“I think it would have been a good battle with Charles in the final race, even if we will never know”. Max Verstappen at the press conference at the end of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix he acknowledged that the 13-second advantage in favor of Leclerc after the pit stop was an important gap, but that the race pace of the RB18 in Baku would allow him to close the gap by returning in the exhausts of the Ferrari F1-75 # 16 for the final battle for victory.
A thesis with which the number one strategists of the Ferrari wall does not agree Inaki Rueda: “According to our simulations, Leclerc would have comfortably won the race with the one-stop strategy even if it was so early”. Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal, had judged Ferrari’s strategy to be very aggressive and in Baku he decided to pit Leclerc after just ten laps using the Virtual Safety Car forced by Sainz’s technical knockout. “We did well to take advantage of that neutralization, gaining ten seconds by making the pit stop under the VSC regime”Rueda added.
Carlos Sainz had a strategy set up in reverse from the leading trio. “With Sainz, we decided from the beginning to opt for one opposite strategy to that of the opponents. So in the first few laps Carlos built up an important gap simply because he was saving the tires as much as possible to lengthen the first stint on medium tires as much as possible. Just when he had started to push a little harder to catch up, he suffered a knockout at the plumbing system “Rueda explained.
The head of the strategy of the Ferrari wall does not break down after the double zero in Baku: “We try to focus on the positives. We managed once again to take pole position on a very special circuit e the car was fast even in the race, where it defended itself against Red Bull even when the latter was able to take advantage of the DRS. The unloaded rear wing worked ”.
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