2019 Russian Grand Prix - Sochi Autodrom, 27 - 29 September

[dans79]

If I was in Leclerc shoes, I would be furious, come on, they had an agreement and then his teammate didn't play along, even when he got direct instructions from the pit wall.

Ferrari better make sure they don't have close battles the coming year, there will be at one point two dinged up Ferrari's parked at the side of the track.

Apparently no one at Ferrari remembers multi-21.

[flexcon]

Looking back at the start replay there are some interesting scenarios at play.

Leclerc is clearly seen move over to cover off Hamilton but then adjust the wheel back to the left taking the long way around the corner and NOT the APEX.
This suggests Leclerc was making a priority move to cover HAMILTON first. Once he realized this was covered the gameplan kicks in so he stops the move and draughts VETTEL.

This then leaves Leclerc giving a Tow for VETTEL rather than HAMILTON. What's important to note is he would be towing either car no matter what he did there, but clearly chose then to give VETTEL the tow instead. this suggests the game plan all along.

BUT

What we don't know is if VETTEL surrendered all rights to that first place if it were to happen as it did today.
I get the feeling the plan was not for VETTEL to be in front at all but simply to overtake HAMILTON.

It then leads the final question - What was the gameplan if VETTEL overtook LeClerc? Because VETTELS answer back is interesing. He said "I would have gotten by even without LecLerc" - Gotten by HAMILTON - NOT LECLERC. Which leads me to believe what happened today was not even considered .

[Restomaniac]

There is just one thing being pretty obvious and that's Leclerc being disappointed for how the race developed. There is no reason for him to lose confidence. He's been exceptional so far, so much that the team even backs him now.

You're just making up things.

He bitches over the radio that he was screwed last week. He bitches over the radio that he was screwed this week. He then openly tells Di Resta that the plan was that he gave the tow to Vettel to get the place back and then suddenly the outcome wasn’t what he expected. He was told to shut it last week post race and this week looked down and pissed off during the interviews.

But yeah I’m totally making it up

This is the opposite of being not confident, won't you say? If you want to see a driver without confidence, you'll find one at Mercedes.

I never said LeClerc has no confidence. Just that he has none in his team being fair.
Please read what I actually wrote and not what you thought I wrote. You then ask me to stop making things up

[lh13]

If I was in Leclerc shoes, I would be furious, come on, they had an agreement and then his teammate didn't play along, even when he got direct instructions from the pit wall.

Ferrari better make sure they don't have close battles the coming year, there will be at one point two dinged up Ferrari's parked at the side of the track.

Apparently no one at Ferrari remembers multi-21.

Perhaps you both are not a fan of Vettel, which is fine, and maybe the reason why you think it was sensible for Vettel to slow down and let Leclerc by, when Hamilton was only 2-3 seconds behind Leclerc? Or maybe you think Hamilton is an average driver and letting him get close than he already was shouldn't be a worry.

[proteus]

Fkin Mercedes! For God sakes! Even when about to be destroyed they somehow get lucky and snatch the win! Time and time again... So frustrating!

Yeah, damn shame Groesjean didnt win the race, it was his to take...

[Jolle]

If I was in Leclerc shoes, I would be furious, come on, they had an agreement and then his teammate didn't play along, even when he got direct instructions from the pit wall.

Ferrari better make sure they don't have close battles the coming year, there will be at one point two dinged up Ferrari's parked at the side of the track.

Apparently no one at Ferrari remembers multi-21.

oh they just have to look at this season, where they had to separate them in the early races. Leclerc is just as an ambitious non-team player as Vettel is.

[LM10]

He bitches over the radio that he was screwed last week. He bitches over the radio that he was screwed this week. He then openly tells Di Resta that the plan was that he gave the tow to Vettel to get the place back and then suddenly the outcome wasn’t what he expected. He was told to shut it last week post race and this week looked down and pissed off during the interviews.

But yeah I’m totally making it up

This is the opposite of being not confident, won't you say? If you want to see a driver without confidence, you'll find one at Mercedes.

