Lewis Hamilton headed up a one-two finish for Mercedes in opening practice for the French Grꦜand Prix on Friday at Paul Ricard, pipping teammate Valtteri Bottas by less than one-te🅰nth of a second.

After missing most of Thursday’s commitments at Paul Ricard to attend 📖a memorial to Karl Lagerfeld in Paris, championship leader Hamilton hit the ground running in FP1 to lead t𝓡he field.

Hamilton𒅌 set a fastest lap time of 1m32.738s to edge out Mercedes teammate Bottas by 0.069 seconds at the top of the timesheets, giving the German marque a one-two finish to start the race weekend.

Charles Leclerc took third overall for Ferrari as the team played around with different parts on the SF90 car, leaving a 30-minute break in the middle of the sesꦛsion where neither of its cars went out on-track.

Sebastian Vettel was able to rise up to fifth place late in the standings, finishing one second off Hamilton’s time🍒 as he slotted in behind Red Bulꦆl’s Max Verstappen.

Both Verstappen and teammate Pierre Gasly had on-track spins as they strugg🍌led in the warm conditions, wi🌳th Gasly narrowly keeping his Red Bull RB15 out of the wall. The Frenchman ended the session sixth-fastest.

McLaren made a strong start to the weekend as Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz ended FP1 seventh and eighth respectively, while Daniel Ri♏cciardo took ninth for Renault ahead of Toro Rosso’s Alexander Albon, who completed the top 10.

Williams development drive🤪r Nicholas Latifi took part in his second practice session of the year, outpacing teammate Robert Kubica, while Romain Grosjean completed only nine laps due to a water leak.