Paul Ricard F2: Norris leads Russell in practice

Norris – who is at the top of the F2 championship standings with the Carlin team and has a new engine for this round – led for the majority of the session, logging a 1m45.562s early on which was good enough to keep him top despite a moment at Turn 11.

He was followed by Mercedes junior Russell, who is hoping to rebound after two DNFs at the last round in Monaco, having crashed out in both races.

The latest of the top five pace-setters to record his fastest lap was Maxi Gunther, who stole third with 22 minutes remaining in the 45-minute session.

The drivers topping the session all set their times relatively early, and few improved later on as the circuit temperature exceeded 45 degrees centigrade.

Prema’s Nyck de Vries, Norris’s fellow McLaren junior, took fourth, while Louis Deletraz rounded out the top five to kick off what the Swiss driver describes as “almost a home round”.

Alexander Albon of DAMS missed much of the session due to a throttle sensor issue, but rejoined late on to post the sixth-fastest time.

One spot ahead of Albon in second in the title standings, Artem Markelov ended his session with 22 minutes left on the clock as he spun at Turn 6.

The Russian Time driver had been ninth overall at that point, and only dropped one spot to round out the top 10.

Instead, the closest driver to Albon was Luca Ghiotto, heading Russell’s ART Grand Prix teammate Jack Aitken and Roy Nissany, the only driver yet to score a point in this year’s races.

Session results

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	19	Lando Norris	Carlin	20	1'45.562
2	8	George Russell	ART Grand Prix	19	1'45.645	0.083
3	11	Maximilian Gunther	Arden International	21	1'45.700	0.138
4	4	Nyck de Vries	Prema Powerteam	17	1'45.788	0.226
5	20	Louis Deletraz	Charouz Racing System	18	1'46.105	0.543
6	5	Alexander Albon	DAMS	13	1'46.121	0.559
7	14	Luca Ghiotto	Campos Racing	18	1'46.346	0.784
8	7	Jack Aitken	ART Grand Prix	19	1'46.370	0.808
9	15	Roy Nissany	Campos Racing	20	1'46.423	0.861
10	1	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	10	1'46.483	0.921
11	21	Antonio Fuoco	Charouz Racing System	17	1'46.492	0.930
12	18	Sergio Sette Camara	Carlin	19	1'46.552	0.990
13	9	Roberto Merhi	MP Motorsport	18	1'46.659	1.097
14	17	Santino Ferrucci	Trident	16	1'46.667	1.105
15	3	Sean Gelael	Prema Powerteam	17	1'46.868	1.306
16	6	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	18	1'46.909	1.347
17	10	Ralph Boschung	MP Motorsport	16	1'47.026	1.464
18	16	Arjun Maini	Trident	19	1'47.142	1.580
19	2	Tadasuke Makino	RUSSIAN TIME	16	1'47.418	1.856
20	12	Nirei Fukuzumi	Arden International	18	1'47.624	2.062