmeister – via F1 TV, or Sky? Sadly, I don’t get either in my country, so am limited to what the broadcast director chooses to show. You’re right in that there were various positions being swapped, but not having seen many of them, I wasn’t in a position to say if they were good, so thanks for correcting me on that.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
24th June 2018, 17:11
@phylyp Sky, Don’t get F1TV Pro in the UK sadly.
JohnH (@johnrkh)
24th June 2018, 16:52
7 definitely better than the build up suggested.
ColdFly (@)
25th June 2018, 8:35
Got stuck at a 7 as well, @johnrkh.
Overall exciting race, but DRS made it too easy to overtake.
It seems that this track does not need DRS at all. I want to see more overtakes like RIC on the inside of VET, and similar moves by BOT on lesser drivers.
Illusive (@illusive)
24th June 2018, 16:54
It wasnt that great but there was some good overtakes. Great recovery drive from vettel. Engine issue for perez so does it mean possible issues for mercedes duo as well in future?
GnosticBrian (@gnosticbrian)
25th June 2018, 0:48
Water leak – could just be a union not correctly tightened.
Imre (@f1mre)
24th June 2018, 16:54
Ridiculous. There are more valuable overtakes in the motorway than in this race… I do not remember any overtake that required a better driver skill than Yuji Ide’s.
John H (@john-h)
24th June 2018, 17:17
Unfortunately I agree with this. I don’t really know how this race can be more than a 6, but perhaps low expectations helped. Maybe I’m just in a bad mood, but there was something missing in that race to make it more than basically a time trial after lap 1.
Imre (@f1mre)
24th June 2018, 17:22
“Time trial” was also in my mind during the race.
Steven2
24th June 2018, 17:41
Agree….horrible.
Andy (@andycz)
24th June 2018, 16:55
Quite interesting race! I think the looser of the day was definitely McLaren…
Adam (@rocketpanda)
24th June 2018, 16:55
Can’t help but feel the lap 1 incident disguised a boring race as an interesting one.
Not terrible, not good either in the end.
Mashiat (@mashiat)
24th June 2018, 16:59
Also, Vettel winning DOTD? I mean, who votes for these things? He had a great recovery, but it was of his own doing that he fell to the back in the first place.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
24th June 2018, 17:01
@mashiat – It’s the F1.com website poll, right? Just laugh the results away, I stopped bothering with that within a few races after it was introduced.
ColdFly (@)
25th June 2018, 8:48
Only the 1st one was a proper poll when Rio Haryanto got the most votes, but never got the title ;-)
It proved that DOTD (and even to some extend DOTW) is more a popularity contest than a performance review. It’s a bit like the Eurovision Song Contest.
@mashiat, @phylyp
Imre (@f1mre)
24th June 2018, 17:04
I am curious about RaceFans Star Performers of this GP. Last time out the lights to flag winner was not among the star performers, I do not think that today’s winner did any more than that.
MacLeod (@macleod)
25th June 2018, 13:29
I was expecting a boring race so i had lewis, bottas, vettel, max and kimi but Vettel doesn’t like boring so i have only Lewis correct.
Patrickl (@patrickl)
24th June 2018, 17:06
@mashiat Indeed. Yet again Vettel demonstrates why people say he can only win from pole with the fastest car and yet they reward him with a DOTD. Insane.
Also how does he again get away with pretty much no penalty at all after ruining Bottas’ race with his amateurish driving. Really bizarre how Verstappen gets so much flak for his incidents when Vettel has easily as many incidents.
Martin
24th June 2018, 17:10
Seems unfair on Verstappen to get a 10 second penalty for hitting Vettel in China when in comparison Bottas suffered much worse than Vettel did.
Mark Saunders (@mcs1)
24th June 2018, 17:18
Surely you can’t be suggesting FIA and their stewards are biased towards Ferarri!
sumedh
24th June 2018, 17:26
Lap 1 incident is penalized softly. Plus, Vettel also locked up slightly.
Patrickl (@patrickl)
24th June 2018, 17:55
How does locking up mitigate the incident? Especially since he keeps crashing into other cars on such a regular basis. It just shows he’s not in control and therefore should be shown with more force that he should put more effort in keeping his car in control.
BTW Hamilton once actually got a drive through penalty for locking up for turn 1! When pretty much the whole field did too.
