politburo wrote: ↑22 May 2021, 16:26
djones wrote: ↑22 May 2021, 16:13
LM10 wrote: ↑22 May 2021, 16:10
How can people tell that was intentional from Leclerc? Are you all serious?
Have you even seen the replay? (I have)
He turned in early on purpose expecting minimal damage, but maximum plausibility.
Let's just assume he actually did crash intentionally, would Leclerc's pole time have been eclipsed by anyone other than maybe Bottas or Verstappen on that lap?. Here are mini-sectors of drivers at the time of the crash, yellow = slower than personal best, green = personal best, purple = session best.
https://i.imgur.com/wFDKT7h.png
Sainz. He did purple in first sector in his first attempt, very similar to Charles in second, but made a mistake in third. Without that mistake he could have beaten Charles and actually he was quite upset about not being allowed to finish his second attempt. He literally said it was first time in his career he could fight for pole but the red flag ruined it
Not saying Lecrerc did it on purpose, I´m fairly certain he didn´t, but that´s not a reason. Anycase I think it was not on purpose specially because Ferrari was the dominant car. Both Ferrari drivers were on top of the timesheets for the whole weekend. Also Lecrerc did a mistake in first sector of first attempt, and even so he made the fastest time, so I can´t see any F1 driver crashing on purpose when he owns provisional pole with a mistake in that lap so he can do it even better in second attempt. That´s what he was trying and crashed.
To be fair, with provisional pole it´s easier to assume some risks and a red flag, but that´s different from crashing on purpose