Leclerc’s title hopes getting slimmer after Belgium
After a month-long break, everyone was expecting a lot from Leclerc, who had to do everything to catch up with Verstappen. But the Grand Prix didn't go as planned for the Monégasque driver and for Ferrari.
Trailing Verstappen by 80 points at the break, Leclerc had to try and deliver a great performance at the Belgian Grand Prix in order to hope to catch up to Verstappen. However, the Monegasque, starting from the 15th position behind Verstappen, failed to keep up with the pace that the Red Bull driver was displaying.
With major changes to his car for the Grand Prix, Leclerc was playing for a place at the back of the starting grid. By finishing with the 4th best time in qualifying, he finds himself in 15th place on the starting grid.
After a fairly good start directly entering the top 10, Leclerc returned to the pits to change the tires directly after the safety car came out on track following Hamilton and Bottas’ back-to-back accidents. Leclerc therefore resumed in 17th position and is fighting to climb back up the ranks.
A faulty new strategy?
As the Monegasque driver fights for 5th place with Alonso, the Ferrari team calls for Leclerc to return to the pits just a few laps before the end. He switches from the medium tires he had chosen from the start to the soft tires.
A rather strange choice considering that there were very few laps left and the Monegasque only had a few seconds’ lead over Alonso.
The driver then finishes the race in 5th place in this Grand Prix. But that was without counting on the penalty taken by the Ferrari driver. A penalty occurred during his last pit stop where he went too fast. With these 5 seconds penalty, he gets passed by Alonso who finishes ahead of him. The 6th place then goes to Leclerc who learns the news during his interview on Canal’s microphone.
Facing this news, we see him completely bewildered and he appears to be resentful towards his team, who encouraged him to return to the pits. The team didn’t even mention this penalty to him on the radio, even though they were aware of it before the race ended. There is a real chill between Ferrari and its driver.
With this result, Leclerc also loses his 2nd place in the general ranking to the second driver from Red Bull, Sergio Perez. A rather disappointing result for the driver who was supposed to challenge Verstappen this season.
