Nico Hulkenberg has got his mates ready to help him today.

Nico Hulkenberg failed in his bid to make Q3 after being passed late in Q2 by Charles Leclerc, and so starts 12th. Marcus Ericsson did better than expected by getting through Q1 as the McLarens fell flat, and he is 15th. The two Force Indias, of Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez, went out in Q2, as did Toro Rosso's Pierre Gasly.

11) OCO 12) HUL 13) PER 14) GAS 15) ERI

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

Image source, Getty Images

McLaren - deary me. It emerged after their worst qualifying result since last year’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix that the team are very obviously lost, and don’t know how to fix the car’s obvious problems.

Chief executive officer Zak Brown revealed after Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne qualified 16th and 18th that the car’s issues are not showing up in the wind tunnel, and they are having to take a trial and error approach - although he did not use that phrase - in trying to see what works at the track. No wonder they appear to be going backwards.

There more’s on them here. But Fernando Alonso continues to see the positives of his and the team’s championship positions, and insists he can score points in the race. It’s Alonso, so he may well be right. But, gosh, what would McLaren do without him?

Let's take you through the grid, which you can see either on the right of your screen or by clicking the leaderboard tab. Fernando Alonso starts 16th after going out in Q1 - in what was a dog's dinner of a qualifying session for McLaren. His team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne is 18th.

Brendon Hartley starts at the back, having incurred a 35-place penalty for exceeding the limit on new components when he needed a whole new engine fitting on his Toro Rosso on Friday. Just as well he can't start any further back than 20th - they might have had him starting the race from Marseille. No one will have been surprised that the two Williams drivers, Sergey Sirotkin and Lance Stroll, went out in Q1.

16) ALO 17) VAN 18) SIR 19) STR 20) HAR

Amit Mandalia, on Twitter, asks: "Is the race commentary only on the BBC Sport website today?"

That's right, Amit - it's website only today. The football has nabbed Radio 5 live, while the fifth one-day cricket international between England and Australia has taken the 5 live sports extra slot. The F1 radio commentary will go live at 15:00 BST, and I will give you another nudge then.

I think England might just beat Panama in the football, by the way.

It's not just the fans who have had driving troubles this weekend. There has been a lot of grumbling from the drivers about the decision to introduce a chicane on to the Mistral straight - which they believe has drastically reduced the chances of overtaking.

Indeed, several drivers used their briefing on Friday to ask for the chicane to be removed. It can't be changed for today - partly for safety reasons, and partly because teams have brought cars set up for the layout as it is - but whether that chicane will survive for next year is open to debate.

"For me, the identity of this track is without the chicane," said four-time Formula One world champion Alain Prost to the BBC's Jennie Gow yesterday. "It makes the whole track very different because you have to run much less downforce."

Image source, Getty Images

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

Image source, Getty Images

There was a lot of goodwill towards the return of the French Grand Prix - from fans, teams, drivers, F1 itself and the media. But a fair bit of it has been eroded by the catastrophic traffic management over the weekend.

On Friday, some spectators who had paid for tickets turned around without even getting to the track after spending hours in queues. The organisers made some changes for Saturday and access seemed generally to have improved - only for people to queue for hours getting out of the track.

Race days has also seen long queues, even for those getting up early to try to avoid them. One observer described it as “worse than Silverstone in the bad old days”.

Access is always going to be difficult at Paul Ricard, which was notorious for its embouteillages when it previously hosted the race, because there are a limited number of roads in and out, and they are all small country roads, being up on a plateau behind the coast.

But organisers and police will have to get together to do better than this if they are not to lose attendance - which, ultimately, threatens the viability of the race. F1’s motorsport boss Ross Brawn said he would see what could be to alleviate the situation in the future, while also pointing out that the topography was a limiting factor.

Image source, Getty Images

There's a significant moment for Saudi Arabia's women at today's French Grand Prix.

Aseel Al-Hamad will drive a Lotus Renault E20 on a lap of the circuit at Le Castellet before the race - on the day that a ban on women driving in the Gulf Kingdom ends.

Al-Hamad is the first female member of the Saudi Arabian Motorsport Federation and is on the Women in Motorsport Commission set up by the FIA.

"I have loved racing and motorsport from a very young age and to drive a Formula 1 car goes even beyond my dreams and what I thought was possible," she said.

"I hope doing so on the day when women can drive on the roads in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia shows what you can do if you have the passion and spirit to dream."

