Scuderia Ferrari has provided some details regarding the thinking behind the decision to mount the hard tyres on the F1-75 car of Charles Leclerc in the second part of Sunday’s Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring racetrack in Mogyorod, which eventually led to Charles losing not only the race win, but also a place in the top five.
Charles Leclerc began the race from third place on the mediums and kept P3 during the first stint of the race, but gain a place after teammate Carlos Sainz lost some time at the first round of pitstops. As a result of a five-lap tyre delta, Charles Leclerc was able to catch race leader George Russell and overtake him for the lead, going on to create a solid five-second gap at the head of the field.
After Red Bull decided to call Max Verstappen in for his second pit stop, Ferrari also brought Charles Leclerc into the pits at the end of lap 39, and at this stage had to fit hard tyres given the fact that Ferrari stared on the mediums, but due to the cold conditions in Budapest the hards struggled to get up to temperature.
This meant that Charles had no chance of defending against title rival Max Verstappen, who had started 10th, before losing more and more time as the stint wore on. Ferrari was aware that things would not improve and brought him in for a third stop before ultimately finishing sixth.
Ferrari F1 team principal Mattia Binotto confirmed the Maranello team’s simulations said that while the hards would indeed be difficult to get up to temperature in the first laps, they should have been the better tyre for the final part of the race: “When we fitted the hard, our simulation was that it could have been a difficult couple of laps of warm-up. It would have been slower to the medium for 10-11 laps, and then it would have come back and been faster than the end of the stint, and it was a 30-lap stint. We were trying to protect position on Max. It would have been too long certainly for the softs. Yes, it would have been difficult at the start of the stint, but it would have come back by the end.” – Mattia Binotto added.
Charles Leclerc confirmed at the end of the Hungarian Grand Prix that he felt his pace on the medium tyres was still strong and he would have wanted to continue on this tyre for as long as possible, only for Ferrari to go the other way and call him in for the hards. The result at the Hungaroring means Charles Leclerc is now 80 points behind Max Verstappen at the top of the drivers’ championship ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, which will take place at Spa after the summer break.
Charles Leclerc was not the first driver to use the hards today, as several drivers encountered difficulties because of the unusually cold weather on Sunday in Budapest, especially the Alpine cars of Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon, both of whom lost time during first part of their stints.
When if the Italian side had observed what Alpine’s hard tyre struggles and considered not pitting to cover Max Verstappen, Mattia Binotto explained: “Yes, we discussed it, so it’s not that [the strategy] is all written in stone. During the race and looking at what’s going on, we have as well looked at what was happening with the other hard tyres. We took all considerations, we discussed what would have been best and that’s the choice that we made. It certainly was not the right one today.” – he added.
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At the same time, the Ferrari boss pointed out that the biggest problem for his team today was not represented by the strategy calls, but rather by the F1-75 car’s lack of pace compared to what was seen in the first two practice sessions on Friday, when Charles Leclerc had set the fastest time and impressed over the long runs.
“It’s important to say that we believe that the car was not working as expected. We didn’t have the speed we were hoping for looking back at the Friday, and the pace we had in the race conditions on Friday. So today was certainly different conditions, a lot cooler. But overall the speed today was not great enough, and whatever tyres we were using, I don’t think we were as good as we were looking for.” – Mattia Binotto concluded.
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