During the Austrian Grand Prix qualifying, Ferrari was not as competitive as they had hoped, despite making significant setup changes.
Telemetry data, however, shows that securing the front row in the qualifying session for the Austrian GP was not an impossible task, especially for Charles Leclerc.
Charles Leclerc vs Carlos Sainz
As we can see from the graph below, the Monegasque driver had a 131-millisecond advantage over Carlos Sainz up to turn 4, the point where Charles Leclerc admitted to making the first of many mistakes on his lap.
From that moment on, car number 16 ended up in the gravel at turn 6 and finally at turn 9, failing to improve his previous time.
The gap between Carlos Sainz and the front row is exactly 133 milliseconds. This means that if Charles Leclerc had not made any mistakes and had matched Carlos Sainz’s times in the other sectors, he would have been in contention for second place with Norris, down to the millisecond.
Clearly, however, in Formula 1, “ifs” and “buts” are inconsequential. This missed opportunity could still bode well for tomorrow’s race, where we will see if the setup changes made by Ferrari will be as effective as expected.
