stormybadger8 said:Not even close. 🙂🤣
Look, it’s one thing being noticeably slower than Leclerc (since the Ferrari was clearly the faster car compared to the RB), but it’s a massive problem that he was significantly slower than Perez...
If you actually think you're fighting for a championship, getting beaten in Monaco qualifying by your own teammate—especially a teammate who usually struggles in qualifying—is honestly unacceptable.
Go ahead and keep singing those little songs about how Max was the fastest in Monaco qualifying if it makes you feel better. Maybe one day you'll actually believe it yourself...
But don't worry, I'm sure nobody else on the planet is going to buy into that nonsense.
You are really exaggerating here.
Max is leading the championship, and he's doing it despite having two DNFs. If it weren't for those DNFs, he would have had a podium in every single race. He would have three wins, two second-place finishes, and one third. But sure, let's pretend Monaco is a preview of how the whole championship will end up.
What does it matter if he was slower than his teammate this weekend, or if there will be more races like this? And why does it matter that it happened in Monaco, where a win carries such huge weight for the standings?
What if Max had crushed him in Monaco, only for Perez to beat him in the next race in Baku? Is that not a problem then?
graniteharbor502 said:Does this support the idea:
He finished behind Max because of his own slower lap times. The Pitwall cost him first and second place, but he effectively threw away third place himself.
As the saying goes, it's not about what happened, but how it looks after the fact.🙄
Why don't you go watch the onboard footage of Leclerc's lap following Alex Albon?
But that isn't the only factor either; Leclerc's in-laps and out-laps were actually slower than Max's. He really needed to find more pace there.
He had managed to get his tires up to the ideal temperature, which is precisely why he exited the pits when he did. It is highly probable that he would have shaved more time off his lap and secured either second or third place. Honestly, if he had taken second, I suspect he still would have fought his way to victory, given the sheer pace he displayed during those decisive laps of the race. Sergio Perez mentioned that he couldn't get his tires up to temp on that final lap, so it would have been a struggle for him to improve his standing.
Isn't this just a perfect illustration of everything that feels broken within F1? We constantly see penalties being handed out for these trivialities that have absolutely nothing to do with actual racing on the track. Does anyone actually care if Leclerc missed the scale? If he did, then fine, let them slap him with a fine, but why on earth should they be handing out grid penalties for something like that?
It's all "what ifs."
To me, that doesn't mean anything. We have no way of knowing if the rest of the lap would have stayed competitive.
It's not like he absolutely demolished the first sector by being three tenths faster than everyone else; he was faster by a tenth or less. Given how he drove the whole weekend, it's entirely possible he would have lost that time later on and ended up finishing 3rd or 4th anyway.