What the Ferrari driver said
One Mega Joule less maximum battery charge – from 9 to 8 – to counteract the ‘lift and coast’ phenomenon in qualifying. This is the decision made by FIA for the qualifications of the Japanese GP in Suzuka, a solution which according to the official note issued by F1 states “will ensure that the intended balance between energy use and pilot performance is maintained“.
Charles Leclercpresent at the press conference, commented on this decision as follows, underlining that from his point of view, much more extensive changes are necessary to allow the drivers to once again think about just pushing in qualifying and not managing the energy available throughout the lap: “It will be pretty much the same thing although obviously a little less lift and coast is always positive – said Leclerc – I think for qualifying there are still some changes to make to make sure we can push hard, whatever the limits of the car, but at the moment, in the first two races, it was more about managing everything correctly in qualifying, rather than pushing hard as we were used to doing in Q3 in previous years. I don’t think this particular change will be a game changer for this weekendthere is still some tweaking to do.”
Among the tweaks in question there could be increase the quantity of petrol that feeds the combustion engine via the flow meter in qualifying to allow the latter to increase performance by compensating for the inadequacy and inability of the electrical part to provide sufficient energy to allow the drivers to push from the first to the last meter in the qualifying lap.
