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Unfortunately, the Grand Prix of Azerbaijan did not get the hoped-for titan duel between Max Verstappen in Charles Leclerc† The latter driver found his waterloo after twenty laps on the Baku City Circuit and Verstappen was able to cruise towards victory. With the team of Ferrari the man from Monte Carlo is believed to have won the race without any problems.
Leclerc again failed to convert his fourth consecutive pole position into a victory in Baku on Sunday. The Monegask did not leave too well and was overtaken by Sergio Perezbut due to a clever trick at Ferrari around the virtual safety car that is Carlos Sainz came out on track, Leclerc was able to return to the lead. With a different strategy than Verstappen, he went on the hunt for finally another victory, but from that position his F1-75 gave up the ghost.
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Good intervention Ferrari
So it was the end of the exercise for Leclerc and Verstappen could easily go for victory. Christian Horner claimed afterwards that Verstappen would have won even without his competitor’s retirement, but Ferrari does not agree with that. Iñaki Rueda, head of strategy at the Italians, explains. “When Carlos stopped, we realized that a virtual safety car was plausible. We were getting ready for a pit stop by Charles, should that happen.”
‘Cheap’ pit stop
And that indeed became true. “That was crucial for our race. Why? Because a pit stop during the virtual safety car takes about ten seconds less than a normal pit stop. For this reason, Charles managed to do his only pit stop of the race with much less loss than the Red Bulls. After that period, Charles was ready to go to the finish with his hard tires. Red Bull tried to continue as long as possible on medium, but they lost a lot of time. Our simulations show that Charles entered the race without other virtual safety cars easily beat Verstappen.”
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