If his performance on the opening day of the French Grand Prix is anything to go by, Lewis Hamilton means business and has found some welcome form after topping both practice sessions on a fine day at Circuit Paul Ricard.
The session was interrupted by a 10-minute red flag period caused when a wheel detached itself from the Force India of Sergio Perez, pitching the car into a spin at 280 kph down the Mistral straight. Luckily the Mexican escaped unscathed.
Hamilton popped a 1:32.539 during the afternoon 90-minute session which is enough for him to finish top of the timesheets by seven-tenths of a second over next best Daniel Ricciardo who headed up his teammate Max Verstappen in second and third respectively.
Hamilton's teammate Valtteri Bottas only managed seven laps in the 90-minute session, a water leak curtailed his running. He was seventh.
Ferrari were keeping their powder dry as they tend to do these days with Kimi Raikkonen fourth fastest ahead of teammate Sebastian Vettel in fifth, the Reds around a second shy of Hamilton's best.
Ferrari power was Best of the Rest was Romain Grosjean who ended sixth fastest in the Haas and only a hundredth of a second shy of Vettel's best.
Le Mans winner Fernando Alonso was eighth fastest in the McLaren, ahead of Haas' Kevin Magnussen and Pierre Gasly rounding out the top ten in his Toro Rosso.
Although Hamilton topped the session, on the wrong end of the timing sheets were the two Mercedes customer teams with their drivers slowest of all and a massive three seconds (and more) off the pace.
After keeping it a secret for some reason, Mercedes revealed in the evening that all their teams ran the engine which they "would have introduced a Phase 2 PU in Canada, this is a Phase 2.1 with some 'added goodness' thanks to a fantastic effort by the team in Brixworth!"
Clearly, the customers had yet to read the manual...
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