Women in Saudi Arabia were able to take to the roads at midnight, ending the world's last ban on female drivers.

The lifting of the ban, ordered last September by King Salman, is part of reforms pushed by his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - with the aim of transform the economy of the world's top oil exporter and opening up its society.

Image source, Reuters

Bob McFeil: My favourite French GP is probably 1990, coincidentally the last one at Paul Ricard until this weekend! Wonderful drive from Prost, hoping to see more great battles today.

Anyway, that's enough reminiscences about early 1990s UK pop culture - I want your memories of the French Grand Prix today, whether that be of past races at Paul Ricard or more recent battles at Magny-Cours. Massa and Raikkonen in 2008, perhaps? Your call.

You can even chip in with your nominations for Elton John songs that should have got to number one, if you like. (Essentially, most of his 1970s output and a fair chunk of 80s stuff too.)

Get in touch with your thoughts, please, via the old Twitter, using the hashtag #bbcf1. Merci.

It was Elton John, with Sacrifice. His first UK solo number one. I don't know what we were all thinking.

Image source, Getty Images

The UK number one single on 8 July 1990 - the last time that Circuit Paul Ricard hosted a Grand Prix? Nope, not New Order. Not the Steve Millar Band. Not even Bombalurina featuring Timmy Mallett...

Image source, Getty Images

That race at Paul Ricard was a bit of a thriller, though - for quite a while, it looked as if Ivan Capelli was going to gain a shock win for the Leyton House team. (Remember them?) But Alain Prost came through on the 77th lap of 80 to take victory.

Image source, Getty Images

Today marks the first French Grand Prix for 10 years - and the first at Circuit Paul Ricard since 1990. That race was played out on the same day as a major football match too - the World Cup final between West Germany and Argentina.

The race was a lot more exciting than the football that day. Dear God, that was a dire World Cup final.

Image source, Getty Images

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

No doubts over the identity of the star of qualifying - Charles Leclerc not only getting a Sauber into Q3 for the first time since 2015, but also sticking it eighth on the grid.

It was an outstanding performance from the Monegasque, who is living up to every bit of the hype that surrounded him on his arrival in F1 and marking himself out as a future star in the way other novices in poor cars have done in the past - think of Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and Fernando Alonso.

Three pretty decent names to be compared with. “Very, very impressive to see,” said Lewis Hamilton. “There’s a lot of pressure for him, so yeah, really, really good. He’s doing a great job.”

It's been a fine weekend all round for Hamilton up to this point. He was fastest in the first two practice sessions - with the third one rendered more or less irrelevant by a downpour.

The other big stories from qualifying: Fernando Alonso went out in Q1 as McLaren had yet another nightmare, while Sauber's Charles Leclerc defied expectations by claiming eighth place on the grid.

Romain Grosjean made Q3 - only to hit a wall - and so has to settle for 10th as he chases his first points of the season. Kimi Raikkonen made a bit of a mess of his push for a high grid place, and so is only sixth.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

Lewis Hamilton was not the happiest he has ever been with a pole position lap on Saturday, having felt he left about 0.3secs out on the track. But a pole position lap it was.

Now, his focus is on converting it into his first victory for three races, a win that would not only bring him back level with Sebastian Vettel on number of victories this season, but also give him back the championship lead.

He’s just a little bit determined: “I want this one so bad,” Hamilton said. I need it.”

Hamilton has had rather more success in the whole becoming a world champion thing than England's footballers down the years - but he is willing on Gareth Southgate and co.

"Whenever this tournament comes along you always are hoping for something special to happen for England," he said. "In my lifetime it has not been great for us. We have a good group of boys, a good team."

They've been a very good team in the opening 45 minutes against Panama. That's all I'm saying. BBC One and BBC Radio 5 live are covering the game if you want to follow it.

Image source, BBC Sport

...You shouldn't be on a sports website, should you? Certainly, if you live in England and you're at home right now, you'll probably be able to work out how the World Cup game is going from the shouts of your neighbours.

There's a football match going on at the moment. You know it, I know it, and Lewis Hamilton certainly knows it.

The British driver said this week that he would try to watch the World Cup Group G match between England and Panama, even though it is not scheduled to finish until around 14:50 BST - 20 minutes or so before the French Grand Prix starts.

“It will be a little bit harder to focus on the race because we will be watching the game,” he said. “My engineers will be trying to keep an eye on both things at the same time, as will I.”

Image source, Getty Images/BBC