After a disappointing fourth-place finish in Las Vegas, Charles Leclerc let out a harsh and unfiltered rant, expressing his frustration with Ferrari's performance and strategy, further widening the gap between Ferrari and McLaren in the constructors championship.
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Ferrari had expected to win in Las Vegas. The track layout suited its car, and practice suggested it had the best race pace of any team. They pitted earlier than intended and in the second stint were caught by the rampaging Lewis Hamilton. They switched places again. “We just simply didn’t execute in general,” Sainz said in debrief afterwards, per the F1 website. “We just didn’t execute a very good race.
Eventually he relented, the pit wall wanting more time to decide strategy, but by then Leclerc had lost time and had probably done damage to his tyres cooped up in the dirty air of the sister car.Sainz pitted earlier after the pit wall eventually coming around to his way of thinking. Leclerc following him in three laps later.
Indeed Sainz has been a consistently tough challenge for Leclerc during their almost four seasons together. On several key metrics the Ferrari drivers are the most closely matched in the paddock. And in this case, if Sainz had ignored a pre-race agreement, as Leclerc appeared to imply, it was at least points-neutral to the team. The only difference to the outcome was that he was the one taking home a podium trophy.There might be a lesson here for Leclerc too.His racecraft had always been of a high standard, and this year he’s also demonstrated a fast-improving sensitivity to the tyres, with unlikely podiums in Belgium and the Netherlands the result of excellent race management.
His second win came last year in Singapore, where he tactically deployed DRS to use Lando Norris as a buffer between him and the faster Mercedes cars at the end of the race — though, to be fair, Leclerc had agreed pre-race to play a supporting role in pursuit of the only non-Red Bull Racing victory of the season.It’s not that Leclerc is incapable of grasping the bigger picture.
“In Qatar the maximum might be a P5 or a P6 because with this car in a track like Qatar I expect to struggle, and I expect McLaren and Mercedes to be very strong. probably also even Red Bull, given that they were strong also in quali in Austin,” Sainz said pessimistically. “I think it’s going to be a very challenging weekend for us.”
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