2022 French Grand Prix interactive data: lap charts, times and tyres

2022 French Grand Prix

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Charles Leclerc spent the opening laps of the French Grand Prix withstanding a ferocious attack from his championship rival. Once he’d done that, it seemed the win was on.

Max Verstappen headed for the pits after spending 15 laps trying to pass Leclerc on track without success. Red Bull fitted a set of hard tyres which lasted him until the end of the race.

Leclerc would have to do the same. But with Verstappen being instructed to bring his new tyres in gently, Red Bull were clearly concerned about their tyre life. Ferrari were in a promising position.

That came to an end when Leclerc spun into the barrier at both say on the 18th lap of the race. His crash also triggered a safety car. Which put the majority of the remaining drivers on the same strategy.

In the searing heat, almost the entire field opted to start on the mediums. The soft tyre compound wouldn’t go far enough (no one used them all day) and hards brought a risk of costing a driver positions at the start. Among the three drivers to opt for the latter were Carlos Sainz Jnr, who lined up on the back row of the grid due to a power unit component penalty.

While Ferrari couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a low-cost pit stop for Sainz during the Safety Car period, switching him to the medium tyre compound so early ended his hopes of making it to the end of the race on a single pit stop.

Ferrari agonised over whether to bring Sainz in for a third set of tyres, and when to do it. Eventually they concluded that the risk of hitting severe tyre problems at the end of the race was too great to risk keeping him out.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Paul Ricard, 2022
Gallery: 2022 French Grand Prix in pictures
That led to the bizarre situation where Sainz was called in on the lap after he’d overtaken Perez for third place. As he was only able to recover as far as fifth it inevitably led to questions over whether Ferrari had got their strategy right. Team principal Mattia Binotto was adamant they had.

It’s always easy to judge these things in retrospect, and difficult to tell whether Sainz’s tyres would have held up had he not changed them. But given he was carrying a five-second time penalty, Perez and the pursuing Russell didn’t even have to overtake Sainz on-track to get ahead of him. Therefore, Ferrari’s decision to pit him was logical, though with the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to say they should have committed to it earlier. Of course, the Virtual Safety Car late in the race didn’t help his cause either.

The upside to Sainz’s strategy was he set the fastest lap of the race, picking up a bonus point. That deprived Verstappen of one point on a day when the Red Bull driver otherwise took a huge step towards a second world championship.

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2022 French Grand Prix lap chart

The positions of each driver on every lap. Click name to highlight, right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:

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2022 French Grand Prix race chart

The gaps between each driver on every lap compared to the leader’s average lap time. Very large gaps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:

Position change

DriverStart positionLap one position changeRace position change
Lewis Hamilton412
George Russell601
Max Verstappen201
Sergio Perez3-10
Charles Leclerc10
Carlos Sainz Jnr1914
Lando Norris5-2-1
Daniel Ricciardo912
Esteban Ocon1012
Fernando Alonso723
Pierre Gasly14-11
Yuki Tsunoda8-12
Lance Stroll1556
Sebastian Vettel1212
Alexander Albon1312
Nicholas Latifi181
Valtteri Bottas11-5-3
Zhou Guanyu16-30
Mick Schumacher1735
Kevin Magnussen207

2022 French Grand Prix lap times

All the lap times by the drivers (in seconds, very slow laps excluded). Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and toggle drivers using the control below:

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2022 French Grand Prix fastest laps

Each driver’s fastest lap:

