BWT Alpine F1 Team will line up for its home race - the French Grand Prix - with Fernando Alonso seventh and Esteban Ocon tenth on the grid after a tight Qualifying under the sun at Circuit Paul Ricard.

Fernando made it five Q3 appearances in a row and his ninth of the season after another strong Saturday effort. Esteban qualified in twelfth - missing out on a Q3 spot by 0.212secs - but will inherit two positions for tomorrow's starting grid as a result of grid penalties to Carlos Sainz and Kevin Magnussen.

Both drivers progressed through Q1 in tricky conditions with the wind changing direction between the two runs. Fernando went through in seventh on a 1min 32.819secs with Esteban on a 1min 33.346secs in twelfth.

In Q2, both drivers ran new Softs with Fernando inside the top ten on his first run and Esteban narrowly adrift. Esteban found a big improvement on his second set - close to 0.7secs - to put himself into contention of Q3. But, with others finding improvements, Esteban missed out on the top ten by two tenths.

For Q3, Fernando ran two sets of Softs with his second time, a 1min 32.552secs, proving enough to claim a spot on the fourth row of the grid.

Esteban Ocon: "It's not been a great day for us today and we didn't quite find that sweet spot with the car. There are a few areas we need to focus on ahead of the race tomorrow, so we'll be looking at that closely tonight. Due to a couple of penalties, we do start in tenth place and I will be fighting hard to progress further into the points. I'll be using the home crowd as extra motivation! It's always special to race at home and I'm going to go out and give it my all, as always."

Fernando Alonso: "It has been a challenging weekend so far but seventh is a strong position for us to start in tomorrow. We were not totally happy in practice with the car balance and so we've been working hard all weekend to improve that. Yesterday the long runs seemed quite strong for us, so let's see whether we can make some gains tomorrow. Tyre management is going to be a big factor as they are overheating and graining, so it'll be a real challenge in the heat. The pit lane time loss is also one of the highest of the championship, so a one-stop strategy will be ideal tomorrow, but whether that is possible we'll have to wait and see. The atmosphere has been great, and we've really felt the love from the home fans."

Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal: "Today's Qualifying result means we're in the mix to score well with both cars for tomorrow's race on home turf. Fernando has done a great job this weekend in tricky conditions and he lines up seventh tomorrow with his focus very much fixed on putting pressure on Lando [Norris] and George [Russell] ahead. Esteban, who has not been totally happy on car balance, looked like he might reach Q3, but unfortunately, he fell just short of that by a couple of tenths. Still, it's all very much to play for tomorrow when points are given out. Our race pace during Friday Practice was promising and we're in a good position with both drivers to score points. That's our objective tomorrow and I'm sure with a good start and a well-executed race strategy with both cars, that will be achievable."

Check out our Saturday gallery from Le Castellet here.