Le Castellet, FP3: Bottas quickest in rain-disrupted session in France

Very little running at the Paul Ricard

Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas went quickest in a rain-disrupted final practice for the French Grand Prix at the Circuit Paul Ricard.

The Finn was one of a handful of drivers who completed a lap in mostly dry conditions at the start of a session that began under threatening skies. He set a time of 1:33.666, to head Renault’s Carlos Sainz by 1.2 seconds, with Sauber’s Charles Leclerc just over six hundredths of a second further back.

Behind them, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was reporting drops of rain, though the German was able to cross the line in a time of 1:36.365 despite some nervous moments. The conditions then quickly worsened forcing a clutch of drivers to nervously tiptoe back to the pit lane on dry tyres.

With weather forecasters reporting that there would be no change in conditions before the end of the session, and with more rain likely, teams then elected to protect their weekend allocation of four sets of intermediate tyres and three sets of full wet tyres by staying in their garages.

Ten minutes before the clock ran out on the hour-long session, Fernando Alonso decided to test the conditions, steering his McLaren on track on full wet tyres. As the rain continued to fall he was joined by the Williams cars of Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin and in the final minutes before the chequered flag by the Toro Rossos of Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly.