Charles Leclerc has shown many times that he knows how to express the best when it is under pressureand as many times he has shown an impressive ability to find performance on the single lapbut the pole of the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix is something special. In Monaco it will be front row all red for the race, and more could not be done on Saturday in the Principality for the Maranello team. The F1-75 shows one of his best qualities, tractionjoined with lots of power and to an excellent mechanical balance. With temperatures falling, the balance is on tires went to get more and more critic during the session, but the base set by Ferrari continued to work well, so much so that for the last attempt the double warm-up lap to find the perfect shell job window. The peculiarity of the red is certainly to have a formidable traction despite a rear which is lighter than in free practice. The reality is probably that, by taking the car to its extreme limit, the DNA of a car with a tendency to oversteer emerges and the rear starts to move more often. Despite this, however, the temperatures of the rear tires remained in control, with the starting at the exit of the curve which made a difference in almost every part of the track. For its part then, Leclerc did something specialand was about to do something incredible if the last lap hadn’t been interrupted by the red flag. We looked at the data by comparing the last lap on the track and that of his pole and the result is that we would even have an advantage of over 6 tenths during the last lap.
Clearly the algorithm can return a value that is not entirely precise and this number must certainly be taken with a grain of salt, but the advantage that Leclerc had over his own time was certainly substantial. We also checked inside the tunnel and there is a gap of about 4 tenths, which is what Leclerc later reported in the final interviews saying he saw him on the wheel. Considering that in such a lap the distance of the tunnel is one of the few moments in which a driver is able to look at the steering wheel, the final figure still seems congruent with what reported by our software and gives the size of a lap that the flavor of the greats of the past. Also Max Verstappen he was improving on his latest attempt and would likely be battling Carlos Sainz for the second position on the grid. We made a simple table to show who was improving in the first sector at the time of the exposure of the red flag, and it emerges that Leclerc was indeed flying, but also Verstappen was making a qualitative leap in his lap (although this time not to level of the Monegasque of Ferrari).
However, coming to the data of the laps that decided the starting grid, we compared Leclerc’s time with that of Perez to find the biggest differences between Ferrari and RedBull.
The RB18 of the Mexican is fast in the first sector and Perez is very good at Saint Devote at managing perfectly trajectory And braking point (better than Verstappen in that stretch). But it is at the top of the hill that Ferrari takes the first real break ahead. The curves of Massenet And Casino are perhaps the only point on the track where the downforce has an objective weight on the level of grip and the greater load of the F1-75 is clearly felt, with Leclerc recording even 12 km / h of higher speed at Massenet and 5 at the Casino, earning about 1 tenth and a half on Perez. The next very slow section shows the brilliance in traction of Ferrari: Leclerc is faster in minimum speeds at the Mirabeau and at the hairpin of the Grand Hotel, while Perez is superior in the two corners of the Portier, but in this sequence of so slow corners the greatest time is found with the flicker out and there Ferrari number 16 is always superior to the Red Bull, gaining over 2 tenths despite the RedBull front suspension working really well in that stretch. Leclerc then earns again at the detached from the chicane of the port before the real return of Perez, who at the Tabaccaio curve regains even a tenth between entry and exit, thanks also to a slight snap back by Leclerc. The stretch of the pools is again to Leclerc’s advantage, as is the Rascasse, where Perez is a tough nut to crack and leaves it to the Monegasque only 40 thousandths. Leclerc then builds the pole position between Massenet and Portier, thanks to an aggressive driving and literally “bomb” traction of his F1-75. Behind him, however, he will start Carlos Sainz, with performances similar to those of the landlord, but 1 tenth in the first and 1 tenth in the third sector, mainly due to the rear “dancer” that Sainz had to keep at bay. However, he excellent Sainz’s performance considering that the time in the central sector of the Spaniard is identical to the thousandth with that of Leclerc.
However, qualifying was a great session, as is almost always the case in Monaco. The race normally reserves much lower emotions, even if the weather could become the protagonist. Clearly Ferrari is the big favorite, having monopolized the front row on a track where it is literally impossible to overtake. The need to bring home the result for Leclerc and Ferrari is summed up by one curious statistic between the Monegasque and Verstappen. Both, in fact, have totaled 14 career pole. Verstappen, however, has 24 victories against Leclerc’s only 4. We will see if this particularly bad trend for the Maranello team starts to reverse its trend or if something happens that would happen at this point. resounding during the race.
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