Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc ended his qualifying session at the Miami International Autodrome in Florida, USA, with an accident due to an error in turn 7. The Monegasque driver had already hit the barriers at the same corner during the second free practice session. In that case, Charles Leclerc lost control of the SF-23 during a race simulation, while in qualifying, he missed the opportunity to gain positions on the grid for today’s race. The Ferrari driver will therefore start from seventh place and will have a difficult task in the Miami Grand Prix as he attempts to finish on the podium.
Comparing Charles Leclerc’s best lap with the lap in which he made the mistake, a rather interesting detail can be noticed in the section between turns 5-7.
The telemetry comparison
In the presented graph, the black curve shows the trend of Charles Leclerc’s speed along the circuit distance between turns 5-6-7 in his best lap. The red curve, on the other hand, shows the trend of the Monegasque’s speed in the same track section, but at the moment he lost control of the SF-23 car. In the last attempt in Q3, the Ferrari driver tries to approach the curb with more aggressiveness than in previous attempts. This way of approaching that section of the track is typical of Max Verstappen, who, thanks also to his RB19, manages not to lose control of the car as soon as he comes off the curb. In doing so, the Dutchman manages to cover less distance and extract even more potential from the car in terms of time on a fast lap.
Not surprisingly, the first sector of Miami was the strong point of the reigning World Champion during free practice.
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When Charles Leclerc tries this approach, he doesn’t get the desired results. It can be seen from the curves that the driver is slower than his best run. This translates into a slightly slower distance that probably would not have significantly affected the final time. However, the greater aggression on the curbs did not pay off for Charles Leclerc this time, as the Monegasque tried to compensate for an overall lack of performance from his SF-23 car.
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