How Carlos performed vs other drivers in Spain is not so useful to me because none of the others are Leclerc. In 2021 and 2022, there were considerable gaps in Spain in Leclerc's favor. 2023 is not considered because not getting out of Q1 is an outlier result. iirc, the car was steering to one direction last year.Xyz22 wrote: ↑24 Jun 2024, 17:57There is no need to be aggressive.AR3-GP wrote: ↑24 Jun 2024, 17:09Xyz22 wrote: ↑24 Jun 2024, 09:38
Without that mistake he would have been P3 yes, but still by a very small margin. This means that both him and Sainz got very close to the max potential of the car. We have been seeing this trend since the first race in Bahrain, that is drivers making minor mistakes when trying to extract the 100% of the car in quali trim. This car is terrible in qualifying and currently the slowest of the top 3. Also looking at the difference in the race it could be that Sainz is using setups more tuned for quali performance and this is why he has been able to finish that close to Leclerc.
Leclerc is worth 1 tenth minimum in qualifying on any day and on any track when he does a good job. There isn’t more to say. Stop the excuses.
I'd like to add that Leclerc is usually quite honest when he doesn't do a good lap in quali. Back in 2021 when he was in pole in Baku, he literally said his lap was not good.
This time he said that there wasn't "more" to extract from the car. Of course with a perfect lap he would have been P3, but we are talking very very small margins. To me, it is clear that both him and Carlos were able to get close to the limit. As a matter of fact, Carlos has quite the record in Spain in terms of qualifying, considering that before matching with Charles he always finished ahead of his teammate outside 2019 with Lando.
The topic is only a small point (although it does not look to have been taken that way). He could have qualified P3. It would have changed his weekend. It would have changed the perspectives about Ferrari's performance. I think it was there for someone like him. That's all.