Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has provided some evidence that suggests Max Verstappen would have finished ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc had he not been involved in a collision with Mercedes’ George Russell on the first lap. The collision damaged the Dutchman’s car and slowed down his pace tremendously.
When asked to quantify how much performance did Verstappen lose because of the damage to his car, Horner replied (as quoted by crash.net), “It is difficult to quantify. But when you see a hole like that in the bodywork it is got to be three-quarters of a second a lap at least, maybe more”.
Considering the pace loss, Verstappen would have likely gotten past Leclerc easily had his car not been damaged. This is because Red Bull’s straight-line speed is far higher than Ferrari and the Baku circuit has a long straight.
Leclerc produced a miraculous effort to finish ahead of Verstappen
Even though Red Bull may feel that they lost an opportunity to score maximum points during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix sprint race, one cannot take anything away from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque has had an incredible weekend so far as he has outperformed the capabilities of the car.
He began the Grand Prix weekend on Friday by registering a stunning pole position. He then carried on this form into Saturday’s sprint shootout by registering another pole.
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And his form did not end there as he also drove a brilliant race during the sprint on Saturday. Despite the massive pace advantage that Red Bull have had this season, Leclerc managed to finish between race winner Sergio Perez and his teammate Max Verstappen.
Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc have contrasting starts to the 2023 season
Reigning Drivers’ Champion Max Verstappen seems to have carried on his stunning form from last season as he shows no signs of slowing down. The Dutchman has already scored 75 points out of a maximum of 86 after the first three races and the Azerbaijan GP sprint.
Consequently of these results, he has a 13-point lead in the championship from his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez. On the other hand, when it comes to Charles Leclerc, his start to the 2023 season has been nothing short of a disaster.
The Monegasque has just scored 13 points and is 11 points behind his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz. Since Leclerc has had such a disastrous start to the new campaign, he will take a lot of confidence by finishing ahead of Verstappen during the Azerbaijan GP sprint race on Saturday.
