- Joined
- Feb 25, 2015
Never can guarantee the weather of course until it happens, but here is the early prognosis:
The French Grand Prix is expected to be overcast for much of the weekend, with a slight chance of rain showers on race day.
Forecasts indicate Friday will be the sunniest of the three days of running at Paul Ricard. The morning session will see relatively heavy cloud but this should turn sunny by second practice.
Saturday will follow a similar pattern of cloud cover, lifting somewhat after third practice but still relatively heavy ahead of the qualifying hour.
Race day will be much as the previous two days – overcast and with temperatures up 31C – but with an increased chance of rain. At present only a slight chance of rain is forecast during the race, and this may well change over the course of the next three days0
Overall temperatures should be relatively high at Paul Ricard. The mercury will peak at around 30C on Friday and Saturday just before the afternoon sessions on each day.
Wind conditions on Friday will be a little stronger than on Saturday, with speeds up to 30kph and gusts of up to 55kph. It should be calmer for qualifying, with top speeds of 20kph and gusts of 40kph.
The most striking differences between this weekend and F1’s last visit to the track two years ago will be the cloud cover. Although air temperatures are set to be higher this year, having peaked at 27C during the race at the 2019 French Grand Prix, all sessions that year were in sunny weather.
Expect considerably lower track temperatures than the 50-57C seen over practice, qualifying and the race in 2019. From this weekend’s race teams have to complay with new, stringent checks of their tyre temperatures and pressures, and they will have to keep a close watch on changes in the atmospheric conditions.
Just caught this one too:
Both Mercedes drivers will use different chassis for this weekend’s French Grand Prix.
Valtteri Bottas said the change was planned and not a consequence of his poor result at the previous race in Baku.
Following the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Bottas said he was puzzled by his lack of pace and that the “most logical” explanation was a problem with his car. He confirmed today he will have a different chassis at Paul Ricard, which is one the team has used previously.
“It’s not a new chassis,” Bottas explained. “It’s different and it was always planned for me to change to a different chassis at this point.”
Bottas has taken over chassis number six, which team mate Lewis Hamilton has used since the beginning of
the season. Hamilton will take over chassis number four.
A Mercedes spokesperson confirmed the change had been made in order to ensure their available chassis complete similar mileages. Bottas last changed his chassis following the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, where he was involved in a high-speed collision with George Russell which severely damaged his car.
Bottas is hopeful the W12 will work better for him and Lewis Hamilton at Paul Ricard than it did in Baku and Monaco. He believes his sub-par weekend in Azerbaijan was due to “a combination of of many things.”
“We saw that in Monaco, for me, I managed to find the set-up and the confidence and get the tyres to work and Lewis didn’t,” Bottas explained. “It almost felt like vice-versa in Baku. There was quite a big difference towards the end of the weekend with the set-up. And now I can say that probably the direction I took, we took as a team, wasn’t ideal. Some other small things combined.
“I think our car is quite on a knife-edge on those kind of tracks. But I think at least the next few tracks it’s a bit more normal and hopefully we can get a reasonable set-up and and that it’s not that easy to to go into the wrong direction.”
Warm but cloudy weekend with low chance of race day rain in France
Posted on 17th June 2021, 7:18 | Written by Hazel SouthwellThe French Grand Prix is expected to be overcast for much of the weekend, with a slight chance of rain showers on race day.
Forecasts indicate Friday will be the sunniest of the three days of running at Paul Ricard. The morning session will see relatively heavy cloud but this should turn sunny by second practice.
Saturday will follow a similar pattern of cloud cover, lifting somewhat after third practice but still relatively heavy ahead of the qualifying hour.
Race day will be much as the previous two days – overcast and with temperatures up 31C – but with an increased chance of rain. At present only a slight chance of rain is forecast during the race, and this may well change over the course of the next three days0
Overall temperatures should be relatively high at Paul Ricard. The mercury will peak at around 30C on Friday and Saturday just before the afternoon sessions on each day.
Wind conditions on Friday will be a little stronger than on Saturday, with speeds up to 30kph and gusts of up to 55kph. It should be calmer for qualifying, with top speeds of 20kph and gusts of 40kph.
The most striking differences between this weekend and F1’s last visit to the track two years ago will be the cloud cover. Although air temperatures are set to be higher this year, having peaked at 27C during the race at the 2019 French Grand Prix, all sessions that year were in sunny weather.
Expect considerably lower track temperatures than the 50-57C seen over practice, qualifying and the race in 2019. From this weekend’s race teams have to complay with new, stringent checks of their tyre temperatures and pressures, and they will have to keep a close watch on changes in the atmospheric conditions.
Just caught this one too:
Hamilton and Bottas swap chassis ahead of French Grand Prix
Posted on 17th June 2021, 13:52 | Written by Dieter Rencken and Hazel SouthwellBoth Mercedes drivers will use different chassis for this weekend’s French Grand Prix.
Valtteri Bottas said the change was planned and not a consequence of his poor result at the previous race in Baku.
Following the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Bottas said he was puzzled by his lack of pace and that the “most logical” explanation was a problem with his car. He confirmed today he will have a different chassis at Paul Ricard, which is one the team has used previously.
“It’s not a new chassis,” Bottas explained. “It’s different and it was always planned for me to change to a different chassis at this point.”
Bottas has taken over chassis number six, which team mate Lewis Hamilton has used since the beginning of
the season. Hamilton will take over chassis number four.
A Mercedes spokesperson confirmed the change had been made in order to ensure their available chassis complete similar mileages. Bottas last changed his chassis following the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, where he was involved in a high-speed collision with George Russell which severely damaged his car.
Bottas is hopeful the W12 will work better for him and Lewis Hamilton at Paul Ricard than it did in Baku and Monaco. He believes his sub-par weekend in Azerbaijan was due to “a combination of of many things.”
“We saw that in Monaco, for me, I managed to find the set-up and the confidence and get the tyres to work and Lewis didn’t,” Bottas explained. “It almost felt like vice-versa in Baku. There was quite a big difference towards the end of the weekend with the set-up. And now I can say that probably the direction I took, we took as a team, wasn’t ideal. Some other small things combined.
“I think our car is quite on a knife-edge on those kind of tracks. But I think at least the next few tracks it’s a bit more normal and hopefully we can get a reasonable set-up and and that it’s not that easy to to go into the wrong direction.”
Last edited by a moderator:
