(Motorsports news) The Italian team, Ferrari, needed both cars to score highly in order to make up the four-point disadvantage they had over Mercedes going into the race. However, Sainz, Charles Leclerc’s teammate, was unable to score any points, finishing second behind Max Verstappen. The Brackley team maintained their lead with George Russell finishing third and Lewis Hamilton finishing ninth.
Following a dissatisfying Q1 session in which Sainz qualified sixteenth, Ferrari started the Spaniard on hard tires. But because of his slow speed, the team stopped him before they had intended to and gave him another set of the same concoction. As a result, the Ferrari left him out until the very last minute in the hopes that a safety car would provide him with an inexpensive stop. He was thus committed to a second pit visit for mediums.
Ultimately, Sainz’s opportunity was lost, and on the last lap, he entered the pits. After dropping out of the points, Ferrari officially retired him due to an engine issue. Vasseur said that Sainz, who had a significant crash in FP2, was just lacking pace and that the strategy wasn’t to blame for his dismal performance. “When you have to pit on lap 20, you have no other option than to put on a second set of hards because if you put on mediums, you will have to pit on lap 30,” he stated.
“And the choice was to apply extreme pressure and anticipate that we would have a safety car or red flag. I’m not sure if that was a plan. “The problem is that pace, not strategy, was the determining factor. Today’s speed wasn’t appropriate, and all of the tactics used here are ineffective.” With reference to Sainz’s initial stop schedule, he stated: “Lap 35 or something like, in the opposite order as the others.
Starting on the medium instead of the hard, Vasseur insisted, would not have changed anything. “You can always try to redo the race and say that, but I don’t think so,” he replied. “I believe that the pace—rather than the difficulty or medium—was the problem. With the same tires as Charles, he was moving forward. Ferrari has a problem, and we must identify the problem. It was by no means the strategy.”
Expanding on the underwhelming performance, Vasseur emphasized that the title result wasn’t determined at the end of the tournament. “For sure, Carlos was out of pace today; that is clear, and Ferrari has to understand why,” he stated. “But to be honest, we didn’t miss anything today. If you look at the championship, I believe that the events were difficult.
“In terms of speed, we had Miami and Zandvoort, and there were occasions when we experienced a dependability problem, which was far more agonizing than it is now. We were able to battle for the pole position yesterday because of our team’s outstanding speed today. Almost the entire race, we had fights with the Red Bull. I doubt that there was anything we overlooked today.
Also read: Norris: “Impressive” to crash into Perez after purposefully allowing Red Bull to pass
