Thursday in Monaco was coloured in red. The 1-2 in the second free practice session by Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz makes an impression for the consistency and simplicity with which it arrived. The SF21 in the streets of Monte Carlo looks even better than one might expect and surprises the competition. Of course, these are only free practice sessions, but some peculiar aspects that have emerged are still encouraging for the Maranello team.
First of all, both drivers found the performance immediately and easily. Carlos Sainz had done very well in the morning session, and in the afternoon he was amazed by his hard tire performance. After a few laps during which he gained confidence, Charles Leclerc already found some good lap times and then gradually raised the bar until he set the best time in FP2. Even the times with a full tank of fuel (although in Monaco a huge percentage of the race is played in qualifying) were the best, registering a real red domination. In short, Ferrari and its drivers did not go strong for a particularly lucky lap or for having raised the power level just to set the time. The machine car works and the drivers are both in good shape on a track where whoever is driving can make a difference. The first comparison we are going to make today is precisely between Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, because it affects how different the performances are between the two drivers of the Italian side, although they converge on a very similar time.
The first sector is in favor of Carlos
The Spaniard from Ferrari sets a time of 156 thousandths faster in the first sector, all ganed at the Saint Devote corner, the first. In fact, Carlos brakes late and hard (you can clearly see the climb much later than Charles and much more “vertical”) and comes out better in uphill traction. In this zone Carlos Sainz’s line is imperative (the data shows us over 2 tenths), but Charles Leclerc regains something in the Massenet corner with a completely different management of the accelerator. Charles Leclerc chooses throughout this stretch to choke the gas and manage the grip with the accelerator pedal, which makes him recover something to close the sector precisely at 1 tenth and a half away from Carlos
Crazy central sector of Charles
The Monegasque driver, however, does something truly remarkable in the central sector of the track. Throughout the Mirabeau-Grand Hotel-Portier section, Charles Leclerc always manages to get back on the gas earlier than his teammate, gaining meters in each of the very short acceleration sections. Throughout the extension in the tunnel (and also in all the other extension phases) Charles Leclerc makes extensive use of short-shifting (the early shifting ) to optimize the engine torque and find the perfect traction, a fundamental aspect to find the final time. At the Chicane of Porto, Charles passes 5 km / h faster than Carlos, despite the fact that the Spaniard is again more aggressive under braking (excellent sign of confidence transmitted by the car). And at the Tobacconist corner, Charles Leclerc literally throws the car inside, lifting his foot from the gas for much less time than Carlos and guaranteeing a very high travel speed that makes him close the sector almost 4 tenths faster than the Spanish driver and with the absolute best time .
Carlos with more confidence at Rascasse
In the third and last sector, however, Carlos Sainz is again very fast, especially after the second S of the Pool, in Rascasse and Anthony Noghes, where you can sense a slightly better confidence from the speed and accelerator data. The final result sees Carlos behind Charles by just over a tenth, but with the absolute best sectors in the first and third fractions of the track, with Charles dominating with over 2 tenths of all in the central sector.
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