I never said LeClerc has no confidence. Just that he has none in his team being fair.
Please read what I actually wrote and not what you thought I wrote. You then ask me to stop making things up

It's not true that he had no confidence in his team for today's race either. Vettel was put in 2nd place by pit stop strategy. This was a team decision so they wanted Leclerc to win the race.

Ferrari started the season with calling Vettel nr 1 driver. I still think that this was a good decision since it put pressure off Leclerc who could deliver without any big expectations. Now we can see that the team starts shifting towards him because he's the one showing better performance.

[dtro]

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming

[dans79]

The look on diresta's face while Totto was being interviewed was priceless.

[Restomaniac]

This is the opposite of being not confident, won't you say? If you want to see a driver without confidence, you'll find one at Mercedes.

I never said LeClerc has no confidence. Just that he has none in his team being fair.
Please read what I actually wrote and not what you thought I wrote. You then ask me to stop making things up

It's not true that he had no confidence in his team for today's race either. Vettel was put in 2nd place by pit stop strategy. This was a team decision so they wanted Leclerc to win the race.

So you’re calling the Ferrari team principle a liar. Cool.

[drunkf1fan]

What we don't know is if VETTEL surrendered all rights to that first place if it were to happen as it did today.
I get the feeling the plan was not for VETTEL to be in front at all but simply to overtake HAMILTON.

It then leads the final question - What was the gameplan if VETTEL overtook LeClerc? Because VETTELS answer back is interesing. He said "I would have gotten by even without LecLerc" - Gotten by HAMILTON - NOT LECLERC. Which leads me to believe what happened today was not even considered .

His first response on the radio to being asked to give the place up was roughly speaking "okay, but maybe we wait a couple of laps for a gap".

Vettel clear as day knew he was supposed to give up the position if he ends up first, no driver in history agrees immediately to give up the position when asked to let their team mate through. He then said, "I would have got him anyway", and I forget the other message now but he was basically making excuses to not have to give the position back.

But his first response not being to tell the team to smeg off when asked to give up a place proves without any doubt that he knew he was supposed to give the position back. The idea they wouldn't have considered it, lol, no, literally everyone including Leclerc yesterday was saying 1st place isn't even that great because the slipstream is so strong and he was purposefully giving it to the car with the highest straight line speed. It was clearly a possibility and it was also obvious that the car with the higher speed and slipstream would likely get ahead and that slowing to prevent that was going to open them up to mistakes in T2 rather than just letting him through cleanly and giving it back later.

Think to Ferrari last year in Monza, if you try to slow to give up a place early you create room for someone to come at you as Hamilton did. Vettel should have defended Kimi in Monza for some laps till they had a chance to switch them but instead he went stupid and ruined his race. Ferrari planed on it, expected he'd probably get ahead and planned to swap them back and clearly Vettel was aware of it.

When Vettel started to speed up rather than let the gap close and started making excuses about how he got ahead on his own rather than via help the team did the right thing. Left him alone and forced it via strategy rather than rely on Vettel to do what he agreed to do on track.

Also worth noting the VSC didn't ruin the race in reality. If Russell's brakes were going to fail, they were going to fail under braking so 95% likely Merc's just pit 3-4 laps later under safety car instead of the VSC.

The VSC was bad luck but good prep by Merc by being on that medium tire and being out there able to take advantage.

[MtthsMlw]

Stopping under SC was Leclerc's decision btw. The let him choose.

[maxxer]

Magnussen was so right its a ..... corner and to give him a penalty while he lost the place clearly.
What can he do slam on the brakes to ruin his tires even more he joined pretty safely.

[LM10]

I never said LeClerc has no confidence. Just that he has none in his team being fair.
Please read what I actually wrote and not what you thought I wrote. You then ask me to stop making things up

It's not true that he had no confidence in his team for today's race either. Vettel was put in 2nd place by pit stop strategy. This was a team decision so they wanted Leclerc to win the race.

So you’re calling the Ferrari team principle a liar. Cool.

I don't even know what he told.

[wickedz50]

Stopping under SC was Leclerc's decision btw. The let him choose.

LeClerc is talented but without experience, no wonder the emotions, going public over radio, bad luck.
Seb and Lec needs to put their personal glory behind to beat Merc as a team, thats most important, Binotto please use all you can to calm this situation