by VALERIO BARRETTA
Leclerc pays for the wait and the anti-stall
The problem that Charles Leclerc suffered in yesterday’s Sprint Qualifying certainly damaged the Monegasque, who will start tenth in the short 12pm race.
However, this is a problem that could have been avoided: in an F1 that foresees everything except the unexpectedit ends up that yesterday the teams played on the edge of seconds to make sure they completed the lap of the Red Bull Ring at the last moment, in order to have a slipstream and a theoretically faster track. It works, yes, as long as everything goes smoothly. Which did not happen to Leclerc yesterday, as the anti-stall device was activated, which turned off the engine, and Helmut Marko underlined this.
Marko’s words
“It’s not wise. Everyone thinks the track is getting better and becoming a second faster. They are thousandths at most! Then they get on the track and everyone has to do a much slower outlap. That way you get nothing.“, these are his words in an interview with GPBlog.
It must be said that even at Red Bull they waited for the Mercedes to move to catch up with the others. Indeed, Verstappen was the last of the big names to get the fastest lap and pole position. The risk, for him, paid off.
