With Purple Bull having already secured the Constructors’ Championship, and Max Verstapping locking up his third-straight Drivers’ Championship together with his second-place end in Saturday’s Dash race on the Qatar Grand Prix, the largest little bit of Method 1 drama remaining is the battle for second between Mercedes and Ferrari.
Mercedes entered this week simply 20 factors forward of Ferrari, however elevated that result in 26 with the ends in Saturday’s F1 Dash race. A part of that was as a result of a five-second penalty given to Charles Leclerc, which dropped the Ferrari driver out of the factors.
Now they’ve a fair larger benefit in that battle in Sunday’s Grand Prix, due to some disastrous information for Carlos Sainz Jr.
Resulting from a gasoline leak in his SF-23, Sainz might be unable to start out Sunday’s Grand Prix. That leaves Leclerc as their solely hope for factors within the race:
If that weren’t dangerous sufficient, Leclerc is slated to start out Sunday’s race in fifth place, behind the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. Russell is slated to start out on the entrance row alongside pole-sitter Max Verstappen, whereas Hamilton is simply behind them, beginning in third.
That is shaping as much as be a strong week for Mercedes, and a disastrous one for Ferrari.
Except Leclerc can pull a rabbit out of his hat.
