Scuderia Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur admitted that the Italian side will have to look into the “miscommunication” that affected Charles Leclerc last Sunday at the Jeddah Corniche circuit in the 2023 Formula 1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The unfortunate moment took place incident unfolded when Lewis Hamilton pitted under the Safety Car, which was sent to the track as a result of the technical failure suffered by Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin on Lap 18 of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The Monegasque driver started from P12 in Jeddah and had a solid first stint on the soft tyres, overtaking several cars, including the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, who was running on the hard tyres.
Charles Leclerc was therefore ahead of Lewis Hamilton before his stop but emerged behind the Mercedes who pitted under the Safety Car, with the Monegasque having been informed too late by his race engineer Xavier Marcos Padros that he should have pushed from “Safety Car line one”.
A clearly displeased Charles Leclerc replied “you need to tell me that before”, and then added: “No, but come on!”
The Ferrari man had to settle for a seventh place finish in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, just behind his Maranello teammate Carlos Sainz, as both SF-23 cars had a poor race pace on the hard tires in the second stint of the race.
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Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur admitted that the incident cannot be considered a “good call”, but at the same time he pointed out that he did not want to dwell too much on this moment: incident.
“Yes, it was not a good call,” the French manager confirmed, in an interview following the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the Jeddah Corniche circuit – “It is like it is. It’s not the main issue and I think it would be a mistake from our side to focus on [it]. I don’t want to say it’s details. It was a miscommunication and we will have to speak, to fix it. It’s not the main issue at all over the weekend.” – the Ferrari boss explained.
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