Even though Max Verstappen was the most dominant driver of the 2023 season, Charles Leclerc was fairly competitive with him in one sector. This was in the one-lap pace. The Monegasque managed to beat the Dutchman time and time again when it came to securing a pole position ahead of the Grand Prix.
Now, renowned F1 journalist Sean Kelly has come up to reveal Ferrari’s 2 step brilliance that often puts Leclerc ahead of his Red Bull rival Verstappen. Kelly said in The Race F1 podcast recently, “With Leclerc, one I think there’s an operating window where even if everything’s not there, he just pulls this magical qualifying lap almost out of nowhere.”
He added, “There seems to transcend the car on the level of ability what seems to be possible at that moment. And two, the conditions are there, he is just sensational.”
Admittedly, Leclerc has had the edge over Verstappen in terms of qualifying pace, and Ferrari’s car in general, was suited more to the short one-lap stints.
However, it was Red Bull and Adrian Newey who marked all the differences for Verstappen. As for the Maranello-based outfit, their car’s poor race pace and relatively less straight-line speed is the reason why Leclerc failed to convert his Saturday heroics into race wins. This has been a plaguing issue for the Italian team.
How did Charles Leclerc become a one-lap man over the years?
Charles Leclerc is an incredible driver when it comes to pace. However, he often fails to convert them to victory and it is Max Verstappen who often gets the better of the Ferrari driver in these conditions.
The Monegasque driver failed to win a race on at least 12 occasions when he was on pole. In the 2023 season alone, he took five poles but no victory. The numbers were different in 2022, but the story was the sane.
Therefore, Leclerc, who recently renewed his contract, now holds the second-longest streak [12] of having failed to convert pole positions into wins after Rene Arnoux, who went on to claim 13 pole positions but no wins.
For this, Kelly blamed Ferrari’s strategic blunders and Red Bull’s superior race pace. He said, “With Leclerc, well there’s been a little bit of Ferrari’s unusual strategy call, unreliability, and so on. But also just simply Red Bull were quicker in race pace.”
Admittedly, Red Bull took 14 pole positions in the 2023 F1 season, but their win count was 21. This means they took one-third of their wins without pole positions in the entire season. Nevertheless, Ferrari has shown ample improvements in the latter half of the season, are now working towards developing their challenger for the 2024 F1 season and are one of the strongest contenders for the wins.
