Valtteri Bottas headed up a Mercedes one-two in second practice for the French Grand Prix on Friday afternoon as a mistake by teammate L♒ewis Hamilton left him under investigation with t♉he stewards.

After narrowly trailing Hamilton in FP1 at Paul Ricard on Friday, Bottas took his turn at t⛎he front of the field despite only making a marginal improvement when switching from Medium to Soft tyres.

A gain of less than two-tenths of a second saw Bottas set a time of 1m30.937s, but was nevertheless enough for him finish 0.424s clear of Hamilton in se🔥cond place as the Briton failed to get in a Soft tyre run.

Hamilton lost the rear of his Mercedes W10 car coming through Turn 3, causing him to slide across the track and take out the 🌳bollard on the corner.

As Hamilton returned to t🔯he circuit, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took evasive action to avoid contact at Turn 4. Hamilton appeared to be raising his hand to apologise, but the stewards nevertheless conf♑irmed they would be investigating the incident after the session.

Hamilton was forced to pit after spinning as Mꦍercedes discovered a misfire on his car, costing him some track time before heading out in the final 15 minutes of the se꧃ssion.

Ferrari struggled to put up a fight to ꧑Mercedes at the head of the field as Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel finished over six-tenths of a second off the pace in P3 and P4 respectively.

Lando Norris enjoyed a strong outing for McLaren in FP2 as he finished a surprise P5ꦓ, less tha♚n one second back from Bottas, with teammate Carlos Sainz taking seventh despite being a further half a second in arrears.

Verstappen split the two McLarens in sixth place for Red Bull, but did not complete a fast lap on the Soft tyre after running wide at Turn 11 on his qualifying simulat𝔉ion lap, forcing him to abandon the effort🦂.

Red Bull teammate Pierre Gasly finished four-tenths off in eighth ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen and Haas driver Kevin Magnussen, who completed the top 10 in P9 and P10 respectively🤡.