As the five red lights went out at the French Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton took the lead on the first lap after Red Bull's Max Verstappen lost a bit of control of the car.

However, after team Mercedes started the pitstop strategy with teammate Valtteri Bottas on lap 17 with a tyre vibration issue, Hamilton lost the position to the Red Bull by a powerful undercut move. 

Around lap 32, Verstappen pitted again for the Medium compound, but unfortunately, the Silver Arrows were unable to pursue a two-stop strategy due to the risk of losing more track position to the second Red Bull driver of Sergio Perez.

Hamilton kept his position on the track and maintained their tyre wear admirably. Verstappen caught Hamilton on the penultimate lap. 

After the chequred flag was waved, it now stands, Hamilton's P2 result earned him his 170th podium of his Formula One career. 

Post-race, Hamilton comments, "Congratulations to Max, he did a great job today."

He adds, "The Red Bulls had better straight line speed all weekend but considering that we had such a difficult Friday, I’m really happy with this result."

He continues, "Of course, we didn’t win and we had the lead but I had no tyres left at the end so unfortunately we lost the position, but it was still a good race. We’ve got to find some pace, that’s for sure.Most of the time we lost today was on the straights, so we’ve got to dig deep, try and figure out where that is, and whether it’s power or drag but overall, we’ve still got a good package."

He concludes, "We didn’t know how strong the undercut was going to be but what was really surprising was just how we ran out of that front tyre so early on but obviously they had a good strategy and it worked really well for them."