A frustrated Charles Leclerc blamed Carlos Sainz Jnr’s tactics after falling from fourth to ninth with his final run in qualifying.
The Ferrari driver accused his former team mate of slowing down excessively in front of him, making it harder for Leclerc and others behind him to manage their tyre temperatures and complete a lap in clear air.
The rules limit how far drivers can reduce their pace around most of the lap. A time limit is set between Safety Car line two, at the pit lane exit, to Safety Car line one, at the pit entrance. This weekend any driver who takes longer than 99 seconds to pass between those lines during qualifying is reported to the stewards.
However Sainz backed off sharply after passing the pit lane entrance, until he reached the beginning of the timed section at the pit lane exit. Other drivers did the same but Leclerc claimed Sainz took the tactic to extremes.
After completing his first flying lap, Sainz reduced his speed on the pit straight from almost 300kph to less than 50kph, changing all the way down to first gear. He slowed down so much he was overtaken by Max Verstappen (who had changed his run plan following an error on his first flying lap) and Fernando Alonso.
Most drivers in SQ3 did a flying lap, two consecutive cool-down laps, then a final flying lap. Sainz repeated his tactic in between his two cool-down laps but varied his technique. He initially backed off to just under 70kph, then increased his speed to 166kph, then reduced it again as he neared Safety Car line two to just 41kph.
Behind him Leclerc did not slow down as much. He backed off briefly to around 110kph, accelerated again, then backed off once more as he reached the pit lane. While Sainz took 25 seconds to pass through this section, Leclerc took just 20.
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Sainz’s delay left Leclerc leading a tight queue compromising Oscar Piastri, Alexander Albon, George Russell and Lando Norris, all vying to complete their final laps. As Piastri pursued him closely around the start of the lap, Leclerc’s race engineer Bryan Bozzi urged him: “Keep position with Piastri, focus on that.”
“Sainz took the piss at the Safety Car line and then he puts everybody in the shit because we are too close to him,” Leclerc replied. “He was slowing down massively before Safety Car line two.”
Bozzi told Leclerc “Sainz has gap, I think he’ll push to the end.” But Leclerc gained on Sainz at the end of the lap before they began their final timed runs and began his lap closer to the Williams than was ideal.
Leclerc failed to improve on his final lap by seven hundredths of a second. He lost places to five cars, including Sainz, who pipped him to eighth.
“Unbelievable, unbelievable,” Leclerc fumed. “Fuck’s sake.”
“Sorry about that,” said Bozzi. “It’s okay,” Leclerc replied. “Today he does that, tomorrow don’t worry. I’ll do the fucking same to him.”
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“We’re really slow anyway,” Leclerc added. “How far were we from top five?” Bozzi told him he had only been a tenth of a second away from taking fifth on the grid, which would have been a remarkable result after Lewis Hamilton in the other Ferrari went out in 18th.
Sainz’s tactics had ramifications for other drivers. His team mate Alexander Albon passed Lando Norris going into the final corner before they started their laps, leaving the McLaren driver with a poor running position.
Leclerc explained his frustration with Sainz after the session. “He was taking quite a significant gap to the car ahead just before Safety Car line two and then obviously it puts all the guys behind under stress,” he said.
“He has the right to do that but it’s very annoying and it’s a bit unnecessary sometimes. So it’s a shame, I had to start the lap too close [to Sainz] and when you see the gap between the top five and us, you can say that it could have been a better qualifying.
“But apart from that we are very slow and we are struggling once again this weekend, so it’s a tough one again.”
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