Taken from Caffé#96 by Pino Allievi – FormulaPassion YouTube channel
For once I drink champagne and not a banal espresso. Charles Leclerc’s victory with Ferrari in Monte Carlo is well worth an exception. We were waiting for it, I was waiting for it with the anxiety of those who fear that in the end there is always an insignificant element that takes away the dream. But this time it didn’t happen and, it may be trivial to say, the best one won. That is, the fastest driver with the car that is best adapted to a suffocating trackmade up of accelerations, braking, acrobatics on the curbs, caution in the darkness of the tunnel, restarts after tight bends in which driving skill is of little use if you don’t have excellent mechanical traction.
Leclerc had all this because Ferrari put a perfect car in his hands, prepared very well already in Maranello, so much so that when it took to the track on Friday, in the Principality, it no longer needed any fine tuning from the engineers. It seemed like we were seeing the Ferrari of Schumacher’s golden moments again, when victories came repeatedly, apparently without effort, even if there was incredible work done by a technical staff that had no equal in other teams.
There Ferrari of today is not that of the great Michael but is a team that has emerged from the darkness and it is becoming competitive again everywhere. It was on the terrible ups and downs of Imola, a track that does not forgive mediocre cars. It was repeated in Monte Carlo, a unique circuit in terms of difficulty, although in a very different context from the permanent circuits in which Ferrari will have to give the final confirmation of the end of the suffering.
This time Leclerc didn’t win on Sunday but on Saturday. The eve of Monaco was decisive in reaffirming the same values as qualifying, without the emotion of impossible overtaking in a context that would be deeply questionable, when instead Liberty Media picks at tracks to be looked at with respect like Imola itself that I was talking about before or Monza.
Charles Leclerc had no rivals in qualifying. And he maintained that small advantage he gained in Q3 over Piastri, Sainz and Norris from the first to the last metre. As a true and unacquired Monegasque, he knew that the result of the tests could be replicated in the race and so it was. About him he added the fundamental control of emotional tension, calmness in controlling rivals, the ability to not make even the slightest mistake, the physique to handle 77 laps without the interruption of a pit stop, as hasn’t happened for centuries. Lucid Leclerc, lucid Sainz in conquering a third place which is certainly a narrow one for him, but loyal in recognizing Charles’ merits on his home track.
Ferrari aside, Monaco highlighted Red Bull’s first debacle of the year. Faced with a car that wasn’t on the road, Verstappen couldn’t work miracles and wisely settled for a modest sixth place. Is this the beginning of the end of the most successful team of recent years? Certainly not, but considering the electric climate in the team, some cracks are starting to show, it being understood that in the next race in Spain Verstappen plans to put all his rivals behind him. But now there is also McLaren, which has become competitive everywhere, as he showed in Monte Carlo. Piastri is an announced champion, Norris is a certainty, the two will battle it out, but they will also give it to the others. It’s a world championship that is reopening or that in any case offers good arguments to guarantee surprises. Provided that tracks like that of the Principality remain an isolated case and to be isolated in the future of this F.1 dedicated to entertainment and not to anachronistic processions on narrow streets and scenarios that need to be changed.
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