Patrick (@anunaki)
24th June 2018, 19:55
Max got 10 seconds for hitting RIC after locking up in the 1st round in Hungary last year
Mashiat (@mashiat)
24th June 2018, 18:34
I don’t think those two incidents were identical. Vettel was close behind another car (Hamilton), and was alongside Bottas before the braking zone, even slightly ahead. That’s different to being meters behind and just ramming into your opponent into a braking zone. Not to mention one was in Turn 1 of lap 1 when it’s even tougher given temperatures, fuel load and the proximity of other cars.
MG1982 (@mg1982)
24th June 2018, 20:21
+1. Sensible comment.
Still, I think VET could have avoided that collision (but risk being hit from behind) and wonder if he risked by braking late on purpose in order not to lose positions to the RBR guys. It’s obvious the way he was caught on the inside by the Mercedes guys, his exit out of the turn would have been poor and a sitting duck to at least 1 of the RBRs, if not both.
Ed Marques (@edmarques)
24th June 2018, 17:02
Nice race. Solid 8. Better than I expected.
Vettel again with a pat on the back from the FIA, though no matter the punishment he would probably finish 5th anyway.
Patrickl (@patrickl)
24th June 2018, 17:09
It wasn’t as bad as feared up front, but the race was ruined by Vettel again. This could have been a great battle for all three podium positions, but instead we saw Vettel and Bottas driving past a few cars on the straight and little to no fight at all for the top three until Raikkonen finally got the spirit in the last few laps.
Dave
24th June 2018, 17:17
Somewhat good but okay.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
24th June 2018, 17:23
Thought it was a mediocre race, I gave it a 5. There was some overtaking but mostly due to cars being out of position after lap 1 carnage. No meaningful fight between the top 3 cars, those were apparently set in stone after lap 1, apart from Ricciardo’s power issue. Was really crossing fingers for some rain to mix things up.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
24th June 2018, 17:35
@keithedin Ricciardo didn’t have a power issue.
He hit some debris which damaged his front wing & cost him a lot of front downforce.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
24th June 2018, 23:50
@stefmeister Oh right, thanks for the correction. Yeah I remember now that you said it, forgot the reason he slowed down.
MacLeod (@macleod)
25th June 2018, 13:32
You can see it on Keith timetables also the reason Kimi could get Daniel.
Understeer (@abdelilah)
24th June 2018, 17:30
A solid 7/10, some overtaking even if it wasn’t meant to be, and Vettel ? what the hell was going on his head when he made that desperate move, a reminiscent of Singapore GP although he didn’t DNF, he still didn’t learn his lesson yet IMO, and what about the stewards ? 5 seconds time penalty is simply a joke, 10 seconds would have been much fairer.
KaIIe (@kaiie)
24th June 2018, 17:45
It was entertaining though not very exciting. Solid 6/10.
Velocityboy (@velocityboy)
24th June 2018, 18:00
I found it to be average thus I rated it a 5. DRS was ridiculous and I think I may have downgraded the race a bit due the ugly strips all over the place., a real assault on the eyes.
Hucumber
24th June 2018, 18:28
The problem with this race was that the DRS wasn’t strong enough for similar cars to race well, but instead aided the out of position cars past slower teams with such ease as to be undramatic. 5 or 6 out of 10.
DocNuke (@)
24th June 2018, 19:02
I gave it a 6.
A lot of good passing occured, more than normally seen. Once the race got past the half way point the excitement in it tapered off.
The only thing that would have been exciting to see is if it rained. That safety car on lap 1 with people coming in to switch off tires to get to the softs, and watching the top 6 or 8 run a full stint on the tires they started on with rain on the radar would have been exciting to watch how the race unfolded at the end if they had to swap over to wet weather tires. I think with the sheer volume of run off area would have caused some of the drivers to push harder than they normally would have anywhere else and would have been awesome.
Justin (@boombazookajd)
24th June 2018, 19:35
3. How did this get a 6 or 7? Was it the DRS passes, Alonso’s constant whining, the rain that never came, Hamilton cruising to a completely uncontested win, or was it the dizzying combination of red and blue stripes on the side of this parking lot turned into a circuit?
For me, this was a very sad way to garner any interest in the Paul Ricard circuit. Formula One has some serious work to do.
Patrick (@anunaki)
24th June 2018, 19:56
I enjoyed this GP from start to finish so I give it a 8
Sun Siyuan (@peking901)
24th June 2018, 20:28
Overtakings only under DRS zone and somebody said this is an exciting race??? Kidding me?
photozen (@photozen)
24th June 2018, 20:33
An enjoyable race, much better than expected. I gave it an 8/10
I would of like to see what Gasly and Ocon could have done in the race, I do think that Vettel was under-penalised.
