Leclerc’s home heartbreak
From a convincing pole position on Saturday, Leclerc had every reason to be hopeful his home-race hoodoo would finally end on Sunday. But the first rainfall of the weekend as the field prepared for the start led the race director to trigger a delay, Leclerc eventually heading everyone away behind a safety car – only for the rain to intensify and force the officials to throw a red flag before they could be let loose to race. The action only got going after 4pm local time.
Even now on full wet-weather Pirellis, Leclerc looked comfortable in the lead, but it soon became clear as conditions improved that the result would swing on the timing of who would switch tyres at exactly the right moment. As early as lap two Pierre Gasly was one of a few drivers to switch to intermediates, but the leaders bided their time, waiting for it to become obvious the change would lead to a clear pace advantage. By lap 14, Perez, running third behind the two Ferraris, knew ‘inters’ were the better option, but then Carlos Sainz Jr radioed in. He’d correctly spotted it would be better to wait, bypass the inters as the track dried and go straight to slicks. Perez stopped first on lap 16, with Leclerc and Verstappen coming in two laps later for intermediates as Sainz stuck it out. The Spaniard finally came in from the lead on lap 21 to switch straight to hard Pirellis – and disastrously Leclerc followed him in, the team making the call then changing its mind too late. He was delayed slightly by the double-stack and when both Red Bulls headed in the following lap for their own slicks the final order was decided. Perez had jumped Sainz to lead, Vertappen had jumped Leclerc for third – and Charles found himself shuffled from first to fourth in a matter of a few laps.
A week after Ferrari unreliability cost Leclerc a sure win in Barcelona, a ham-fisted strategy call kept up Charles’s miserable record in his own backyard. Painful times.