Carlos Sainz led Charles Leclerc in a Ferrari one-two in Friday practice at the French Grand Prix.
The Ferrari drivers, separated by just 0.101 seconds, had a surprisingly large advantage over Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who was 0.550secs back in third at Circuit Paul Ricard.
But on race pace, the tables turned, with championship leader Verstappen faster than the Ferraris.
Mercedes’ George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were next in fourth and fifth.
Russell was 0.764secs off the pace and fellow Briton Hamilton just over 0.2secs further back after missing the first session.
Sainz is likely to start the race from the back of the grid. He already has a 10-place grid penalty for using too many engine parts after Ferrari exceeded their allowance of electronics control units.
The team are expected to take further engine parts on Saturday morning after the fire that caused Sainz’s retirement in Austria last time out.
The two title-contending teams appear to have some thinking to do overnight – Red Bull to work out how to improve their one-lap pace; Ferrari on their tyre degradation, which appeared to be high on Leclerc’s long run.
Lando Norris set an encouraging time for McLaren following the introduction of a major upgrade with sixth fastest, ahead of the also heavily upgraded Alpha Tauri of Pierre Gasly, the Haas of Kevin Magnussen, the second McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez’s Red Bull.
