“Brembo Group is really surprised by the statements made by Charles Leclerc after F1’s Monaco Grand Prix,” said the Brembo release. “At present, the company does not know the causes of the issues experienced by Charles Leclerc and therefore considers it premature to draw definitive technical conclusions before the available data has been analysed.”
Friction. It’s how brakes slow down the car. It’s also what results between the brake supplier and the team when the latter is dissatisfied with the former’s performance. Especially when the brake supplier, Brembo, has such a long and proud history with said team, Ferrari.
This has all come to a head following Leclerc’s comments about his brakes after crashing out of the race on Sunday. It wasn’t only the crash; through both the Monaco and Montreal weekends, he was complaining about the performance of the brakes, or more specifically, their lack of feel.
There are at least three back stories to this.
Leclerc refused to take the blame for his crash in Monaco
Grand Prix Photo
The first concerns the arrival of Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari and his dissatisfaction with the feel of the brakes throughout last year. It’s always been a particular demand of his as his late-braking driving style relies heavily upon feeling through the pedal exactly what is happening. If he hasn’t got that he cannot properly commit to the corner.
When he arrived at Mercedes in 2013 after six seasons at McLaren, he identified brake feel as the number one target for improvement and although it took them a year, the team was finally able to give him what he needed when it switched his car to Carbon Industrie discs. Team-mate Nico Rosberg preferred the feel of the Brembos and stuck with them.
History repeated with Hamilton’s arrival at Ferrari. Quite aside from not liking the extra engine braking Ferrari had developed its car around, he also disliked the pedal feel on the car’s Brembo discs, and pressed Ferrari for a switch to Carbone Industrie. But that was much more politically difficult than at Mercedes. Brembo and Ferrari are historically enmeshed – something which Brembo’s post-Monaco statement referenced: “The partnership between Brembo and Scuderia Ferrari has continued for more than 50 years and extends to other brands within the group, including AP Racing clutches and Ohlins dampers, confirming the strength and breadth of this long-standing collaboration.”
Brembo took Hamilton’s feedback very seriously and has been experimenting with materials constantly since. They introduced a new material for the rear discs last year, which both drivers felt was an improvement. This year, it has introduced another material change, for the front discs – and it was these which were introduced to Leclerc’s car in Canada.
Meanwhile, there was a Mugello test with CI discs last year, but Hamilton finally got them on his car from Suzuka this year. It was not the work of a moment for team principal Frederic Vasseur to grant Hamilton his wish, something Hamilton referenced on Sunday, saying, “Fred has been awesome in supporting me. I think last year was really tough for both of us, me begging him for certain changes, and he pulled through and he did those and now I’m seeing the fruits of that and I’m able to finally deliver for them.”
Hamilton had a great weekend with the CI brakes
Grand Prix Photo
But while Hamilton is now happy with his new CI discs (with Brembo callipers), Leclerc is not happy with the new-spec Brembo discs developed as a response to Hamilton’s original complaints. Hence his negative comments throughout the Canada and Monaco weekends and he was out-qualified by Hamilton at both events. So that is the chronology of the issue.
Secondly, why the differing preferences between the two drivers? Leclerc has long used extensive brake/cornering overlap together with heavy engine braking as his way of getting quick rotation into corners and his feel for that trade-off is exquisitely good. He’s typically slightly earlier on the brakes than Hamilton but carries great momentum, using his supreme ease with oversteer to correct any consequences of over-rotation without losing that momentum. He needs feel more than bite and in this, Brembos have long been considered the gold standard. But the new ones have not been giving him this.
Hamilton’s style requires more sheer stopping power and when used in extremis, the CI discs give him a firmer pedal. He needs that firm pedal to get the perfect point of rotation because using that style, the window of opportunity to get that perfect transition is narrower. He wants no ambiguity in the pedal feel.
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So they have each evolved their own preferred brake set-up. Now Leclerc’s has been disturbed, ironically as Brembo has attempted to answer the criticism of a driver who is no longer using them.
Thirdly, Leclerc was particularly angry at Monaco even before crashing out. Against the backdrop of the whole brake issue, he was angered by being called to pit from third place under the safety car when he felt he could have stayed out and gone to the end.
The reason Ferrari did that was because it was bringing Hamilton in from second place, so as to fit him with new soft tyres, so that he’d be in a prime position to attack Antonelli on the restart and perhaps steal the win. So an old-tyred Leclerc would have been in the way of that plan. Hence, they brought Leclerc in too and thereby retained the positions they were in before the safety car. It was perfectly logical, but given the whole situation with the brakes, Leclerc understandably did not enjoy being used as the support to his team mate’s victory bid.
Now Leclerc is suggesting he is going to try the CI discs at Barcelona, so this political situation seems far from resolved.
