F1 Paddock Notebook - French GP Saturday

Recapping all of the additional news and notes from Saturday at Paul Ricard following qualifying, Crash.net F1 Editor Luke Smith brings you his paddock notebook.

- Lewis Hamilton extended his record for the number of pole positions in Formula 1, taking the 75th of his career during qualifying for the French Grand Prix on Saturday. Hamilton now sits seven clear of Michael Schumacher in second place, with the highest active driver being Sebastian Vettel on 54.

- Hamilton admitted after the session that he felt there was more time in his pole lap, having been three-tenths of a second down through the first two sectors. His ideal qualifying lap (combining his three fastest sectors) was 1m29.742s, one-quarter of a second faster than both his pole time and teammate Valtteri Bottas' own ideal lap. The result marked Mercedes' second front row lock-out of the season, following on from the Spanish Grand Prix.

- Sebastian Vettel led Ferrari's charge in third, with teammate Kimi Raikkonen slipping to sixth after a poor Q3. Raikkonen thought he had a puncture, but it was not the case, with the Finn calling his final lap "a mess".

- Carlos Sainz Jr. won the midfield battle, qualifying seventh for Renault. However, both he and teammate Nico Hulkenberg said after the session they felt the result was aided by Haas' struggles. Romain Grosjean crashed out of qualifying, while Kevin Magnussen had his lap ruined by a dawdling Raikkonen.

- The stewards looked into the Magnussen/Raikkonen incident, and while they did agree that Raikkonen "unnecessarily impeded" Magnussen, he did not drive "unnecessarily slowly" (quoted directly from their report), so took no action on it.

- The stewards also confirmed they had withdrawn a ruling that Ferrari had broken one of its two curfews for the season last night, finding that the figure involved was not in fact involved with the operation of the cars.

- Charles Leclerc starred on Saturday to score his best qualifying result to date in F1, securing eighth place on the grid. It marked Sauber's first Q3 appearance since the 2015 Italian Grand Prix. Teammate Marcus Ericsson also scored his best Saturday result of the year so far, reaching Q2 before qualifying 15th.

- Pierre Gasly was left frustrated after qualifying 14th for his home race in the Toro Rosso, citing a lack of power on the straights as being the team's biggest weakness at Paul Ricard. Teammate Brendon Hartley finished six-tenths slower in Q1, dropping out in P17 as a result after a messy final lap. Hartley will start tomorrow's race last on the grid as a result of a penalty for a power unit change.

- McLaren suffered its worst Saturday of the year as both Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne dropped out in Q1, finishing 16th and 17th respectively. Alonso said the team had been braced to struggle at Paul Ricard, again reminding how he had scored points in every race he had finished so far this season.

- Following his grilling in Friday's FIA press conference, McLaren racing director Eric Boullier was not present for its 'Meet The Team' media arrangement on Saturday evening. Zak Brown said that Boullier was absent as he was in an engineering debrief.

- A prediction from F1 claims the two fastest strategies tomorrow are both one-stops, either doing a long stint on the Ultrasoft before a late switch to Supersofts, or the inverse (short Supersoft stint, long Ultrasoft stint).

- Finally, traffic problems continued at Paul Ricard, with a number of paddock personnel reporting long tailbacks that prevented them from leaving the circuit easily on Saturday night. Some teams parked up their vans before walking back to the circuit, having spent as long as two hours in traffic while making little progress.