England – French speakers’ report: Leclerc shines in 3rd, Gasly finally delivers

Charles Leclerc: 3rd (3rd on the grid)

The Monegasque was making headlines again in qualifying with a third position, just 79 thousandths behind poleman Valtteri Bottas. Starting on soft tires, Leclerc hoped to get a better start than the Mercedes cars, but he couldn’t manage it and instead found himself under threat from Max Verstappen. As the laps went by and he battled with the Dutchman, he fell behind the Silver Arrows, trailing by 6 seconds by the 12th lap. Covering Verstappen’s strategy, driver number 16 dived into the pits on the 13th lap to switch to hard tires and finish the race. Even in the pit lane, the two champions in the making were neck and neck in their duel, continuing the fight until the safety car came out after Antonio Giovinazzi’s off-track excursion.

This neutralization penalized Charles Leclerc, who stopped one lap too late to change his tires. As a result, he returned to the track in sixth place, behind the two Red Bulls. Stuck for a long time behind Gasly, the Monegasque finally got past the Norman on the 36th lap.

Leclerc ultimately took advantage of the collision between Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen to secure his fourth consecutive podium, the fifth this season.

« This is probably the race I enjoyed the most in my career. It’s good to be third but it was complicated to achieve this result. The first stint didn’t go as we wanted, and then I lost places because of the Safety Car. But I am very happy to be on the podium and to have had some great battles. »

While his teammate finishes out of the points, Charles Leclerc earns 15 points, allowing him to close his gap. He only needs three more units to surpass the German in the overall standings. The leadership might soon change sides at Ferrari…

4th podium in a row for #Charles16 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 #BritishGP #essereFerrari 🔴 pic.twitter.com/VhLx2BzMLK

— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) July 14, 2019

Pierre Gasly: 4th (5th on the grid)

With the same setup as his teammate, Pierre Gasly was finally able to show his full potential and compete among the best! Consistently ahead of Max Verstappen in free practice, the Frenchman displayed a very satisfying pace all weekend. Fifth in qualifying, he was ahead of the five-time world champion Sebastian Vettel by a few thousandths but was three-tenths behind his garage neighbor.

Despite a poor start, Gasly managed to maintain his 6th place and stayed in contact with Vettel. Finally overtaking the German driver on the 12th lap, Gasly dove straight into the pits to attempt the undercut. A strategy that didn’t pay off as he was blocked by Carlos Sainz’s McLaren. When the Safety Car came out, the team chose not to pit him a second time, leaving him with worn tires for the end of the race.

He subsequently put up strong resistance against Charles Leclerc to protect Max Verstappen a little. Eventually overtaken by the Monegasque, the Red Bull driver was left struggling, unable to be a contender for the podium. A good result for Pierre Gasly, showing the Austrian team that they should trust him.

« I’m happy, we had the performance to fight at the front. Then we decided to stop earlier than the others, but I came out behind Sainz, which damaged my tires. I would have preferred to be on the podium, but we’ve made good progress, and we need to continue in this direction.

This fourth place allows Gasly to break away from the midfield drivers in the overall standings, marking his best result at the wheel of the RB15.

Romain Grosjean: Retirement (14th on the grid)

Equipped with the aerodynamic package used in Australia, Haas’s expectations for Grosjean were not very high. Ahead of his teammate in qualifying, who had the most recent car, the Frenchman still delivered a fine performance, managing to escape Q1 and secure 14th place on the grid.

His departure was very eventful as right at the 5th turn, the two teammates from the American team collided, causing significant damage to their cars. The consequences were disastrous. By the 3rd lap, Kevin Magnussen was already a lap down, and it wasn’t long before the same happened to Grosjean.

« It’s difficult to say anything » judged Grosjean afterwards about this incident. « I was taking my turn, staying on the racing line, and Kevin touched me from behind, which caused a puncture. He was in a blind spot. »

Like the Dane, the Franco-Swiss driver retired to the pits a little later in the race, on the 10th lap, due to significant damage to his chassis caused by a punctured tire. With this observation: « when the tire delaminated, we also had damage to the floor and the braking system. The loss of downforce was too significant. From my point of view, I didn’t do anything wrong! »

In the midst of turmoil with his team, the weekends unfortunately look the same for Grosjean, who has scored only 2 points in 10 races.

Great start boys@HaasF1Team #BritishGP #HaasF1 #richenergy #milkfloat pic.twitter.com/19zDwusVYj

— Rich Energy (@rich_energy) July 14, 2019