Charles Leclerc has defined that the choice to soldier on with a damaged entrance wing all through the Chinese language Grand Prix after contact with Lewis Hamilton was to protect observe place.
The 2 Ferraris made mild contact at Flip 3 on the primary lap as Hamilton tried to imagine the apex line and clipped Leclerc, which knocked the endplate off his entrance wing.
Race engineer Bryan Bozzi advised Leclerc that he was round “20-30 factors of downforce” in arrears because of the conflict, which the Monegasque reckoned he may cope with. As an estimate, this might result in a time lack of round 0.2-0.3s per lap.
Leclerc’s tempo appeared to defy the damaged wing, and he selected to proceed with it reasonably than delay his pitstop.
His better tempo in comparison with Hamilton prompted Ferrari to swap its two drivers and let Leclerc run forward to chase George Russell, and he received to inside DRS vary earlier than a lock-up at Flip 14 referred to as an finish to his assault.
The entrance wing harm proved to be a thorn in Leclerc’s facet, as his hard-compound entrance tyres began to degrade extra closely in direction of the tip – which in the end price him in his battle for fourth with Max Verstappen.
“After all we’re talking a couple of huge [downforce] loss on my automobile, so there was for positive the potential to do lots higher,” Leclerc advised Sky concerning the determination to not change the wing.
“We did not wish to take the eight seconds on the pitstop of adjusting the entrance wing, as a result of then I might want to overtake automobiles and we had been very weak in Flip 12.
“That was making us very weak with the automobiles behind and it was very, very troublesome to make any overtakes as a result of on the way in which as much as Flip 14 we had been simply too far off.
“I did not wish to take that danger – I simply wished to maintain observe place and attempt to maximise the consequence.”
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Max Verstappen, Crimson Bull Racing
Photograph by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Photos
“Truthfully, I believe it wasn’t that fast,” Leclerc later added. “I imply, it felt actually dangerous. I believe we had been usually fast, we have seen it yesterday with Lewis, myself we noticed it in direction of the tip of the dash the place I used to be very robust.
“All in all, I believe we had a extremely good race automobile, and immediately I did a step with the automobile, and I believe that made it lots higher for immediately.”
Leclerc refused accountable Hamilton for the incident, calling it a “racing incident”, and admitted neither driver anticipated to come across one another into the nook.
Staff principal Fred Vasseur defined that, though impressed by Leclerc’s tempo on the damaged entrance wing, the impression of electing to not change the wing was escalating.
“The positives are the pole of Lewis, the win of Lewis [in the sprint], and I’d say the tempo of Charles through the race with the entrance wing harm,” mentioned Vasseur. “[With] the lack of downforce that we had, the tempo was mega.
“And that is the optimistic of the weekend, however he struggled a bit on observe on the finish with the tyres as a result of, with the lack of the entrance wing, it was far more troublesome to handle.
“However on the finish, total we completed 20 seconds behind the McLaren with this harm. I believe it is an excellent consequence and really robust consequence.”
Images from Chinese language GP – Race
On this article
Jake Boxall-Legge
Components 1
Charles Leclerc
Ferrari
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