kleefton wrote:
j man wrote:
Ricciardo. Some excellent overtaking early in the race which ultimately earned him 4th place ahead of Raikkonen.
Special mention to Perez as well. I thought FI had blown it when they pitted and ended up at the back but the two of them did well to fight back through the midfield.
It also caught my attention that Ericsson was able to make the medium tyres last the rest of the race following his early pitstop while Leclerc was not.
Dude Ericsson ran into the back of Leclerc inexplicably and Leclerc got hit by Magnussen. How can you make that comparison? Leclerc's race was compromised so much because if Magnussen didn't cause significant damage to his car, Ericsson certainly did. . And let's face it, he is always in a different league as Ericsson. So whenever they are close, you have to know something is up.
I think j man had a perfectly reasonable point. Ericsson did pretty much no damage to Leclerc when he contacted him, but did to his own car. And Leclerc's comments talking about Ericsson in the interview afterwards was this "Well, in his defence, I think I was also quite surprised by how much everyone slowed down in the last point of breaking, so i nearly went into the car in front and then Marcus probably just ran that bit faster and ran into me. Hopefully it didn't end up any worse than that but I don't think there is anyone to blame there."
Leclerc pitted and got a new front wing (the only part that was damaged by the Magnussen - also neither were deemed at fault more than the other for this). After this, Ericsson did hit Leclerc, but only hit Leclerc's left rear tyre by the look of it. And Leclerc's pace after that still looked decent so given his front wing was fixed form Magnussens's contact and he got didn't really get any damage form Ericsson, I think his car was fine.
While Ericsson's pace wasn't clearly any better than Leclerc's he most certainly did manage his tyres better. While Ericsson isn't good at many things, this is one of the things he is often excellent at. I'd say that overall after they both pitted, Ericsson did a better job. But if that Magnussen clash hadn't happened, I think it is more likely that Leclerc would have beaten him. But then again, Ericsson has a huge amount of experience here even before formula 1. So if Leclerc did struggle a little like he did and Ericsson managed to do a risky strategy, it is also possible that Ericsson would have beaten him.
Also saying
always in a different league to Ericsson is a bit silly. More like almost always. and that is in qualifying. There have been at least 5 weekends where Ericsson has looked better overall (one significantly better) and one or two others where their race pace has looked pretty even. In the races, I'd only say he's dominated him in about half of them. He's been much closer or better in some others. Still, I agree Leclerc is way better and will certainly improve.
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