A completely new track for these ground-effect cars, compounded by the new asphalt and the sand that prevented them from achieving the optimal setup for the Middle Eastern weekend. Furthermore, the sprint format complicated things, leaving drivers and engineers with only one practice session to prepare for the entire weekend. During the final attempt in Q3, the Ferrari driver failed to set a perfect time, relegating him to the fifth position for Sunday’s race. Let’s see what the telemetry reveals about whether it was a problem or a mistake by Charles Leclerc during the Qatar Grand Prix qualifying.
Let’s examine Charles Leclerc’s lap telemetry
Let’s try to understand what happened to Leclerc by examining the telemetry of his last fast lap. Max Verstappen, the world champion and pole-sitter for Sunday’s race, will be used for comparison. Already in turn 1, the world champion managed to carry more speed through the corner, gaining some meters. It’s worth noting that Leclerc never fully released the throttle in the first two turns, always keeping it around 5-6% open. This likely worsened the front-end load due to the slight shift of weight to the rear. However, the most significant differences emerge in the first fast section, with Verstappen having a very stable front end on his RB19, allowing him to set up the entries optimally.
Source: f1ingenerale
Now, let’s focus on what might be the crucial point behind Charles Leclerc‘s poor lap time. The section to consider is between turns 13 and 14, around the fourth kilometer. Here, Charles Leclerc has a significant deficit in speed, losing 20 km/h only in this section. But what caused this difference? Observing the chart below, we can see that Leclerc downshifted from 7th to 6th gear during this part. Furthermore, the accelerator graph also reveals that Leclerc had the throttle open 20% less than Verstappen during this section. Only here, the Monegasque driver might have accumulated a few tenths of a delay that could have been crucial for starting in third position.
Was it a mistake by the Monegasque or an electrical anomaly? Perhaps Charles Leclerc’s intention was to decelerate slightly to “load” the front end and improve entry, but evidently, this did not pay off. Nonetheless, this SF-23 car struggled on the various fast sections of the Qatar track. The unresponsive front end, a problem that has persisted since the beginning of the year, a dirty track, and a lack of data made Charles Leclerc’s qualifying quite complex at the Lusail International Circuit.
Source: f1ingenerale
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