Former Red Bull expert reveals the MOMENT Leclerc lost Austria pole

The Austrian GP qualifying was closer than expected, with Ferrari posing a genuine threat to Red Bull as Charles Leclerc came within 0.05 seconds of Max Verstappen.

Just to give you a reference of how close that is, a blink of an eye is 0.2s. Let's dive into the data to understand how and where Verstappen edged out his Ferrari rival.

Leclerc v Verstappen, a global perspective

Verstappen and Leclerc were neck to neck for pretty much the entire lap around the Austrian racetrack.

Leclerc pulled out a slight 0.1sec advantage at the exit of turn 4 and turn 9, but lost out to Verstappen on the last turn of the track, where he had to fight the car with a lot of understeer to keep it within track limits. 

So what cost Leclerc the pole?

If we have a closer look at the braking and throttle patterns of the two drivers throughout the entire track, we can notice that while Leclerc brakes around the same braking point as Verstappen, Leclerc is able to get onto the throttle much earlier compared with the Red Bull driver.

This can be vividly seen in the braking points in the plot below. Approaching the last turn, Leclerc brakes slightly later, carries more speed and gets onto the throttle early.

However, he has a small moment which forces him to provide a slight correction on the throttle which then hurts him all the way to the finish line – and this is where Leclerc lost out on the pole to Verstappen. 

Shubham Sangodkar is a former F1 aerodynamicist with a Master's in Racing Car Design specialising in F1 Aerodynamics and F1 Data Analysis. He also posts aerodynamics content on his YouTube channel, which can be found here.

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