"It was painful to watch"- F1 pundit on Charles Leclerc's struggles at 2022 F1 Belgian GP

Charles Leclerc of Monaco and Ferrari arrives at the circuit and walks in the Paddock prior to practice ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of The Netherlands at Circuit Zandvoort (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)

Martin Brundle has criticized Ferrari's performance at the 2022 Belgian GP, stating that their strategic blunder caused Charles Leclerc to lose fifth place.

Describing the unfortunate beginning of the Monegasque driver's race, Brundle wrote in his column:

“Charles Leclerc had another race to forget, sadly. A visor rip off in his brake duct, reportedly likely discarded by Max Verstappen, forced him to pit under the safety car deployed when Hamilton's Mercedes cried enough after its aerial activities and Nichola Latifi had forced Valtteri Bottas into the gravel trap.”

The Sky Sports F1 pundit pointed out that Charles Leclerc probably had Max Verstappen’s visor rip-off stuck in his brake duct, which hurt his performance. He felt it was quite painful to watch Ferrari commit another strategic blunder, costing their title contender a fifth-place finish on the final lap.

Commenting further on Charles Leclerc and his performance in Belgium, Brundle wrote:

"Leclerc was now out of sync with the race but still very much on for fifth place albeit struggling with tyres. Then the team (presumably) decided to go for the fastest lap point, which put him behind Alonso and needing to overtake.

"He missed beating Verstappen's fastest lap by six-tenths of a second, and attracted a pit lane speed infringement consigning him to sixth place. It was painful to watch."

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Martin Brundle feels visor rip-offs need controlling, Ferrari need to change their strategy with Charles Leclerc

Martin Brundle believes there needs to be a rule or some form of control over drivers' tendency to discard rip-offs or visor tear-offs on the track.

Max Verstappen's visor, discarded during the first lap chaos, reportedly made its way to the brake duct in Charles Leclerc's car.

Brundle recalled that there used to be a pocket in the cockpit to discard the visor tear-off shields during his time in F1. According to him, it is unfair that a competitor's race could be harmed by discarded disposable plastic.

Recommending a solution for the visor tear-off disposal, Brundle said:

"These visor rip offs need controlling and at least it should be mandatory to write the driver's name on each one. The onboard cameras, like Speedway riders, have a sliding film cassette of plastic to restore visibility from oil, insects, spray and mud etc, although this would likely be too heavy for an F1 lid.

"Somewhere in my memory bank, these used to have to be put in a pocket or retained with Velcro inside the cockpit, as it's not fair to discard them and ruin somebody else's race."

Brundle also analyzed Ferrari’s strategy for Charles Leclerc and said:

"Ferrari claim they need to change nothing on the pit wall calls but if you keep doing the same thing don't be surprised when you get the same result.

"Fully respecting that we only hear selected radio calls on the TV, but the Ferrari team appears to want Leclerc to make the final decisions on tyres when he doesn't have the full set of data because he's rather busy driving."

Brundle believes Ferrari need to make some changes to the pit wall after the numerous blunders they have made this season. He also thinks they need to stop letting Leclerc make strategy calls while he is driving when they have enough data available to make those decisions themselves.