The fastest is always Max
He fails to be a prophet in the redhead’s homeland Charles Leclerc and Ferrari tastes bitter for yet another wasted opportunity on Saturday. Despite the supremacy established in free practice and despite the updates that proved to be very effective, the two reds of Leclerc and Sainz were unable to achieve pole position on their home track in Imola.
Not only that, they won’t even start from the front row: fourth time for the Monegasque and fifth for the Spaniard. Sure, the gap to Verstappen is just a couple of tenths, but it’s enough to be disappointed. Both drivers could gain a position if Oscar Piastri is penalized, who is under investigation for a possible impedingbut this is not enough to evaluate the glass as half full.
The problems: first sector and curbs
“Both Carlos and I were close – commented Charles Leclerc to the microphones of Sky Sports F1 immediately after the end of Q3 – but we don’t understand what we’re missing in turns 2 and 3 or in the first sector. Tire preparation is important, but it’s strange like this. We tried many things – Leclerc revealed again – but it is always the same problem in the same corners. We will look at this aspect again, it’s not something we don’t know and that we’re discovering now: we’ve been struggling for a few GPs and we need to improve it“.
Finally, the Monegasque drew a comparison between the way of attacking the curbs of the SF-24 and that of Verstappen’s RB20once again unbeatable in qualifying: “We know that one of Red Bull’s strengths is how hard they can hit the curbs. I don’t know how much Max hits the curbs in turns 2 and 3, I know that in the previous weekends he hit them a lot. I also tried, but with our car we can’t do the same thing for now. We’ll keep an eye on it, but the trend has been like this for a few races.”.
#Leclerc #dont #understand #missing #turns