But instead of allowing Leclerc to establish a greater lead, Ferrari opted to keep both drivers holding station and Leclerc’s lap times became compromised due to the dirty air, displaying a plateauing profile.
Sainz was being given target lap times by the team and started to step up the pace before pitting on lap 20. This released Leclerc but the laps behind Sainz looked to have taken their toll on his tires, affecting his pace. The time lost here would have an impact on the key decision that Ferrari made later in the race.
Even so, Leclerc was in overcut range of Sainz and could have pitted soon after to gain the lead, but elected to extend the stint to establish a tire offset and diversify the strategy.
Meanwhile Hamilton continued to hammer out competitive lap times in a consistent fashion.
Leclerc came into the pits on lap 25 and emerged just behind Sainz, as Chart 1 shows, re-establishing Ferrari’s conundrum of what to do about its driver order.
Chart 3, above, shows that Leclerc once again had better pace but Ferrari delayed the swap until lap 30, which finally released Leclerc. Hamilton looked increasingly dangerous, given his pace — and potential pace given that he was yet to stop for fresh rubber.
Chart 4: Hamilton’s pit window for an overcut
Chart 4 provides an altered view of Chart 1, with the added detail of a hypothetical pit window for Hamilton.
The green line shows where Hamilton would have emerged if he had made an additional pitstop on any lap, illustrating that, from laps 25 to 31, he was within the overcut window against both Ferrari drivers — but remained out.
Hamilton’s pace started to max out from lap 30, which coincided with the improved pace of both Ferraris but also when Leclerc found clean air. Sainz and Leclerc were eventually able to increase the gap to Hamilton who would continue to extend his stint until pitting on lap 33.
Helped by a slow Mercedes pitstop, Ferrari still had a buffer to Mercedes at this stage of the race but faced the threat of Hamilton on fresh tires.
This was a fortuitous for Ferrari, given that Leclerc lost bucketloads of time through its tentative approach to team orders, and Mercedes’ decision to maximize the tire offset for a final charge.
Safety car ages the course of the race
But no bailout was bigger for Ferrari than the safety car that came out on lap 39 thanks to Ocon grinding to a halt. It not only neutralized Hamilton’s threat – as shown from his increased trend pace in Chart 3, but it also nullified Sainz’s fuel saving concerns due to the slow laps around the long circuit.
This was, on the other hand, bad news for Leclerc who had eliminated his race lead. And the news for him only got worse.
Chart 5: Telemetry from start of safety car period, Leclerc and Sainz
Chart 6: Telemetry from start of safety car periodLeclerc slow lap vs fast lap
Charts 5 and 6 highlight a driver’s position on track relative to the pit lane entry between turns 15 and 16, helping to estimate how much time was available to make the decision to pit.
The sudden reduction in speeds shown on Chart 5, illustrates that the safety car signal was live for Leclerc as he was going through Turn 15 while Sainz was on the Hangar Straight.
Chart 6 looks at the difference in Leclerc’s telemetry traces between lap 39 (the first lap of the safety car) and lap 38 (last full green flag lap). The first race in Chart 6 shows that Leclerc loses about 8 seconds between the apex of Turn 15 and just before Turn 16. This gives a reasonable estimation as to the amount of time that Ferrari had to make and communicate the decision to Leclerc.