LE CASTELLET, France - Valtteri Bottas is confident he has rediscovered his form at this weekend's French Grand Prix after beating teammate Lewis Hamilton in both Friday's practice sessions.
Bottas was 0.008 seconds faster than Max Verstappen and 0.245 seconds faster than Hamilton in second practice at the Circuit Paul Ricard on Friday.
Closer analysis of the lap times showed that Hamilton was losing most of his time on the straights, indicating that he was only driving the low power mode, but Bottas still appeared to be more competitive than in the final round in Baku, where he finished a low 12th.
Hamilton was heard on team radio saying "something is not right with this car" during practice, but downplayed the comments when speaking to the media after the session.
Bottas' return to form and Hamilton's team radio commentary coincide with reports from Mercedes that it has swapped the chassis of Hamilton and Bottas for this weekend's race.
Bottas is now using Chassis Six, which Hamilton used for the first six races of the season, and Hamilton is using Chassis Four, which Bottas used at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in April for damage to Chassis five. was changed later.
Mercedes says the switch was made to manage mileage between the different chassis in its pool and was not related to the recent performance of both cars.
Both chassis four and six were tested by the team ahead of the weekend and found to be in good condition. Chassis three is available and can be rebuilt if Hamilton believes there is a problem with chassis four.
"It's hard to say whether it's chassis or track conditions, but a much better feeling than two weeks ago," Bottas said after Friday's practice.
"I felt we started the weekend off on the right foot, everything seemed fine, being comfortable with the car so far and very fast."
"It's such a different track, but the balance is good, the tires are working well, I trust the car, I can trust the car - I think that's the biggest difference."
Hamilton rejected the suggestion that the chassis swap had affected performance.
"It's a separate track, so ... very rarely you see any gap between the chassis."