German automobile magazine ‘Auto Motor und Sport’ explain the sequence of events that led to Ferrari’s strategy decisions in the 2022 Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix:
AMuS feels that Pierre Gasly and Sebastian Vettel choose the perfect time to switch to intermediates, at a moment when they were four seconds faster. Both both Gasly and Vettel did everything correctly in terms of timing, but unfortunately for them they still couldn’t overtake due to the nature of the circuit.
Auto Motor und Sport journalist Michael Schmidt believes that Sergio Perez was “used” by Red Bull to get Scuderia Ferrari to pit too early and favour Max Verstappen, but at the end it turned out very well for the Mexican. Ferrari had two options with Charles: either pitting one lap after Sergio Perez (which would have guaranteed him to stay ahead of the Mexican) or waiting like Carlos Sainz chose to.
Ferrari’s first mistake was calling Charles Leclerc to the pits two laps after Sergio Perez, which made Red Bull’s overcut work, while the second mistake made by the Maranello team was pitting Charles at the same time as Carlos, the gap was too small, so it was obvious that Charles would have needed to wait. The AMuS journalist Schmidt agreed with Ferrari that Carlos Sainz lost a potential win due to being stuck in traffic and he also defended Ferrari a bit.
Carlos Sainz only was able to overtake Nicaloas Latifi in the tunnel, so he was half a lap behind him. Michael Schmidt says that this was not something you can predict this and Sergio Perez was lucky that McLaren pitted Lando Norris right before he approached him, otherwise Sergio Perez would have lost time too.
Michael Schmidt says that Ferrari was rightfully criticized but the criticism was too harsh, because when you are in the lead, you don’t want to give up your position so fast by pitting, especially not on a track like Monaco, where overtaking is very difficult. Red Bull and Sergio Perez had nothing to lose, worst case would have been P4 behind Max Verstappen, which would have still been a a preferred scenario for the Austrian team in case Ferrari remained in front.
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The Maranello team also had to look after Lando Norris and George Russell because Charles would have ended up behind them if he pitted too early. It was not an easy decision to make. The big mistake was that they didn’t pit Charles one lap after Sergio Perez for intermediates,
and if they wanted to go on slicks, they needed to pit Charles before Carlos. AMuS added that Sergio Perez did have a bit of luck with the bad strategy of Ferrari but he also did two excellent outlaps on the intermediates and slick tyres.
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