“Max fought with a knife, Leclerc with a gun” former dutch racer, Tom Coronel opines on Verstappen-Leclerc battle
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Max and Charles
Former dutch motorsports racing driver now turned F1 Pundit Tom Coronel has recently given his view on Max and Charles’s battle and has phrased it by saying that Max brought a “knife to a gunfight“.
Ferrari has been on point since the start of the pre-season testing for the 2022 season and since then has not missed a single beat in terms of the performance of their car. The F1-75 is working “exceptionally” well and things are looking promising ahead of the upcoming Australian Grand Prix.
Red Bull, on the other hand, played it safe during testing where they didn’t show their full potential and during the inaugural Grand Prix of the 2022 season, Red Bull looked the second test to Ferrari even before the fuel pump issue that caused both their cars to retire.
However, things have changed quickly for the Milton Keynes team as they were able to secure the first win of the season in Saudi Arabia with Max Verstappen.
As per Tom Coronel, going forward things are looking promising for the Red Bull team, from the Emilia Romana Grand Prix onwards the RB18 is expected to be 8kgs lighter which will help in making it “go faster.”
Tom Coronel’s thoughts on the Ferrari and Red Bull battle
While talking about Ferrari and Red Bull Tom Coronel has said, “As far as I can see, the Ferrari has been the better car up to now.”
“Max fought with a knife, Leclerc with a gun. Now they both have a gun. I knew they (Red Bull) had a handicap, but that is now solved as it should be. That is very good news. Max can now go into battle.”
Coronel on how the performance of a car is affected by carrying extra weight, “Weight is everything,” added the 50-year-old, a veteran of over 1,000 races who was pipped to an Arrows Formula 1 seat in 2000 by Verstappen’s father, Jos, and Pedro de la Rosa.
“With less weight, you can brake easier and accelerate more easily. You can see how big the difference in lap times is when the cars drive with a half-full fuel tank compared to a full one.”
“I have heard from a very reliable source that they (Red Bull) have solved a good 75% of the problem in recent weeks.”
“Around seven kilos has been removed from the car. I understand they have made the floor lighter and many other components a little lighter.”
“With us in the touring car class, 10kg less weight means you are 0.1sec faster on a lap. Formula 1 cars are a lot lighter, so I calculate the effect is twice as big.”
“If the Red Bull is now 0.2secs per lap faster, that would have made him (Verstappen) 10 seconds faster in Saudi Arabia over 50 laps, added together. That’s how you have to calculate it and then the difference is very big.”
Tom Coronel has given very useful details into how the F1 cars go faster at a lighter weight and from Emilia onwards it seems the Ferrari is going to have their task cut out for them with the introduction of leaner, meaner, and, more importantly, lighter RB18’s.
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Rishabh Negi
(3244 Articles Published)