RankDriverCarFastest lapGapOn lap
1Carlos Sainz JnrFerrari1’35.78151
2Max VerstappenRed Bull1’37.4911.71030
3George RussellMercedes1’37.5481.76751
4Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’37.6681.88730
5Sergio PerezRed Bull1’37.7801.99945
6Valtteri BottasAlfa Romeo-Ferrari1’37.9632.18252
7Charles LeclercFerrari1’38.0882.3074
8Fernando AlonsoAlpine-Renault1’38.1602.37953
9Esteban OconAlpine-Renault1’38.6842.90353
10Pierre GaslyAlphaTauri-Red Bull1’38.7863.00553
11Lando NorrisMcLaren-Mercedes1’38.9853.20428
12Sebastian VettelAston Martin-Mercedes1’39.0443.26343
13Mick SchumacherHaas-Ferrari1’39.0683.28748
14Daniel RicciardoMcLaren-Mercedes1’39.1333.35227
15Lance StrollAston Martin-Mercedes1’39.1853.40452
16Alexander AlbonWilliams-Mercedes1’39.1993.41853
17Kevin MagnussenHaas-Ferrari1’39.2653.48411
18Zhou GuanyuAlfa Romeo-Ferrari1’39.3683.58725
19Nicholas LatifiWilliams-Mercedes1’39.6503.86940
20Yuki TsunodaAlphaTauri-Red Bull1’40.2164.4354

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2022 French Grand Prix tyre strategies

The tyre strategies for each driver:

Stint 1Stint 2Stint 3
Max VerstappenC3 (16)C4 (37)
Lewis HamiltonC3 (18)C4 (35)
Sergio PerezC3 (18)C4 (35)
Fernando AlonsoC3 (18)C4 (35)
George RussellC3 (18)C4 (35)
Lando NorrisC3 (18)C4 (35)
Daniel RicciardoC3 (18)C4 (35)
Esteban OconC3 (18)C4 (35)
Lance StrollC3 (18)C4 (35)
Sebastian VettelC3 (19)C4 (34)
Alexander AlbonC3 (18)C4 (35)
Mick SchumacherC3 (9)C4 (9)C4 (35)
Pierre GaslyC4 (18)C3 (35)
Valtteri BottasC4 (18)C4 (18)C3 (17)
Carlos Sainz JnrC4 (18)C3 (24)C3 (11)
Zhou GuanyuC3 (9)C4 (13)C4 (25)
Nicholas LatifiC3 (19)C4 (19)C3 (2)
Kevin MagnussenC3 (8)C4 (10)C4 (19)
Charles LeclercC3 (17)
Yuki TsunodaC3 (11)C4 (6)

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2022 French Grand Prix pit stop times

How long each driver’s pit stops took:

DriverTeamPit stop timeGapOn lap
1Max VerstappenRed Bull35.26616
2Pierre GaslyAlphaTauri35.9690.70318
3Daniel RicciardoMcLaren36.2640.99818
4Kevin MagnussenHaas36.4031.13718
5Zhou GuanyuAlfa Romeo36.4441.1789
6Valtteri BottasAlfa Romeo36.5201.25436
7Fernando AlonsoAlpine36.5241.25818
8Sebastian VettelAston Martin36.6711.40519
9Mick SchumacherHaas36.7041.4389
10Kevin MagnussenHaas36.7791.5138
11Nicholas LatifiWilliams36.9421.67638
12Mick SchumacherHaas37.0031.73718
13Lewis HamiltonMercedes37.1891.92318
14Alexander AlbonWilliams37.3802.11418
15Nicholas LatifiWilliams37.4972.23119
16Lando NorrisMcLaren37.5392.27318
17Yuki TsunodaAlphaTauri37.6482.38211
18Valtteri BottasAlfa Romeo37.8552.58918
19Sergio PerezRed Bull38.0612.79518
20George RussellMercedes38.2773.01118
21Lance StrollAston Martin39.8444.57818
22Carlos Sainz JnrFerrari41.4586.19218
23Carlos Sainz JnrFerrari42.2927.02642
24Esteban OconAlpine44.7479.48118
25Zhou GuanyuAlfa Romeo50.79015.52422

2022 French Grand Prix

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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4 comments on “2022 French Grand Prix interactive data: lap charts, times and tyres”

  1. Ferrari were also not on game with their pitstops!

  2. Nice charts.
    You could choose one color per team and make the “no 2” line dashed?
    And perhaps reverse your Y axis
    👍😃

  3. The hard tyre is C2, not C4.

  4. Anders Ødegården
    28th July 2022, 11:04

    Didn’t Gasly, Bottas and Sainz start with the hard tyres (C2)?
    C4 was soft in this race if I’m not wrong. Can’t remember many using soft as the track was really warm.

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