2022 French GP: Post Race Analysis

You have to say, it was a pretty darn exciting race. It's too bad the camera director didn't show anything other than Leclerc vs Verstappen in the opening 15 laps or so, since there was quite a lot going on.

Red Bull Racing might have secured the championships from this race, which is sad to say, and hopefully is not true. Verstappen was certainly fast, but you can't say was the fastest today. Once Leclerc crashed, he was in cruise control and another 25 points means he has a 63 point lead which will be nearly impossible to give up, especially since Red Bull's reliability is definitely better than Ferrari's. Perez struggled a lot this weekend, had a great quali lap, but again was miles off his teammate in the race. A huge mistake on the VSC restart cost him a podium. In any case, both Red Bull's finished ahead of Ferrari, which is big for the WCC.

Mercedes had a marvelous race. Once again they brought updates, though in quali they didn't appear to make much difference. However in the race they were strong. The starts are always a very strong point of their car, which has been the case all season, and it proved valuable once again, putting Lewis into 3rd. Amazingly he was able to hold position over Perez despite being massively slower on the straights vs the Red Bull. Also it should be said that Hamilton has once again out performed Russell both in pace and in results. He seems to have found his groove. Russell completes the podium with a great drive himself. Perhaps his race pace and his ambitious pass attempt on Perez wasn't amazing, but his VSC restart was brilliant and deserving of the podium. It's arguable that Mercedes has been the best team in the race in maximizing their car's potential and then some. They seem to be able to push their car harder and longer over a race than the top teams, at least on a regular basis.

Ferrari, what can we say except huge disappointment. Carlos started from the back due to reliability from Austria, but he put on a great show that we unfortunately didn't get to see much of thanks to the camera director. On the medium tires he was easily fastest car on track by a long ways, and worked his way passed Perez and had a legit shot at a podium, but Ferrari have this uncanny ability to make awful and senseless decisions all the time. Radioing to box while Carlos was in the middle of battling Perez is mind boggling. Deciding to then pit him later while he was still faster than a struggling Perez through away a chance at a podium for a guaranteed P5 at best. Why?? Lets not forget, Sainz's race was hurt with his terribly slow pitstop and horrible unsafe release that resulted in a 5 second penalty. Then there is Charles Leclerc who's speed rivals Verstappen, but another mistake threw it all away... again. We all heard him talk about the throttle pedal. Was this a factor in the crash? His own words doesn't suggest that, but Ferrari have been known to put the zipper on the lips if it means hurting their reputation. Sorry Ferrari, we all have eyes and ears and its obvious to EVERYONE that Ferrari continue to shoot themselves in the foot constantly. Take some accountability, Leclerc seems to have no issues pointing the finger at himself as he owns his mistakes, and tries to improve on them.

Alpine have to be very happy with their performance at their home Grand Prix. Alonso was strong all week, but the car is a distant ways off as the 4th best car. P6 was the best he could do in that car. Ocon really came through in the race with P8, given he had his issues throughout the weekend.

McLaren look to have made a step forward which is great to see. At least for this race, their performance was there or there abouts the same as Alpine which could make a fascinating battle as 4th best car till the end of the season. Lando performed as we can expect, but some credit to Ricciardo for at least getting a result. He was still a long way off his teammate, but he got some points which is good.

Aston Martin have recently been near the bottom of the grid, so to get points is a good result. They will be very happy to have Stroll getting that final points position, though it really seemed like Vettel was the fastest driver, and perhaps with some team orders, maybe he could have had a shot at Ricciardo. Who knows.

AlphaTauri can't be too happy. Gasly again failing to impressive, which is even worse when in front of his home crowd. Outqualified by Yuki once again, and just never made a big impression in the race. To be fair, the team have not made any big upgrades the entire season, but after his 2021 performance, we should expect more from Gasly. Yuki on the other hand has improved a lot, but getting collected by Ocon destroyed his hopes for a good result immediately.

Williams starting to make some gains. They dramatically changed their sidepod philosophy and it seems to be a good decision. The car might not be good enough to fight for points yet, but at least in the hands of Albon, the car can fight with the Aston Martin, AlphaTauri, and Alfa Romeo.

Alfa Romeo was non existent and it's baffling to why that is. We saw Zhou clip a Haas, and require a front wing change, but where was Bottas at any point in the race? A tough weekend for them.

Haas had an even tougher race. They showed some impressive speed in qualifying, suggesting they could be a car capable of easy points. Instead, completely disaster. Their tire wear looked particularly bad, their race strategy didn't work out at all, and their drivers both found contact with other cars. No new boat for Guenther this week.

Driver of the Day: Carlos Sainz. He drove his way up cleanly through the grid all the way to a potential podium. Couldn't ask anything more from him as a driver.