Charles Leclerc was creating a gap ahead of on the ‘train’ of cars led by Lance Stroll, so why did Ferrari call him in for a pit stop in the Canadian Grand Prix?
The Ferrari pitwall called Charles Leclerc in because they understood that Fernando Alonso with new tires was about to join the fight with him and Esteban Ocon, also considering the pit window which had open and should have allowed Charles to retur to the track ahead of Lance Stroll.
The Alpine Frenchman driver was impossible to pass without taking great risks. This led to the decision to stop him as soon as Charles had an acceptable delta, after 40 laps on the Hard tyres. The Monegasque driver also needed to go to a more comfortable compound. Unfortunately, a rather far from ideal pit put him back in traffic: as a result, Charles was unable to heat up and manage the tires during the warm-up phase as he thought best, but the decision in itself was the right one.
Ferrari had to optimize the penalty received by Charles Leclerc due to recent reliability issues but what could the Monegasque driver achieve from row 6 with only the turbo penalty and an ideal setup? Ferrari were talking about a possible third place, based on the Maranello team’s race simulations. A result that did seem possible if we think how things could have gone without the slow pit stop.
Carlos Sainz was certainly very close to Charles Leclerc last weekend in terms of performances but in equal conditions and circumstances he is not yet at the level of confidence of Charles. It is likely that the Monegasque driver would have even had some chance of winning with favorable events, even if he started with 10 penalty positions.
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From P19 – without hitches in the pit and a little luck – it could have been possible to catch George Russell who did not have a great race pace even compared to Lewis Hamilton. It should also be said that the medium tire mounted for the second stint gave him more traction but it was not a great tire in terms of overall use, mainly due to having to pass several cars in the train led by Stroll. For both F1-75 cars, soft has never been an option, as it is very dangerous in terms of front graining, a phenomenon that Ferrari has often suffered from last season and, a couple of times, also in the 2022 Formula 1 campiagn.
Also according to Ferrari’s post-race simulations, in a normal race with no VSC or Safety Car, had Carlos Sainz led after the first corner he would have won with nearly 18 seconds over Max Verstappen, as reported by formu1a.uno.
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