Starting from pole position and finishing the race in sixth place would make even the most seraphic driver falter. Charles Leclerc experienced what has just been described at the United States Grand Prix, in which he found himself having to face a clearly wrong strategy which put him in a position to lose 5 positions and fight until the last meter to safeguard sixth from attacks by George Russell.
Leclerc immediately lost the race lead at the start, slipped into turn 1 by Lando Norris. In the following laps, due to a sufficient pace, but not good enough to stay in the Top 3, he also lost position to Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. At that point Ferrari chose to focus on “Plan D”, which later turned out to be a single stop race and two stints, one with the Mediums with which he started, the other with the Hards with which he finished .
If Ferrari suffers with a full tank of petrol, with just one stop the situation continued until the checkered flag. At the end of the scheduled 57 laps, Charles Leclerc presented himself to the press microphones to comment on the race, immediately admitting how wrong the choice to make a single stop turned out to be compared to the best strategy, the two-stop strategy (with three stints).
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23
“We can’t hide the fact that today the only stop in the race was the wrong strategy. We have to look at our numbers, because what we had gave the two strategies very similar, but this wasn’t the case because I certainly struggled a lot.”
The Ferrari number 16 completed an interesting stint on Hard tyres. The degradation was good, but the stint was too long to be able to resist the return of the rivals equipped with fresher and better performing tires than his: “Honestly, if we look at the degradation on the Hard it was good. But the two-stop strategy was the best Today”.
In the final laps Leclerc had to give way to teammate Carlos Sainz. In the first moments after the request, Leclerc said he didn’t understand how much the Prancing Horse wall was asking of him. With the bowls stopped, however, the Monegasque understood that the move was necessary to avoid making Sainz lose his position with a Sergio Perez in full comeback.
“At the time I didn’t understand why I had to let Carlos pass. But then they explained to me that Perez was coming up behind him. I understood that it was necessary to protect him in that situation and not make him waste time with me. angry about that situation, I’m disappointed about the strategy”, concluded Leclerc.
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