The tear-off that Charles Leclerc got in his brake and which prompted a very early pit stop, may have come from Max Verstappen. A sensor was damaged and Leclerc drove one kilometre per hour too fast in the pit lane, resulting in a five-second time penalty. Mattia Binotto explains.
Leclerc unlucky with offence
"It was really really borderline, I think it was by 0.1km/h in the average speed in the pitlane, unlucky," Binotto is quoted as saying by The Race. The Ferrari team boss then explained that the usual sensor had failed due to overheating, which was caused by the tear-off in the brake. "Our recovery strategy maybe was not so accurate for this 0.1km/h," he admits.
The Italian called it an 'unfortunate situation' that Leclerc lost a place because of the time penalty, but felt Ferrari had to take a chance to possibly score an extra point. Binotto seemed to indicate that the tear-off came from Verstappen and the footage seems to indicate that too, but there is no way to be completely sure.
So, Supermax is not only a Speed Demond on the track, he now has the skills to 'disable' a competitor's car using just his visor tear offs timed at the precise moment while driving at over 300kph? Wow! He really has supreme talents!
So Binnotto is saying the overspeeding in the pitlane was because of the faulty sensor that caused by the tear off, But yet he stopped total of 3 times and only 1 time he over speeded in the pitlane. So is it really the sensor issue or Leclerc's desperate move to stay in front of Alpine's?
It seems like they have a serious problem with “performance anxiety” at Ferrari. It’s not uncommon for folks under pressure who, after messing up badly once or twice, actually develop a crippling anxiety about failing. Especially in teams that have toxic work environments. This anxiety becomes so bad that it almost ensures failure after failure that further spirals them down into into the abyss of poor performance and decisions. Meanwhile, what starts as “it’s our fault” becomes “it’s not really our fault”, “we meant to do that and it was the best option available”, and finally, “it’s others fault”. Anything to take the stink of failure from them without actually working towards solving the actual problem that tends to be far far greater than just the one or two people who make the final call.
Binotto, your excuses are getting worse! Don't know why as you get a lot of practice at making excuses for your woeful strategists!!
So Max is part to blame for consistently bad strategy calls? That tear off is the least of their problems. Someone needs to go at Ferrari. Poor Charles!
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