How did Charles Leclerc beat Lewis Hamilton in the Chinese Grand Prix despite carrying front wing damage all race long from their lap-one clash?
The two Ferraris touched in the sweeping Turns 1-3 as Leclerc had a slide at Turn 2 just as Hamilton came back across the apex, with Leclerc's left-front endplate ripped off.
"Not Lewis's fault at all," was Leclerc's verdict, while Hamilton and team boss Fred Vasseur agreed that it was simply an unfortunate racing incident.
READ: Leclerc now faces disqualification
Leclerc continued with the damage and was faster than Hamilton, to the extent that Ferrari ordered Hamilton to let Leclerc through - which he did at Turn 1 on lap 21 of 56.
That was despite Ferrari having elected not to replace Leclerc's front wing at his pitstop a few laps earlier.
Leclerc's pace faded towards the end of the race as he lost fourth place to Max Verstappen, but he still kept Hamilton, who was charging on fresher hards, at arm's length to secure fifth.
He is however at risk of being disqualified from the race as his car - and Pierre Gasly's Alpine - did not meet the minimum weight post-race.
Why there was no front wing change
Ferrari's decision wasn't taken because Leclerc was faster with the damaged front wing. He was faster than Hamilton in the sister Ferrari but that was more because of specific struggles Hamilton was having ever since making set-up changes after his sprint race victory.
Leclerc had been buoyed by the post-sprint set-up changes made on his side of the garage on Saturday afternoon.
He went from trailing Hamilton in sprint qualifying and in the sprint race, to being within a tenth of Hamilton in grand prix qualifying and then having the superior race pace despite the damage.
Ferrari didn't change Leclerc's front wing because it didn't want to sacrifice track position in a race where that is crucial. Had it done so, Leclerc would have lost track position to Verstappen with the extra five seconds required to change the wing.
Leclerc was struggling all day through the long Turn 12/13 right-hander that leads onto the back straight, so the team couldn't bank on Leclerc simply blasting back past any cars that jumped him while Ferrari fitted a new front wing.
A lost victory chance?
After the race, Leclerc refuted the notion that his Ferrari was faster with the damaged front wing.
"Honestly it wasn't that quick, it felt bad," Leclerc said of his damaged Ferrari.
"I think we were generally quick, we've seen it [in the sprint] with Lewis, saw it with myself towards end of stint where I was very strong.
"All in all we had a really good race car, I did a step with the car and that made it a lot better. I felt there was a lot more potential, destroying fronts [tyres] and [losing] 30 points of downforce is a huge amount.
"I do not expect the car to be faster like that [with damage], otherwise we have a problem."
In fact, Leclerc believed the damage even cost him a shot at challenging the dominant McLarens.
"Honestly I think we had the pace to fight with the guys at the front and when I say the front I mean the McLarens," Leclerc said.
"Lewis has shown it, I think on my side yesterday I was doing a really good job, in qualifying I did a better job and I was looking forward to the race and that the changes I had done would be better for the race.
"It was but unfortunately couldn't use the full potential of it."
So can Leclerc be optimistic that Ferrari can challenge for the title this year with the promise it's shown?
"The problem is we're missing too much in qualifying pace," Leclerc said when asked that question by The Race.
"Again Lewis did a really good job on sprint quali but I think he outperformed a little bit the car, then in [grand prix] quali we saw our real performance, that's where we stand in the short run.
"If we keep doing that, it's going to be very difficult for us to win races because McLaren are much faster on short runs, and I would say similar to us on long runs, so if we start three or four positions behind, it's game over so we've got to improve our short runs."
Where Hamilton's pace went
Vasseur said Leclerc's pace was "encouraging" but called the pace gap between Leclerc's damaged Ferrari and Hamilton's Ferrari "strange".
He added: "Lewis had good tyre management yesterday and was struggling with the pace much more today.
"It's difficult to understand and read but we can also take the positive of pace Charles had without the front wing."
The set-up changes Hamilton made after his sprint race victory appeared to backfire.
Hamilton described the Ferrari as "really, really hard to drive" after qualifying three tenths off pole on Saturday.
There was hope those set-up changes would have a bigger benefit on Sunday with Hamilton promising to hatch a "masterplan" to win on Saturday night.
That obviously did not transpire on Sunday and Hamilton conceded the post-sprint set-up changes doomed his race.
"I was struggling with performance," Hamilton told Sky Sports Italia.
"We had a pretty decent car in the sprint and then we made some changes because we're trying to move forward and improve the car and made it quite a bit worse basically, going into qualifying then it was even worse in the race.
"Very hard to keep up with the guys ahead, lots to learn.
"Charles tested something in Bahrain, I hadn't tested it but we both went for it and it was bad. So I know not to do that again."
