Valtteri Bottas headed Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton during opening practice for Formula 1’s French Grand Prix.
Bottas clocked a time of 1:33.448 to finish 0.335s clear of Hamilton in the one-hour session at Circuit Paul Ricard.
Mercedes controlled proceedings upon Formula 1’s previous two visits to the current iteration of Paul Ricard in 2018 and 2019, with Hamilton taking a pole/win double on both occasions.
Championship leader Max Verstappen was third for Red Bull, within a tenth of a second of title rival Hamilton.
Azerbaijan GP winner Sergio Perez classified fourth, on the Hard tyre, as opposed to the Soft compound employed by the top three.
Strong start for Alpine
Alpine dominated the headlines on Wednesday with confirmation that Esteban Ocon will continue to race for the squad through 2024.
Ocon’s history at the French Grand Prix has been limited, having sustained opening lap damage in 2018, while he did not participate in 2019.
He started 2021’s edition strongly by classifying fifth, with team-mate Fernando Alonso seventh in the sister A521.
France’s other representative, Pierre Gasly, claimed eighth position for AlphaTauri.
Daniel Ricciardo showed signs of improvement by taking sixth, three spots ahead of McLaren team-mate Lando Norris, while Yuki Tsunoda rounded out the top 10.
Ferrari had a low-key session by its recent standards as Charles Leclerc was its lead representative in 11th spot.
Issues elsewhere at Paul Ricard
Several drivers had strife with the luridly blue-and-red coloured run-off during the course of the one-hour session.
Sebastian Vettel spun through the long-radius Le Beausset corner, nudging the wall with the rear of the Aston Martin AMR21, while Carlos Sainz had a wild off through Turn 2.
That corner also caught out Bottas early on, sustaining front wing damage when he ran across the yellow exit kerbs, prompting an exchange between Mercedes Sporting Director Ron Meadows and FIA Race Director Michael Masi.
Meadows complained that Bottas running across the yellow kerbs caused “tens of thousands [of pounds] of damage” to the W12 and requested a solution.
Rookies Mick Schumacher and Tsunoda also had out-lap spins, with Schumacher lightly tapping the Turn 3 entry wall, an off that Haas attributed to a systems issue.
Usual suspects at the back
Alfa Romeo took 12th and 13th, with Antonio Giovinazzi two-hundredths ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, in front of the Aston Martin pairing.
Williams and Haas occupied the final four positions, fronted by Nicholas Latifi, who was three-tenths down on the rear of the midfield.
A gap of over a second followed to Haas, its challenge led by Nikita Mazepin, while Roy Nissany had his second practice outing of the season for Williams.
Nissany brought up the rear of the 20-driver field, 2.3s behind team-mate Latifi; George Russell will return to action in FP2.
Friday’s second practice session is scheduled for 15:00 local time.
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