Max Verstappen returns to the top of the French Grand Prix second practice session, the Dutch speedy beating morning pace setter Valtteri Bottas and regining world champion Lewi Hamilton. Both Mercedes drivers made second and third fastest respectively. Again Hamilton struggling with grip, the Brit’s flying lap see a couple of tenths gap with his team-mate Bottas.

Verstappen completed his qualifying simlulation with soft compound a best lap of 1:32.872. just 0.008s ahead Bottas, who did fastest lap-time with medium compound.

“It looks very good for Bottas. I think the lap time he did on the medium tyres was exceptional. But Mercedes seemed to struggle when they fitted the soft, particularly the last sector,” said Sky F1’s Paul Di Resta.

Fernando Alonso set fourth fastest lap-time ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Lecrec and his Alphine team-mate Esteban Ocon. AlphaTauri’s youngster Pierre Gasly made seventh quickest time.

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in P8. The Spaniard made his qualifying simlulation on medium and soft compound in while his team-mate Leclerc ran hards and softs in a split tactic by the Italian F1 outfit.

Kimi Raikkonen set ninth fastest for Alfa Romeo and McLaren’s Lando Norris in P10 .

Baku race winner Sergio Perez fell down to 12th in the second practice, although looked typically strong on the later race runs on higher fuel load.

“Some changes that we probably took a wrong direction with,” said Perez, who also experienced traffic on his qualifying simulation. “I don’t we are as bad as it looks.”

FP2 – Free Practice 1 Results – 2021 French Grand Prix