Tyre analysis after first day of practice in France

With temperatures that peaked at 56 degrees celsius on track yesterday during FP1 (and 53 degrees during FP2) the drivers and tyres faced a tough two hours of free practice, with Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz setting the fastest time of the day in FP2 on the P Zero Red soft. His teammate Charles Leclerc was quickest in FP1.

With this weekend keeping a traditional format compared to the sprint at the last round in Austria, most teams adopted a classical Friday run plan, concentrating on long runs with the medium and qualifying simulations with the soft.

There’s currently an estimated gap of about 0.6 seconds between the soft and the P Zero Yellow medium tyre, with a gap of around 0.9 seconds between the medium and the P Zero Red hard – although the data from today is affected by track evolution.

Former Formula 2 champion Nyck de Vries took part in his second FP1 session of the year (following an outing with Williams in Spain). He was classified ninth in FP1, having run on just the soft and the medium tyres.

Pirelli's Motorsport Director, Mario Isola said:
“We had track temperatures that peaked at 56 degrees today – which is still a few degrees off our all-time record from Malaysia in 2016 – but despite these high temperatures, all the compounds performed well. It’s clear that the soft is going to be a compound used just for qualifying, and it was interesting to see that a second fast lap was possible after cooling down the tyres, thanks to a good level of grip and performance recovery. This potentially enables drivers to use fewer soft tyres in qualifying tomorrow, which could help them to save medium and hard sets for the race.”