Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc feels that the Maranello team made the right choice by using the Virtual Safety Car period to make their first pit stop at the Monza circuit in the 2022 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix at the Monza circuit.
Charles secured pole position with a great lap on Saturday, but it soon became clear that the F1-75 car did not have the pace to challenge Red Bull in the race and the Ferrari driver lost the Monza victory to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
The Monegasque kept the lead of the Italian Grand Prix in the first sting, ahead of Max Verstappen, before choosing to pit when the Virtual Safety Car was deployed due to the power unit failure suffered by the Aston Martin of Sebastian Vettel, who was forced to stop his car on the side of the track on Lap 11.
The decision to pit so early and switch from Soft to Medium tyres basically put the Ferrari driver on a two-stop strategy. After the Dutchman made his only pit stop, he was 15 seconds behind Charles, but recovering the gap at a fast pace, thanks to a clearly stronger package for the RB18 challenger.
In an interview after the Italian Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc felt that the Maranello team had no other option but to attempt a two-stop strategy at that moment by using the VSC period, explaining that if they stayed out, Red Bull would have pitted instead:
“Honestly, I think the first choice was to stop under the virtual safety car. We all had the doubts. I think if I wouldn’t have done it, then Max would have done it. It was a bit unfortunate because in the middle of the pit lane, the Virtual Safety Car ended, so we didn’t get all the benefit of stopping at that moment, and from that moment on we were a little bit on the backfoot.” – Charles Leclerc explained, aware that Ferrari need to work on their race pace.
Ahead of the Monza event, the Italian racetrack was seen as more favourable for Red Bull, given the fact that Monza has similar characteristics as the high-speed nature of Spa-Francorchamps, where Red Bull took an easy one-two finish, with Max Verstappen ahead of his teammate Sergio Perez. As a result, there were fears over the F1-75’s competitiveness in Italy.
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Yet Charles Leclerc preferred to look at the positives from the Maranello team’s home race, pointing out that Scuderia Ferrari has still made some steps in the right direction at a circuit which was unlikely to suit the F1-75.
“After Spa, I think we were quite worried that we were very far [away] in qualifying, but also in race pace compared to Red Bull. I think this weekend, we’ve been working massively, especially in FP1 and FP2, trying to test different directions for this car, and it was better. We were fighting for Pole, which was a surprise. The [race] pace was also much better. We cannot forget either that our car is maybe not the best for these types of tracks, but I think it was a positive weekend overall.” – Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc concluded.
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