{"id":372072,"date":"2024-03-02T03:19:41","date_gmt":"2024-03-02T04:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=372072"},"modified":"2024-03-02T05:03:26","modified_gmt":"2024-03-02T05:03:26","slug":"not-happy-ferrari-star-rips-team-over-blunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=372072","title":{"rendered":"'Not happy': Ferrari star rips team over blunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reigning F1<\/a> world champion Max Verstappen<\/a> picked up where he left off at the end of last year, taking pole position for the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With a near-perfect final lap, \ufeffVerstappen held off Ferrari<\/a>'s Charles Leclerc<\/a> and the Mercedes<\/a> of George Russell<\/a> to claim top spot.<\/p>\n

Leclerc looked on to secure the 24th pole position of his career, but a strategic misstep from his Ferrari team is believed to have cost him several tenths, and with it a chance to start pole.<\/p>\n

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Just \ufeff0.228 seconds separated Verstappen and Leclerc's hot laps at the end of Q3 with the three-time world champion recording a time of 1:29.179.<\/p>\n

\"Second<\/p>\n

With his final lap, Verstappen improved by 0.242 seconds, while Leclerc could only shave off 0.073 seconds with his final effort.<\/p>\n

The team elected to run a new set of soft tyres for the final runs in Q3 for both Leclerc and teammate Carlos Sainz. Others, including pole-sitter Verstappen, opted for a used, or scrubbed set most of the rest of the grid used.\ufeff<\/p>\n

Earlier, Leclerc set a lap time of \ufeff1:29.165 to go fastest in Q2 \u2013 0.014 seconds faster than Verstappen's pole-clinching time in Q3 \u2013 on a set of scrubbed tyres.<\/p>\n

"I think [the new tyre] put us a little bit on the back foot because the track is evolving and it's a bit more difficult to read how much front [wing] you need to put for that last run," Leclerc said after qualifying.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/F1\/status\/1763611903199244739?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

"There I think we lost a little bit of [the] rhythm.<\/p>\n

"I'm not really happy about it, but it's something we'll discuss with the team.<\/p>\n

"I thought there was quite a lot of margin, but obviously being the first qualifying of the year, the team didn't want to risk it, so we had to run again with another new soft.<\/p>\n

"Again, it puts us a little bit on the back foot for the rest of qualifying."<\/p>\n

Having not topped any of the three preceding practice sessions, it was thought perhaps Verstappen's period of dominance had come to an end.<\/p>\n

However, after the clock ticked down on the \ufeffthree-part, 45-minute qualifying, Verstappen was once again on top \u2014 but not with the fastest time of the session.<\/p>\n

F1 qualifying is divided into three \ufeffperiods of differing duration, labelled Q1, Q2 and Q3.<\/p>\n

At the conclusion of Q1 and Q2, the slowest five drivers \ufeffare eliminated and the existing times are wiped as the remaining 10 drivers compete for pole position in Q3.<\/p>\n

Strategy woes from the legendary constructor have become commonplace in recent years, often leaving the team's leadership red faced.<\/p>\n

\ufeffLeclerc was forced to put on the used set before Q3 as Ferrari started qualifying with just four sets of softs, having used an extra set during practice earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

\"Charles<\/p>\n

The team also \ufeffmisjudged the situation in Q1, believing Leclerc was in danger of being knocked out. Because of this, the team opted to scrub a set of tyres in the final minutes for security.<\/p>\n

A scrubbed tyre has been slightly used, having gone through one heat cycle\ufeff, which can be put back on the car again during a grand prix for more texture and grip.<\/p>\n

Despite the disappointing outcome for Leclerc in the first hit-out of the new season, \ufeffthe summation is positive for Ferrari with the gap between them and Red Bull just above last year's average qualifying margin of 0.12 seconds.<\/p>\n

The race begins at 2am Sunday (AEDT).\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reigning F1 world champion Max Verstappen picked up where he left off at the end of last year, taking pole position for the season-opening Bahrain […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":372074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=372072"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372077,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372072\/revisions\/372077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/372074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=372072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=372072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=372072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}