2021 French GP, Ferrari qualifying report: Carlos P5, Charles P7. Ferrari qualifying report.

Max Verstappen topped a dramatic qualifying session at the French Grand Prix that was twice interrupted by red flags. Verstappen backed up his early weekend pace to score his second pole position of the F1 season as Lewis Hamilton bounced back from his difficult start.

A difficult start of the Qualifying session also for the two Ferrari SF21 cars, who had to make two flying laps of the soft tyres in Q1 to make sure they can get to the next round. Even in these conditions, Charles Leclerc was P12 at the end of Q1, when Mick Schumacher’s crash prevented the rest from ending their fast laps.

In the second stage of the Qualifying session, both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz decided to use the Medium tyre, which is clearly the better compound for the start of the race. Eventually both Ferrari drivers made it to Q3, but only Carlos Sainz qualified without any problems, after a great first lap of 1:31:146. Charles Leclerc was P10 after the first runs and only managed to improve to P9 after his second fast lap (1:31:567), a time which in the end was enough to send him to Q3 at the Paul Ricard circuit.

At this stage it was clear that Ferrari was far behind Mercedes and Red Bull in terms of Qualifying pace, as the Maranello team needed clean and perfect laps to be able to beat the AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly and the McLaren cars of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo. Once again Carlos Sainz was the faster of the two Ferraris as they completed their opening Q3 attempts on Soft tyres, with Norris and Alonso who split them. In their final flying laps, both Charles and Carlos improved, but it was the Spanish driver who won the midfield battle to start from fifth place, ahead of Gasly and his Monegasque teammate. All to play for tomorrow!

Full results from qualifying for the French Grand Prix at Circuit Paul Ricard, round 7 of the 2021 Formula 1 season.

2021 French Grand Prix – Qualifying results