Ferrari invents with Leclerc... and fails

The Monegasque had the intermissions in Q3 with the dry track and then when he entered to put the dry it started to rain. In the end, he will start today 10th in the sprint race

If something is clear at this point in the film, it is that Charles Leclerc is very good at one turn. This year he has no less than 9 pole positions (a total of 18 throughout his career). Well, the 25-year-old driver suffered yesterday in his flesh a new strategy error by Ferrari in what is his strong point.


The Monegasque started in the decisive round of qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix on intermediate tires despite the fact that the asphalt seemed to be very dry (his rivals started, logically, on soft ones). And the result was logical: total disaster. He finished 10. Today he will try in the sprint race to remedy the failure of his squad. The '16' is playing the runner-up with Checo Pérez (he is third with 275 points compared to the 280 of the Mexican).

Leclerc: "We expected a bit of rain... but it didn't come"

After the initial fiasco at the Interlagos circuit, Leclerc confessed with a touch of resignation: "We expected a bit of rain that didn't come. I'll talk to the team and try to understand what we can do better in those conditions, but I'm extremely disappointed, the rhythm was there." And, immediately afterwards, he added in these statements to 'Sky Sports F1': "I accepted the decision to go out with the intermediates and then I limited myself to waiting for the rain, which never came".

The Monegasque was last in Q3, but is confident of signing an epic comeback. "We still have the car, but now we have to get in and do everything right for the rest of the weekend," he warned.

The sarcastic "precious" of Leclerc

But the truth is that the radio conversations did show a lot of tension. Leclerc has already been failed on more than one occasion (so what happened this year in Monaco and Silverstone soon comes to light). At one point they tell him to go to the pits... when he can no longer get into the 'pit-lane'. The Monegasque had pointed out that he was going around with some tires that were of no use to him because "it's not raining at all". When confirmed from the wall that everyone has completed their dry lap, Leclerc sarcastically replies: "Fucking beautiful." And before the '16' had asked if he was the only one with intermediates and from Ferrari, where they expected the arrival of the liquid element from one moment to another, they pointed out: "Yes, we believe you are the only one with those tires". So he ran with intermediates without any rain falling (while his opponents could go for good times on the soft tyres) and went in to put on the soft when it started to rain afterwards.

The excuse of the 'Scuderia'

For its part, Ferrari defended itself as best it could after the blunder. "It's a bit frustrating, we had both cars in Q3 and we were faced with a tough decision. On the one hand, you have the track still dry and there's a rule of thumb that says you have to go on that track while it's dry; on the other hand, On the other hand, we were expecting heavy rain. At the end of the day, we have divided our strategies. You always know that, depending on the exact moment it rains, there will be one happy pilot and one unhappy pilot. That's exactly what happened. The rain came probably a minute or two too late for Charles, and it was the right time for Carlos, who was second on the track. That's how it was and we have a fifth position and a tenth position, but it's the start of a long weekend", emphasized Laurent Mekies, racing director of the 'Scuderia'.

Learn for the future

Be that as it may, this strategy error is not something new at Ferrari. It is not something specific. It is true that the F1 World Cup is already resolved. Max Verstappen has taken the pilots and Red Bull the Constructors. Now it only remains to know who wins the last two appointments... and who is the runner-up. And what the Italian team has to learn is not to screw it up because if they want to win the title again (something they haven't done since 2007 when Kimi Raikkonen conquered it) they must stop failing tactically and in the 'pit-stops' . This time it was Leclerc's turn to suffer, but Carlos Sainz has also had his thing... Let's remember the mythical 'stop inventing' (stop inventing) directed at the wall when they were asking the man from Madrid for something that would have prevented his first victory in F1 .




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