Jules Gounon led a Mercedes-AMG one-two-three in Friday afternoon's Free Practice 1 at Magny-Cours. The Verstappen Racing man posted a 1m37.190s to beat fellow AMG driver Marvin Dienst (#87 Winward Racing) by 0.231s in a session run in drying conditions.
The Affalterbach marque is still searching for its first overall win of 2026, though it has scored five runner-up finishes from the opening seven races. Two of those came courtesy of the Verstappen squad, and it was the Dutch-flagged car that set the benchmark in FP1.
Dienst continued his strong recent form in Winward's Bronze Cup entry by placing second overall and leading his class. The German ace also beat the sister #48 car of Lucas Auer, who completed AMG's top-three lockout.
Charles Weerts was next in the championship-leading #32 Team WRT BMW, followed by Gilles Magnus in the best of the Porsches. The #10 Boutsen VDS machine was at the front throughout the session, with Robin Knutsson showing well in the opening phase, and led the Gold Cup standings in P5 overall.
Sixth went to defending Bronze Cup champion Dennis Marschall in the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari, followed by another Bronze frontrunner in Fabian Schiller (#12 GetSpeed Team Dubai Mercedes-AMG).
Ignacio Montenegro paced the Silver Cup class by setting the eighth best time overall in his #30 Team WRT BMW. The overall top 10 was completed by Ben Green's #69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari and Silver Cup entrant Mateo Villagomez (#34 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin).
All 44 cars competed in FP1. None of them encountered any obvious problems, and there were no stoppages during the session. Tonight's FP2 could be more challenging, however, with the possibility of storms hitting the circuit. The green flag is scheduled to be shown at 20:40 CEST.
> RESULT: Free Practice 1