How Leclerc secured French GP pole ahead of Verstappen

All cars on track except Sainz, who is set to start from the back of the grid.

Schumacher had his best lap deleted - he'd have been through otherwise.

Out in Q1: Gasly, Stroll, Zhou, Schumacher and Latifi.

Not too many improvements out there after Albon's spin.

Chequered flag is out - Zhou hasn't improved, neither has Hamilton.

Leclerc, Sainz and Norris have remained in the pit lane. 

In the bottom five currently: Zhou, Schumacher, Latifi, Vettel and Magnussen.

Verstappen not happy: "What was Checo doing there on the line man?"

Sainz moves up to third in the Ferrari, 0.5s off.

A few issues with traffic on those laps, Lewis and George slot into P7 and P8 after their opening runs pic.twitter.com/OHIJWYHMrS

— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) July 23, 2022

Alonso goes fifth in the Alpine, 1.0s off Leclerc's top time.

Hamilton and Russell slot into sixth and seventh, behind Bottas.

Norris goes fourth in the McLaren; Ricciardo in sixth. 

Verstappen's time is good enough for second, 0.164s off.

Bottas goes third, 1.3s down on Leclerc. Zhou is 0.5s off his teammate.

Tsunoda goes third ahead of Gasly and Stroll.

Leclerc takes to the top with a 1m31.727s, 0.6s ahead of Perez.

Verstappen joins the action now.

Tsunoda, Gasly, Bottas, Zhou, Stroll, Schumacher and Vettel are also out there.

Leclerc and Perez take to the track.

It looks certain to be a fight between Verstappen and Leclerc for pole with Sainz's penalty.

Hopefully Mercedes can get in the mix.

#F1#BBCF1#FRENCHGP QUALIFYING: It's 15 minutes to Q1, with air temp 31C & the track 56.1C. A W-WSW'ly breeze, with gusts ~17mph in past hour. Dry; FIA official risk of rain is zero.

— Ian Fergusson (@fergieweather) July 23, 2022

Read our final practice report: