Leclerc and Verstappen, what a duel at the start
One of the most exciting moments of the unmemorable Austin Sprint was undoubtedly when the traffic lights went out, where Max Verstappen showed his muscles by closing Charles Leclerc further and further insideso as not to allow the Ferrari driver to get in front of him at the first corner.
Verstappen’s move, tough but correct, then forced the Monegasque to lift his foot and also lose second position to Lewis Hamilton. Leclerc thus finished Saturday’s race in third place and the almost 18 seconds of delay accumulated by Verstappen in just 19 laps does not leave much confidence ahead of the Sunday GP, where the Monegasque will start from pole position.
Leclerc, the words in the press conference
“The initial duel? It was nice. I got a good shot and saw a little space to the left, but it wasn’t much. I tried to take it, but the first corner was very tight. And so I lost momentum in the melee with Max and found Lewis next to me. I tried to resist on the outside of turn 2, a complicated maneuver with cold tyres, and then at turn 3 there was no way to continue, unless there was contact. And I gave up. From then on without DRS, I just ran my race. Lewis and Max were too strong, especially in the first laps. Towards the end we had Lewis’ pace, but it was too late.
Max’s maneuver? To be honest I would have done exactly the same thing in his position. Talk about a borderline move, but as I’ve said in the past, this is how I like to fight. It’s part of racing and that’s fine.
The prospects for the race? Today we struggled a bit with the tires and so we will have to work on this, because it will be the key for the GP. We have difficulties with the rears towards the end of the stint and so we will examine the issue by working to understand what we can do better. The race will be tough. I expect Verstappen to move forward, otherwise it will be close. The pace is there, even if inconsistent, and we need to understand what we can do better about the degradation, because we have struggled more than the others.”
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