The French GP looked happy for Ferrari after Leclerc’s pole position on Saturday, assisted by slipstreaming from Sainz. In the race, the Monegasque held the lead ahead of Verstappen , and controlled the pace to resist the front, but on lap 18 everything changed.
After Max Verstappen made his stop looking for an undercut , Ferrari decided to keep Leclerc out, but the #16, who was pressing the pace looking not to lose too much time with the Dutchman (who was flying with new tyres), lost control of the car in the curve 11 ( Beausset ) and ended up against the circuit wall after going through the asphalt loopholes
As soon as he suffered the accident, Charles Leclerc complained on the radio: “He didn’t back off the throttle! NOOOOOOO!”
Video: the accident that left Leclerc KO in the 2022 French GP of F1
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It would be the second stuck accelerator problem that the driver suffered in his car, after the one that affected him at the end of the recent Austrian GP. However, later before the media he admitted that it was his mistake and probably the accelerator got stuck after the blow, and not before. Be that as it may, this ‘0’ is a gigantic blow to his world championship aspirations, and leaves Max Verstappen with the possibility of adding another victory and another 25 or 26 points that will leave the championship quite on track.
And it is that despite the great start to the season that made him dream of the title, Leclerc has already collected several setbacks this year, three of them especially painful. First, the car let him down when he was placidly leading in Spain, where he lost 25 points that seemed safe; shortly after, he suffered another engine problem when he was also first in Baku, and this Sunday, when he aspired to reduce the distance in the drivers’ championship for the second consecutive race, another new KO that could be definitive.
In short, Leclerc has seen how 75 points and three victories vanished this year, and from having a good advantage at the head of the world championship, he leaves Paul Ricard more than 60 points behind his rival, who little by little begins to have a face of two-time champion
The accident, pending to see if it was due to a car problem or a driving error, reminded all tifosi of the one Vettel suffered four years ago, also in July, when he went off the track while leading the German GP .
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