SEQUENCE:^ P
ORTL
OCK20 AUTOSPORT.COM 18 APRIL 2019RACE CENTRE CHINESE GP
to extend his stint, which he did, to the end of lap 22.
That means his stint was four laps longer than Vettel’s, and at least
three laps longer than it needed to be. From laps 19-21, Leclerc lost 2.5s
per lap to Verstappen. On his in-lap, he shed almost three seconds. So
when he emerged from the pits, Leclerc was just over 11 seconds behind,
and with only the advantage of hard tyres that were five laps younger.
With Verstappen now three seconds behind Vettel, the real battle was
the one for fourth and fifth. Leclerc was told to push. Over the next 10
laps, Leclerc was 0.743s per lap faster than Verstappen and started the
34th lap 3.4s behind. But, thanks to an inspired Red Bull strategy call
that had a big impact on the race by ensuring the other leaders also had
to commit to a two-stopper when a one-stopper was still possible,
what followed was Verstappen’s in-lap.
“We triggered the two stops for everybody else,” said Red Bull
team principal Christian Horner. “Our rationale was that, pretty
early on, we decided that the most upside we might have was
in the event of a two-stop race, particularly if there had been a
safety car around and others elected to stay on one. This then
sparked some discussion between Sebastian and his pitwall
as to whether or not they were going to stop at all, but in the
end they covered us, and Mercedes had to cover him. And
Leclerc got hung out to dry.”
Verstappen stopped at the end of lap 34, followed by Vettel a lap later.As the lead Ferrari had been within 14 seconds of Hamilton, the risk of
getting caught by a car on fresher rubber by the end of the 56-lapper was
too great. To avoid losing any unnecessary time to the undercut with
either car, Mercedes decided to double-stack its cars. While there was
5.5s between the two, it was still a pressure point.
“We wanted to make sure that Valtteri and Lewis didn’t lose out
in pitting,” said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff. “It’s an extremely
tricky manoeuvre – you don’t get to train that a lot. The first line
of attack needs to be out of the way for the second group to put the
tyres on. How it functioned today, I can only take my hat off to
the mechanics and everyone involved.”
When it all shook out, the spread of the leading cars had narrowed.
The Mercedes were still safe, but Vettel had closed to within 10s of the
lead. He wasn’t close enough to threaten Bottas, but it showed that
Mercedes was justified in pitting its two cars simultaneously.
But there was one odd man out among the leaders – Leclerc. He found
himself a strategic outlier and running second on the road, only a few
seconds behind Hamilton. With a tyre and car pace disadvantage, he was
inevitably going to fall away from the leader and he was soon passed by
Bottas after a spirited defence. For the second time in the race, he was
told to let Vettel past just before making his second stop on lap 42. This
time, Ferrari was justified in leaving him to run long, either in the hope
of making a one-stopper work or to build a significant tyre offset that“VERSTAPPEN ATTACKED ON THE ENTRY TO THE
HAIRPIN, BRAKING ULTRA-LATE AND DIVING UP
THE INSIDE. VETTEL LEFT HIM SPACE, CUTTINGBACK TO THE INSIDE AND REPASSING”