Charles Leclerc in 2019 in his first season at the wheel of Ferrari after his F1 debut in 2018 with Alfa Romeo, he was the driver who collected the most pole positions, no less than seven. The SF90 was very fast on the flying lap thanks to an unbalanced set-up distinguished by excellent aerodynamic efficiency (i.e. little resistance to straight-line advancement) which, however, lacked aerodynamic load with the consequence of leading to an excessive degradation of the tires. An example was the famous third sector of Barcelona, where Leclerc and Vettel suffered enormous gaps against Mercedes and Red Bull in the most tortuous stretch of Montmelò.
The 1997 class, however, has always had an excellent feeling with the lap ‘all or nothing‘to be performed in the final stages of the Qualification to get the pole position if the car allows it or’ the extra row ‘unexpected on the eve of performance in hand. Also in 2021, in fact, Leclerc was able to bring the SF21 to pole position in Monaco and Baku in Azerbaijan. Sometimes Leclerc in the race then lost ground compared to promising Qualifying obtained also thanks to a set-up aimed at enhancing the performance on the single lap, decisions that then presented the account 24 hours later in the race. Furthermore, tire management has been a minefield for Leclerc since the beginning of his Ferrari adventure.
In 2021, however, the Monegasque driver is convinced that he has transformed what was his weakness into a strength: “In general I feel much improved in race and tire management – Leclerc explained as reported by the newspaper racingnews365.com – in 2019 it was undoubtedly my weak point, in 2020 I worked on it together with all Ferrari and now I think I have nothing to envy to the other drivers when it is necessary to preserve the tires a little in a certain phase of the race “. Furthermore, Leclerc believes that he has shifted the balance a little too much towards Sunday in that difficult art that is the ideal compromise between performance on the flying lap and pace in race pace: “In this respect, I absolutely still have to work. Sometimes I find myself sacrificing Qualifying a little too much compared to the Race. It has happened on a few occasions this season, I hope to improve next “.
#Leclerc #sacrifice #qualification #race #FormulaPassionit