MONTE CARLO, Monaco – Charles Leclerc know what chance Ferrari let slip on Sunday.
“No words,” he said on his radio after the race. “The season is long, but we can’t do it.”
There must have been a lot of things going through Leclerc’s mind. Just an hour earlier, he was in complete control of his home race. The Monegasque driver entered the week laughing at questions about an alleged curse at the Monaco Grand Prix, where he had failed to finish on four previous attempts, but between 17 and 23, it’s hard to get rid of the feeling that his hometown is actually very real.
The most remarkable thing about Ferrari’s decision-making is that the team made two separate mistakes, one that made Leclerc win and a second that makes him absolutely have a place on the podium.
“Sometimes mistakes can happen,” Leclerc told the media afterward. “But overall there were too many mistakes today.
“We can’t lose so many points like this. It’s not even first to second, but first to fourth because after the first mistake we made another mistake. .”
After locking down the front row of the grid and with Ferrari one-two until the first lap came to a halt, the team could not make excuses about its bottom line.
“When you start with your two cars in the front row and you don’t win, it means something has gone wrong on our part,” admitted Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto. “I think we made a few bad decisions and we paid the price.”
A racer who has never flown at the Monaco Grand Prix, but Leclerc looks as controlling as any race leader could see in those early laps. A downpour before kick-off prompted the FIA to ask everyone to compete fully from the start – when the rain stops and the track is dry, the key for everyone will be the length of the first leg. . When it’s clear, it won’t rain anymore, Ferrari has two clear options to protect Leclerc’s lead.
Option 1 is to keep Leclerc out with completely wet tires until the track is dry enough for the tires to dry (spills) – a tactic Lewis Hamilton went perfect when he won in 2016 and a Leclerc teammate, Carlos Sainzwas determined to pull myself on Sunday.
Option 2 is to switch from a wet tire to an intermediate tire as soon as the road conditions are right, this Sergio Perez did on lap 17. Although the intermediate type will damage the tire more quickly at this stage, the downside to this option is the fact that another stop is needed immediately after to get into the smooth tyre.
Ferrari’s mistake stemmed from not fully committing to either idea for Leclerc.
Perez and Red Bull chose the latter, stopping in Round 17 from third for the crossroads. He was quickly dizzy for the next two rounds. The Red Bull team debated whether to try the first option but felt the speed advantage of the intermediate tire, even if it was only for a handful of laps, was crucial.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner said: “We decided it was a quicker route to get through the area involving the slippery road.
“The power of the out-lap is great, and I think Checo [Perez] completely nailed it. “
At the time, Perez didn’t believe the team made the right call.
Perez said after the race: “I think we got the job done because the track was pretty dry and it felt like it was just a matter of laps before we needed to go downhill.
Ferrari waited two more laps, by which time the track was even close to ideal conditions for a swap, before calling in Leclerc to replace him in lap 19. Leclerc, who had led teammate Carlos Sainz by nearly five seconds, will start the stop after Perez.
Perez’s stop should not have been the winning moment in the race. While his pace was impressive on the intermediate tyre, Leclerc and Ferrari didn’t need to react the way they did to stay in the lead. Perez still has to switch to slick tires that Ferrari plans to do with its two drivers. Track placement was key in Monaco, and Ferrari had it… until they gave it up by bringing in Leclerc for crossroads. If Ferrari is stuck in Option 1 with Leclerc, their main concern will be protecting Sainz’s second place from Perez.
As it turns out, Ferrari sacrificed Leclerc’s lead and track for Red Bull and must now hope Sainz can pull off a wet tackle and get ahead of Perez.
Binotto said Ferrari will have to analyze why it failed to make the right call in the heat of the moment.
“I think we also made a mistake, because we should have called [Leclerc] before that, at least a lap earlier, or else, as we did, we should avoid going outside and simply stay in extremely wet places, protect the position, and then maybe move directly onto the drying rack,” he said.
“Now that we’ve made mistakes, I think that’s understandable. What’s the process of getting them there? “
Sainz rejected Ferrari’s call to stop the intermediate car a lap before Leclerc stepped in, saying he wanted to wait for it to dry.
It was almost a race victory call for Sainz. The Spaniard stopped for a cut on Round 22 but said he was stuck behind a plank Nicholas Latifi Starting from the pit meant Perez started his Round 23 stop because the tires were slippery a little ahead of the 55 Ferrari.
“I feel like we’ve done everything we’ve got to do out there,” Sainz said dejectedly after the race. “We were patient in the races, we made the right decision to hit the slide, and yes, a car overturned, or a terrible overtake stuck behind a covered vehicle, was caused me to lose a race win today.
“You can understand the frustration because a clean pass would help me win the race today, but that’s how sport is sometimes.”
The fact that Sainz got so close to Perez shows how badly Ferrari faltered. Leclerc comfortably led Sainz when he stopped in Round 19. If the Round 22 stoppage was the first of his race, he would easily overtake Perez and Sainz when he leaves. pit.
As it turns out, Leclerc was running behind Sainz when he stopped in Round 22, when Ferrari provided perhaps the strangest radio call in recent F1 memory.
“Box now, box now, box now, box now …. Get out! Get out! Get out!”
By the time the correction arrived, Leclerc was already driving into the pit, using his hands angrily and cursing Ferrari over the radio.
This stop will leave Leclerc completely uncontested on the podium. When he did 1 round after that, he saw Max VerstappenRed Bull’s Red Bull slipped and slid out of the pit exit in front of him. As it turned out, this was Leclerc’s only chance to reclaim a spot on the podium but, as Verstappen struggled to hold onto the hill, Leclerc couldn’t make it through and he will spend the rest of the race as part 2. of a four-car train.
Asked on Sunday night whether Red Bull had won or Ferrari had lost the race, Red Bull boss Horner admitted it was a bit of both.
“Of course, we have to go out and win, but we also capitalize on the mistakes we made. The circumstances are the same and the two teams are very close,” he said.
“Charles in the early laps seemed to have a lot of things under control; he also had a buffer of teammates behind him. At the time, it looked like Ferrari had the race in the bag.”
In a season that is set to be tight, the Spain v Monaco game could be a seismic one in 2022 for Ferrari and for Red Bull.
Leclerc comfortably led both races at one stage but scored just 12 points out of a possible 52, and he has watched his once major championship lead disappear. He is currently 9 points behind Verstappen.
Is Perez a title contender?
Through the weekend’s upstream race, Perez showed his worth with Red Bull. In Spain, he followed a controversial team order to let Verstappen overtake him and win the race, despite apparent opposition. In Monaco, when Ferrari dropped the ball and Verstappen was not in his usual best form, Perez made one of the driving forces of his career to snatch victory away from the Italians.
He is currently only 15 points behind Verstappen in the championship.
While the race in Spain gives a pretty clear indication of how Red Bull sees the dynamism among its drivers, Perez will find it difficult to ignore the championship if he can continue to produce results. like Monaco. Perez and Verstappen have a very good relationship, and that will be an interesting factor for the team to work out if both drivers are on the hunt.
When asked at the post-contest press conference how challenging the title might affect the dynamics with his teammates, Perez brushed it off and joked to Verstappen: “We’ll still love each other, right?”
In the short term, the victory almost guarantees Perez will be at Red Bull next season. He is yet to sign a new contract after 2022, but the importance of his Monaco win is not lost on anyone.
When Perez was asked if the Monaco win meant a more likely contract extension, this time it was Verstappen who turned to his team-mate with a playful smile on his face.
“I think what you did today could help,” said Verstappen with a laugh. “Just a little bit!”
