Leclerc-Marcos, surreal radio team: “Are you keeping the original line? Eh?”

Difficult communication

Already in recent seasons the radio 'exchanges' between Charles Leclerc and his race engineer Xavier Marcos have highlighted a certain thing on more than one occasion communication difficulties between the Monegasque driver and his Spanish race engineer, who did not always appear reactive in responding to his driver's requests for information. During the last lap of the Chinese Grand Prix, however, this obstacle in the dialogue between the car and the wall arose again unintentionally comical effects.

Marcos indeed has the red #16 was invited to keep a certain trajectory in two corners, apparently used at the start of the race, to make data comparisons. Leclerc, however, appeared inside the cockpit completely disoriented with respect to the requests of his engineer and the terms used by Marcos. In the end, after some unsuccessful attempts at clarification, the 'plan' was abandoned also because the race had now come to an end.

The Leclerc-Marcos dialogue

Below we report the translation of the exchange that took place at the end of the Shanghai event, which Leclerc finished in fourth place.

Marcos: “Try keeping the original line in Turn 7 and Turn 8 for comparison.”
Leclerc: “What?”.
Marcos: “Try to hold the original line in turns 7 and 8”.
Leclerc: “I do not understand. The horizontal line? What does it mean?”.
Marcos: “The original line! Like at the start of the race.”
Marcos: “Possible slippery track where you are now, due to possible debris. We believe on the right, on the inside.”
Leclerc: “The original line, you said?”.
Marcos: “Original, yes.”
Leclerc: “What the hell does that mean?”.
Marcos: “Forget it, forget everything, it's the last lap anyway”.