No mate. He was told repeatedly to back off and top up the battery to be in a better position to attack. At some point he was even instructed to go to mode 9, which is an even more severe battery charging mode (more clipping on the straights). This happened like 7 or 8 times during his battle with leclerc, until he was finally told to stop using the overtake button on every single straight, otherwise the battery was never going to charge sufficently.. He was topping out at ~320 kmh in leclerc's slipstream on hangar straight, and then vs vettel he was doing 335 kmh even when pulling out of slipstream. Difference was obvious. I will post extended onboard highlights of verstappen's race with telemetry and team radio soon and you'll see what i'm talking about.Sieper wrote: ↑15 Jul 2019, 01:39There was no job to be done earlier on Leclerc, in Verstappens own words “way to dangerous”. Leclerc was also driving different lines through maggots & becketts (like he was doing all weekend, also in qualy) slower through but faster on the gas coming out. That was what prevented Verstappen making the pass at the end of hangar straight. That combined with the turbo lag that they apparently were not allowed (or couldn’t) remap intime for the race. Vettel drove the same lines and was a sitting duck. That battery issue was a one time that I heared that. Just making sure he had a full one on the critical moment, as, I am sure, leclerc was also doing.Juzh wrote: ↑14 Jul 2019, 23:21Unlikely verstappen would be able to hold off bottas on fresh rubber and inherently faster car at the end, so I don't believe P2 was on the cards today. He might be able to do so if he got the job done on leclerc much sooner, but not after already losing tons of time behind other slower cars.
What was really interesting is how bad ferrari was on the main straight up until T3. Not sure what was going on there but the bulls were gaining bus lengths on them in that section.
Verstappen was also suffering with low battery during his entire fight with leclerc, he was told on numerous occasions to hold back and turn engine into mode 8 to top up the battery and then have a proper go at him. Instead he was apparently using way too much overtake button, which drained the battery too early to finish off the attack.
After he was let go by gasly and before his fight with vettel he actually was using mode 8 and came behind him with battery fully charged. Boost (free loading the engine aka some sort of quali mode?) and overtake button (dumping the battery) combined made the ferrari a total sitting duck on the hangar straight as a result. Vettel couldn't do anything at all to prevent it and was totally powerless to defend himself, something which in the past would be unthinkable.
I think had verstappen acted in the same way in his scrap with leclerc he would be able to overtake him much earlier and then maybe have a fight with bottas at the end. A lesson for the future perhaps.
Hopefully they get the turbo mapping even better for next race.