Mercedes made a strong start to their crucial French GP weekend by out-pacing championship leaders Red Bull in first practice, with Valtteri Bottas leading Lewis Hamilton in a one-two. In the unfamiliar position of arriving to a Grand Prix on the back foot, Mercedes - desperate to find the form that escaped them on the street circuits of Monaco and Baku - appear to have a much more competitive W12 car on the more traditional Paul Ricard track in the south of France, which looks set to host a much closer battle at the front. And it was Bottas, without a point since mid-May's Spanish GP, who extracted the most pace out of the car as the Finnish driver beat Hamilton by 0.3s in a...
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