Valtteri Bottas says Mercedes has some car balance issues to address despite s🙈etting the pace for Formula 1’s Frℱench Grand Prix during Friday practice.

Bottas trailed Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton in opening practice but turned the tables on the championship leader in FP2, as he posted a 1m30.937s to end up 0.424s clear💃 at the head of the pack.

“It was not easy in the beginning; every🅰one struggled in the morning because the🎐 track was much more slippery than usual,” Bottas said.

“But the track ramped up quickly, I could feel big gains on a lap-by-lap basis, e🐠specially in the corners.

“The more the track improved, the better the balance of the car felt. Despite the balance issues, the car was quick out of the box which is😼 always a good start.

“We've made good changes between the sessio🐓ns and I felt much more comfortable in FP2, which is why the lap time was better. It's really warm out there, and it will only get warmer, so tyres are going to be on the limit, especially on Sunday.

“We still struggle with the balance over the course of the ent🥀ire lap, so we'll have a good look at the data tonight to see what we can improve for tomorrow.”

Mercedes chief race engineer Andrew Shovlin echoed Bottas’ balance concerns and also explained how a misfire issue disrupt🗹ed Hamilton’s FP2 session.

“It's been an interestinꦜg day from the point of view of the tyres and the car performance,” he said.

“All the cornering regions of the circuit have been recently re🔜surfaced and it was clear that the Soft tyre was suffering quit𝄹e badly on the new tarmac.

“Our pace looked pretty good, but the balance w𝕴as really messy due to poor grip from the rear tyres. We m🧔ade some changes over the break to help calm the car down and both drivers felt it was better in the afternoon.

“Valtteri had a clean session, his pace on low fuel was good and t𒊎he long run was consistent. Lewis was finding it a bit harder to get the bala♔nce of the car in the right place and he made a mistake on his Soft tyre run.

“We would ꧙have continued on that tyre, but we detecꦆted a misfire shortly after and brought the car in to investigate. We were able to get back out to do some long run work after fixing the issue and the car looked to be working well for Lewis on race fuel.

“We have a bit of work to do tonight to see if we can further improve the rear end, but we seem to have a decܫent car to work with. So, overall we are quite happy.”