Ok still as a newb, this drove me a little nuts.
Seeing Max go from 2secs back to 4-5secs behind Lando and Scahrles stayig 2.3-2.5 behind max was nuts to me. Was Lando pulling that much away? Were Max and Charles losing the same amount of time to him? It felt like Charles should have been able to close that gap and challenge for P2 with the issues Max was having.
Landon got his tires on Lap 30
Max got his tires 6 laps earlier on Lap 24
Charles got his tires 9 laps earlier on Lap 21
So it isn't really that surprising that Lando was able to expand his lead with fresher tires
That Charles was able to keep the margin steady behind Max with 3 lap older tires that actually probably speaks to the issues Max was having because otherwise it would be expected that Max would have pulled away.
-QG