Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz concur on the inconsistencies faced during the course of F1 Miami GP due to wind direction changes.
The struggle for Ferrari’s Leclerc was seen more than Sainz, but post the F1 Miami GP, they both concurred facing inconsistencies during the course of the grand prix. They couldn’t push at their own will, but was being dictated by the conditions and the car.
The inconsistencies was so much that Leclerc had to battle hard against Haas’ Kevin Magnussen for most part of the grand prix. He even lost to Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton towards the end to be seventh from where he started the Miami GP.
“Yes, we were speaking just now with Carlos and what we are lacking is consistency from the car,” said Leclerc to media. “The car is, not even from corner to corner, it is just in the same corner I can have a huge oversteery balance and then a huge understeery balance and our car is so wind-effected, other than that, for some reason this is off because it is not something I have had for the rest of the weekend so we’ll have to check the car.
“But I had a lot of bottoming especially in high speeds which is something I can’t quite explain because I didn’t have that in qualifying. So, this we’ll have a look at in the data. On the medium tyres too, it was the same, at the end of the hards once the graining cleared up a bit it was a tiny bit better but we are just lacking pace and consistency,” summed up Leclerc.
Teammate Sainz was fighting for podium places until his penalty and subsequent inconsistencies on his side. It allowed Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso to pass him and be in a comfortable position to end up third, but the Ferrari driver agreed with Leclerc.
“He revealed it then,” said Sainz. “It’s very tough for us at the moment. I had a super encouraging and exciting first stint pushing Fernando and thinking that we could actually battle him and stay ahead of the Mercedes for the race. Then we went for the undercut and having to push those first three laps after the pit stops killed my tyres and it was just a very long stint from there to the end.
“We were battling inconsistencies of the wind, with the unpredictability of the car, with the overheating of the tyre, which means we have very little flexibility in the race to play around with other cars with the strategy. And I think we paid the price of maybe pitting those five laps too early to undercut Fernando,” summed up Sainz.
Here’s Charles Leclerc and Kevin Magnussen fighting: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2023-miami-grand-prix-leclerc-and-magnussen-swap-positions-three-times-in-running-battle.1765269138554318099.html
Here’s Carlos Sainz being passed by George Russell: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2023-miami-grand-prix-george-russell-enjoys-move-on-carlos-sainz-for-p4.1765274512016616430.html
Here’s how F1 Miami GP panned out
