Lewis Hamilton put his Mercedes on pole position for the French Grand Prix as the crisis at his former team McLaren took another twist.

Hamilton stormed to the 76th pole of his career on Formula One’s first visit to France in a decade with a dominant display at the Paul Ricard Circuit.

The British driver saw off his rival team-mate Valtteri Bottas by more than one tenth, while Sebastian Vettel, whom he trails by a single championship point, finished third and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen fourth.

But Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne qualified 16th and 18th of the 20 runners on another humiliating day for the failing McLaren team.