It was an average of the hard only, if I include mediums then it would be unfair, as you say.DoctorRadio wrote: ↑23 Sep 2024, 19:46You average the gaps, but that’s taking into account the time Leclerc lost with Alonso and the two Mercedes in second stint, right?mwillems wrote: ↑23 Sep 2024, 19:34
Right. But if you average those gaps then the difference is 5 hundredths of a second per lap in Charles favour during that period. Half a tenth. A little faster, but actually Charles was slower than I realised. I did a snapshot of some racefans data. Despite ample opportunity, including 5 laps on Mediums, Charles was not able to demonstrate in any way that he could make any meaningful inroads on the Mclaren that was not pushing for half of the duration of the hard stint, whereas Charles was clearly trying to get 4th. The Ferrari struggled to get past a slower car on Mediums. if there was any real pace on that car using that compound, he wouldn't have been stuck behind Alonso for the majority of the first stint and if he was saving tyres behind Alonso then he'd have been able to push on when Alonso pitted. Reality is, he was just not that fast on mediums. For reference, Alonso was between 2 and 3 seconds per lap slower than Charles on Hards.
https://i.ibb.co/pfVdzKK/Charles-Pace.jpg
If so, it’s quite an unfair comparison.
Leclerc was stuck in a DRS train on mediums led by the Haas; good luck in passing cars at Singapore in a DRS train.
In fact, as soon Hulkenberg dropped Alonso, Leclerc immediately passed both.
He stayed in their dirty air, a few tenths behind Alonso, the whole first stint, that can’t have helped the tyres, he most probably cooked them.
On this, I don’t understand why he didn’t get a gap of 2-3s behind Alonso, as it was obvious from the outside that he wasn’t going to pass him DRSed by Hulk.
But maybe in the cockpit he had other feelings.
But you can see that even on hards in clean air with a 6 lap delta, he's barely faster, despite pushing for position when Lando is bringing it home, that's why that visualisation is quite useful.
There was plenty of free air to gauge Charles pace, and Alonsos delta to charles on hards provides useful context.