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Discussion | Leclerc is now the undisputed number one at Ferrari
- GPblog.com
Charles Leclerc managed to get pole position for the second time this season, but this time his teammate was nowhere near it. Due to problems at Ferrari, Carlos Sainz managed to get no further than P9, but because of this, Leclerc's number one position seems all but assured within the team.
With Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, Ferrari has a rock-solid driver duo, both of whom could potentially compete for the title. However, in a season with another strong team, that is just not the best option. Teams therefore choose to designate one driver as the number one pretty quickly and bet all their eggs on that.
After qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, that position seems to be guaranteed to Leclerc. In Q3, the Monegasque was able to outperform his Red Bull Racing rivals to take pole position. Sunday's race will not be easy for Leclerc, as Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez will start P2 and P3 respectively, while Carlos Sainz will start from ninth. So that means no backing for the Ferrari driver.
Lots of bad luck for Sainz
The reason the Spaniard starts only on P9 is a good dose of bad luck during qualifying. Due to Fernando Alonso's crash, Sainz's lap time was just not registered, as the stewards had decided to stop the session through a red flag.
Once qualifying was restarted, there were problems with Ferrari. The team couldn't get the car started, causing the Spaniard to start three minutes later than planned and therefore not having time to warm up his tires properly. Sainz couldn't do anything about it and is angry about the situation, which he also let the team and the press know.
Can Ferrari take criticism now?
The latter will probably not help him much in strengthening his position within the team. At Ferrari, they are historically not very happy when there is a lot of public criticism from the drivers themselves. Under the leadership of Mattia Binotto there does seem to have been a culture change, but it still does not seem to be a useful tactic to be openly angry with the team. Even if it means losing a possible pole position.
The unfavorable starting position for Sainz now gives Charles Leclerc the perfect opportunity to prove that he is the number one driver for Ferrari, which he has already proven in the past two Grands Prix. If he manages to bring in the points, then the choice seems to be made at Ferrari.