Bottas closes out French GP fastest in Mercedes 1-2
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Valtteri Bottas closed out practice for the French Grand Prix fastest as Mercedes continued to dominate proceedings at Paul Ricard ahead of qualifying later today.After leading FP2 for Mercedes on Friday afternoon, Bottas once again rose to the head of the timesheets in FP3 as he edged out teammate Lewis Hamilton by just four-hundredths of a second.Bottas turned in a fastest lap time of 1m30.159s, leaving Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel over four-tenths of a second off the pace as Ferrari was hurt by significant losses through the final sector.Leclerc was able to initially run the Mercedes drivers close in FP3, but a mistake on his second push lap during his qualifying simulation meant he could not improve his time.Unable to keep up with either Mercedes or Ferrari, Red Bull drifted towards the midfielder runners as Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly finished fifth and sixth respectively, 1.3 seconds off Bottas’ top time. Lando Norris led McLaren’s charge in seventh, with teammate Carlos Sainz taking ninth as Daniel Ricciardo split the pair for Renault. Kimi Raikkonen closed out the top 10 for Alfa Romeo.Qualifying for the French Grand Prix begins at 3pm local time (2pm BST).
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