Morning After: Barcelona All Over Again

When it comes to Formula 1 cars, a lot can change in two months. Eight more weeks to better understand the tyres, modify the aero, and further develop the engine can go a long way when it comes to building a race-winning machine. Unfortunately, none of that seems to apply to the Ferrari SF90.

Putting in a Friday performance in Le Castellet eerily reminiscent of its showing in Barcelona in May, the Scuderia once again found itself nowhere near the pace of Mercedes, courtesy of their significant deficit in slow and medium corners.

Not only was their best effort – a 1:31.586 from Charles Leclerc – 0.649s behind Valtteri Bottas' timesheet-topping time in FP2, but on the all-important long-runs, they weren't even in the same zip code.

Averaging a 1:35.543 over eight laps on the mediums, Lewis Hamilton's leading time was nearly a full

second faster than Ferrari's best, with Sebastian Vettel averaging a 1:36.541 over a seven-lap stint. It's almost enough to make you think the close fight in Canada was nothing but a fever dream.

Clearly whatever upgrades Ferrari brought with them to France haven't made a difference, and unless the Circuit Paul Ricard shaves-off a few corners by tomorrow, this is a two-horse race. Here's hoping Bottas and Hamilton can make it interesting.

52°C. Max track temp on a very warm and slippery surface at Paul Ricard. Expect a few more spins tomorrow, and a qualifying battle where track evolution is very influential.

1:31.882. Time set by Lando Norris in FP2, good enough for P5. Evidently McLaren have brought with them a solid package, and it will be interesting to see if anyone else in the midfield can catch them.

€1300. Amount Renault were fined for both their drivers speeding in the pit lane. I guess they didn't get the memo about the speed limit being reduced to 60 kph – if they need someone to keep them abreast of such things in the future, I'll happily do it for a €1000.

After all this talk from Ferrari of "overwhelming" evidence in the Vettel-Canada case, the fact that it turned out to be just Karun Chandhok's analysis on Sky F1 is absolutely hilarious. Regardless of how you feel about the penalty, using a guy looking at the same footage as everyone else (including the stewards) as the cornerstone of your argument was never going to work, and is nothing short of amateurish.

Another miserable day for Romain Grosjean, who continues to prove he is the Nick Kyrgios of F1 when it comes to complaining.

It's probably not the best

https://www.grandprix247.com/2019/06/21/paul-ricard-fp2-bottas-tops-as-ferrari-chase-mercedes/