Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN had a promising first day of action at the French Grand Prix, with Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi spending all day in or around the top ten in the timesheets and completing two sessions with no major issues.

Under a baking sun that gave a distinct summer feeling, the team completed two successful practice hours, maximising the 120 minutes of action to gather as much data as possible about the track, as we visit this venue for the first time in two years.

The team was able to complete a full programme of testing, totalling 92 laps that resulted in valuable data for the engineers to analyse tonight. With overtaking being a challenge around the Circuit Paul Ricard, qualifying will be crucial tomorrow and every marginal gain that can be obtained as we optimise the package will be vital.

The sun may be scolding over Provence, but the real red-hot affair will be tomorrow's contest for the grid...

Kimi Raikkonen: "It wasn't too bad out there, I even feel I could have been a few places higher with a better lap. The hope, of course, is that we can be somewhere around this region, in the top ten, when we get into qualifying: as always, we can try to find something more tonight, with the engineers, and squeeze some more performance out of the car, but it's not a bad start."

Antonio Giovinazzi: "It was a good start to our weekend and we're confident ahead of qualifying. The conditions out there were not easy, with a lot of wind and low grip, but this is what we can expect for tomorrow as well. To be just outside the top then when I am still not 100% happy with the car means we can be in the fight for Q3 if we find some improvement tonight. This is our task and if we do a better job at it than our rivals, we can have a good Saturday. Let's have a good debrief now and see what tomorrow brings."

Check out our Friday gallery from Paul Ricard, here.