The Paul Ricard Circuit may be 'new' to the youngest generation of fans, but for Scuderia Ferrari drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel it was just "another hot day at the office" as they progressed through the planned sequence of laps in Friday's free practice, using different tyre compounds track that saw temperatures shoot over the 50 degree mark, while testing new solutions on their SF71Hs. The day ended with Kimi and Seb setting P4 and P5 respectively, before switching to a race simulation which produced encouraging pace.

Kimi Raikkonen: "It was a good day, and it's fun to be in a new place, I enjoyed it as it's something different. In the afternoon session, the weather conditions made it quite tricky. It was not the easiest situation on track, but overall it was ok. From the tyre point of view I think it was also pretty ok. Obviously we cannot compare what we saw today with the past, as this is a new track for everyone, but I think that we had no particular issues."

Sebastian Vettel: "The long-runs felt pretty OK, quite consistent, although I haven't seen much of what the other teams did. I think the car has more potential here, especially on the fast laps, which we need to unlock for tomorrow and then we'll be fine. The wind was quite an issue at the beginning of the session, but then it calmed down and it all started to come together. In the end I was reasonably happy with today's run".

Check out our Friday gallery from Paul Ricard, here.