China – Francophone Report: Leclerc wants to understand, progress and fastest lap for Gasly!
Disappointed with his 5th place, the Monegasque wanted to review the race footage to come to terms with his team's strategy. Having set his first fastest lap of his career, Pierre Gasly feels somewhat reassured with the final 6th place, while Romain Grosjean falls just short of the points.
Charles Leclerc: 5th (4th on the grid)
Complicated race for the Monegasque, doomed by poor tire strategy. The fault? Certainly the early race, neck and neck with his teammate Sebastian Vettel. Having overtaken him at the start, the Monegasque got a good start according to his own opinion, despite a somewhat confusing first corner. Unable to pull away from the German, the 2017 F2 champion then had to let his teammate pass on lap 11, after the insistence of his engineer over the radio.
Except that Vettel didn’t fly away either! As a result, a Leclerc stuck in fourth position, who tried to compensate by staying on the track longer. Bad luck: the young Ferrari hopeful rejoined in fifth place behind Verstappen after his stop on the 24th lap.
On the strategic issue with Vettel, Charles Leclerc needs to review the footage, the data, and talk with the engineers to understand the decision. “I am sure there is a logical explanation. Before that, I don’t want to make any stupid comments,” the main person concerned slipped at the finish line to the journalists’ microphone.
His end of the race took place in fifth position, except for the second wave of pit stops. Briefly moving up to second position, Leclerc tried to slow down Bottas to help Vettel catch up. In vain!
15 days after impressing in Sakhir, Charles Leclerc returns to the ranks in Shanghai. “I wasn’t as strong as I had hoped throughout the weekend,” he admits with a sigh. “The qualifications were OK, but I didn’t accumulate enough kilometers during the free practice sessions. The long runs weren’t perfect. But we will come back stronger!”
In the overall driver standings, Leclerc loses fourth place, overtaken by… Vettel. But the gap is only one point between the two drivers.
Pierre Gasly: 6th (6th on the grid)
Off to a rough start after the first two races, Pierre Gasly made progress in China, finishing in sixth place, his best position for his new team. The highlight of an otherwise calm race was marked by an overtake on Räikkönen’s Alfa Romeo: “It was a long race. I was quite alone. I mainly had to be careful with the tires,” confirmed the main party concerned.
The Frenchman will still leave a mark on this 1000th Grand Prix by securing his first fastest lap just before the finish. This was the result of a pit stop on the 54th lap to put on soft tires and chase the clock in the last two laps. “I’m proud of it,” the driver commented to journalists. “We saw with the team that I could make this free stop. It went well!”
The big disappointment, however, is his level compared to Verstappen, still a notch below. Gasly finishes one minute behind his teammate, and his additional stop is not the only explanation for this gap.
« It was another complicated weekend. I’m proceeding step by step. I still need to progress, but the good thing is that I know where to improve. We’re making one step every weekend… I’d like to make three each time! I’m heading back to England this evening to work at the factory.
»
Sixth at the finish, the Red Bull driver does not improve his best ranking, his feat at the Bahrain Grand Prix in 2018 for Toro Rosso (4th) remaining the peak of his career.
#ChineseGP 🇨🇳 | T 54/56
Gasly stops to put on soft tires to go for the fastest lap! #F1 #Race1000 pic.twitter.com/Uw2R1qEGsi
— Secteur F1 🏎🇧🇷 (@Secteur_F1) April 14, 2019
Romain Grosjean: 11th (10th on the grid)
The bad streak continues, despite his best efforts! Although Romain Grosjean managed to finish the race this time, he narrowly missed out on points, coming in eleventh, just one second behind Alexander Albon’s Toro Rosso in tenth place. Frustrating for the Haas driver, but predictable according to him:
« To be honest, I was a bit worried before the start. Our race pace wasn’t impressive on paper. The car is fast but we’re no longer there as soon as we do two laps! We need to understand exactly what happened. »
10th on the grid, Grosjean stopped very early (10th lap) to put on a set of hard tires. Forced into a two-stop strategy, it didn’t work out: helped by Hülkenberg’s retirement but overtaken by Räikkönen’s Alfa Romeo, the Frenchman was running 10th until his second pit stop on lap 37.
He came back out in 12th position, equipped with medium tires. In 11th after the second stop of Stroll’s Racing Point, Grosjean chipped away at an initial 16-second gap to Albon, who himself was on a one-stop strategy.
Forced to let Max Verstappen pass near the end of the race, the blue flags notably thwarted the Frenchman’s overtaking attempts. Without that, I think we could have scored a point! But Alex (editor’s note: Albon) did a fantastic job defending his position well and making no mistakes. Congratulations to him! On our side, it’s really unfortunate to give it our all and still not have the chance to score points in the end.
Romain Grosjean’s tally does not change after the Chinese Grand Prix: zero points in three races. The only reason to be satisfied is that the Frenchman at least beat his teammate, with Kévin Magnussen finishing 13th, behind Stroll.
#ChineseGP 🇨🇳 | T 29/56
Räikkönen passes Grosjean for P9#F1 #Race1000 pic.twitter.com/qWMR3BRuUz
— Secteur F1 🏎️ (@Secteur_F1) April 14, 2019
