Leclerc loses touch in F1 title race after 'unacceptable' mistake: 2022 French GP report

“Of course the lead we have is great, but it’s probably a bit bigger than what it should have been when you look at the car performances between the two cars.”

Max Verstappen’s words after the French Grand Prix were so true, as he once again profited from a rival’s error, and took full advantage.

The defending champion had been confident pre-race that he had the car to overtake Charles Leclerc for victory after being on the back foot in Austria, and in the opening laps it felt like a matter of time before he moved past the Ferrari.

Verstappen had been forced to defend from Lewis Hamilton on the run to Turn 1 as the Mercedes made a fast start, but in some ways it was a benefit to the top two as Hamilton’s presence in third gave them a buffer as they edged away.

Leclerc couldn’t get outside DRS range of Verstappen, with the Red Bull particularly quick in a straight line. But Ferrari had opted for a higher downforce set-up – a reason it wanted to employ the tow in qualifying – and Leclerc would gain some of the advantage back in the final sector to just pull the gap out enough to be able to defend.

As the opening stint wore on, the dynamic started to change. Leclerc started to look comfortable even with Verstappen on his gearbox, and then began to edge away, First out of DRS range, then nearly a second.

The first stint had been deemed crucial because of the high temperatures, with a need to extend as much as possible to make the preferred one-stop strategy work. Not even contact between Esteban Ocon and Yuki Tsunoda at the Turn 8/9 chicane in the middle of the Mistral Straight could deliver a safety car that would make the opening phase easier, and soon Verstappen took to the pits.

Stopping on Lap 16 suggested a potential two-stop strategy, or a stint that would require high levels of management. But we were never to find out which would threaten Leclerc more, as he became his own worst enemy.

With the strategy playing out perfectly for Ferrari, Leclerc inexplicably dropped it at Beausset, the long, fast right-hander after Signes. The Ferrari swapped ends and he slid head-on into the barrier. After a panicked radio message to his team, the race leader let out a scream of frustration: “NO!”

In an instant, he’d thrown away a golden opportunity for back-to-back victories.

“A mistake, a mistake,” Leclerc admitted. “I’ve been saying I think I’m performing at my highest level in my career but if I keep doing those mistakes then it’s pointless to perform at a very high level. I’m losing too many points.

“Seven in Imola, 25 here because we probably were the strongest car on track today so if we lose the championship by 32 points at the end of the season I will know from where they are coming from. And it is unacceptable, I just need to get on top of those things.”

He really does, because the battle between Leclerc and Verstappen could be so thrilling, but instead the race had fallen into the championship leader’s lap.

The majority of the field used the safety car period to make a pit stop, and Ferrari tripped up again with a slow one for Carlos Sainz — suddenly promoted into the race after starting on the back row — and then an unsafe release into the path of a Williams.

The five-second time penalty that followed was inevitable and meant that even as Sainz quickly cleared Daniel Ricciardo, Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso in the space of two laps after the restart, he would be an outsider for the podium spots.

That’s because Sergio Perez was struggling in third place but still had the Red Bull’s top speed as a strong defence mechanism, and Sainz had George Russell to contend with first. After clearing the Mercedes around the outside of Signes with a lovely move, Sainz agreed to a two-stop race as long as the decision was made quickly.

But just as Ferrari told Sainz to pit, he found a way past Perez around the outside of the penultimate corner to move into third place.

The hard-tyre running Verstappen and Hamilton were well clear of the battle for third and 10 seconds apart. The problem was that unlike them, Sainz was on the medium compound and facing a potential performance drop-off. So Ferrari stuck with its plan, and a lap later called the Spaniard into the pits for a new set of mediums with 10 laps remaining.

“I don’t know why we boxed, we would have pulled away,” Sainz said after having to take his time penalty at the same point, demoting him to P9.

While the Ferrari made quick work of the Alpines and McLarens once again, he was never going to regain touch with the top four, and had to settle for adding the fastest lap. So instead it was left to Russell to provide the action in the podium fight.

A lunge from Russell to the inside of the chicane saw Perez squeeze him towards the apex, and the Mercedes driver couldn’t quite get the car stopped in time before reaching the edge of the road, forcing Perez off. While Russell complained over team radio, Perez had left just enough space on entry and the stewards agreed to let them race on.