There are some kinks to work, like the pit entry, etc. but these can be addressed for next year.
Good to see the French Grand Prix back on the calendar too.
Jeffrey (@jeffreyj)
24th June 2018, 21:11
@photozen I also gave it an 8 as it was much better than I expected.
I have been fairly critical of the Paul Ricard circuit in terms of the runoffs and the way it hurts my eyes, but I have to take back my criticism that the actual layout would produce a procession. Of course, the lap 1 crash mixed up the order a bit, but I also saw fights between similarly matched cars all throughout the field which I didn’t expect to see.
joe jopling (@jop452)
24th June 2018, 20:44
A 7 out of 10 from me….was actually expecting a procession..again..Vettel should have had a bigger penalty, even a drive through…and the incident shows again that he sometimes does not handle pressure very well…Sainz was a little lucky at the end, when his engine lost power and he was slipping back through the field, but was saved by the VSC….but throughout the race he drove very well..
Ronald (@mosquito)
24th June 2018, 21:28
Not as bad as expected. Still a mediocre race to watch in my opinion, not more than a 6 to me. The first lap crashes spiced things up, especially due to Bottas en Vettel having to come back through the field. But the overtakes they made just proved the number says nothing. Most of them were mere highway passes where the driver that was overtaken could not even try to defend himself. DRS a bit overpowered here maybe. I can only remember Ricciardo launching some kind of a defense against Raikkonen.
Dom (@3dom)
24th June 2018, 22:36
Actually pleasantly surprised by this race. Questions were raised before about it being a procession but decent action, particularly in the first half. The twisty bits at the end of the lap, offer different lines. DRS was a bit too powerful, that was the only downside, but after the last two races and with it being the first time here with modern cars we have to expect that they may not get it right. Overall tho, exceeded expectations
FlatSix3.6 (@kegguts)
25th June 2018, 1:59
Gave it a 6, the first lap contretemps tended to shuffle up the grid so created some interesting matchups. Good one for Max and bugger for Dan with wing damage, was hoping for a full bull podium.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
25th June 2018, 6:57
6/10. I thought this was going to really dull and I think it exceeded expectations. Mind you I only watched the C4F1 highlights and it was obvious they missed out quite a lot of laps where nothing much happened.
Without the first lap incidents I am not so sure it would have been rated so well on average. However when they down to the actual racing on the track I quite enjoyed it and it seems to flow quite nicely. The field was not that spread out compared to some fast circuits.
If the cars could stay closer to each other and there was not so much realiance on DRS I think Paul Ricard would have a bright future.
TGS
25th June 2018, 10:00
After watching Le Mans this is race a 0 for me
rsp123 (@rsp123)
25th June 2018, 10:57
Did I watch the same race as everyone else? I thought it was dire – boring in the extreme. I was at Le Mans last week where the action was intense (even though only one manufacturer was at the front). The contrast could not be greater.
Bryan (@ruz234014)
27th June 2018, 14:11
6 for me. First lap carnage was interesting, especially the French drivers desperate to do well and throwing it away. But the recovery drives from Vettel and to a lesser extent Bottas seemed too easy.
PJA (@pja)
29th June 2018, 20:09
I missed submitting my vote as I have been busy but I rated the race a 6.
There was more action than recent races but all the moves just seemed like easy and straightforward DRS overtakes so didn’t really excite me.
I only saw the highlights and it looked like they actually couldn’t fit all the overtakes in and didn’t show some moves, as there were a few changes in position and that they didn’t refer to and I only noticed due to a different running order on track
I didn’t actually think that Vettel would receive any penalty for the collision at the start because I just put it down to a typical first lap racing incident, I can see why he was penalised but I don’t think I would have complained if the stewards had taken no action.
Having said that given they did decide to punish Vettel I can see what Hamilton means when he said the punishment seemed lenient due to the fact it didn’t affect his race and he finished ahead of Bottas whose race he ruined, but I suppose that is the way it works out sometimes.
It turned out to be a comfortable victory for Hamilton and it seemed like he was never troubled, the only doubt with regards to his win was if he would suffer car problems especially with this being the first race for the new spec engine, the introduction of which had been delayed due to reliability concerns so Mercedes would have been worried when Perez was forced to retire with engine problems.
Because of how comfortable it was for Hamilton you hardly saw him on TV and when they suddenly did switch to on-board shot from his car I initially thought it was because he might have some sort of issue.
Regarding the circuit itself it does have massive amounts of runoff and the way it is painted is different, it is something that I wouldn’t want other circuits to adopt but don’t mind it as a one off.