“We finish this race disappointed, we wanted a better result. On paper, this track could have been favourable for us, but already on Saturday we weren’t perfect with Charles” – explained Mattia Binotto, Team Principal Ferrari, at the Sky Sport microphones after the race in Portimao GP: “With Sainz we wanted to try an undercut that didn’t work. More than a strategic error, there was an excess of ambition in wanting to overtake Norris at that moment of the race , when perhaps we could have been more patient ”.
An “excess of ambition”, paid dearly with the eleventh final position of the Spaniard who lost 5 positions (Leclerc, Ocon, Alonso, Ricciardo, Gasly) in the final part of the race. Scoring zero points both for his world championship and above all for that of the team.
In the last few hours Mattia Binotto wanted to reiterate to part of the team that, at least, at this time of the season it is not necessary to be so aggressive in terms of strategies, in order to avoid giving points to McLaren.
Especially when there is a possibility that the risk does not pay. On lap 20 Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc were already in sixth and seventh position, against the fifth and tenth of the two McLaren standard bearers. Positions that would have allowed us to earn points against the Woking team.
More conservative, as the Italian team had been in Imola by using the Mediums on both SF21 cars at the restart and still taking home an excellent fourth and fifth position ( even though the SF21 deserved more overall ). Concluding the GP with the Soft would have been a good question mark.
The Woking team, after gaining just one point in Imola, gained another 4 ahead in Portimao, now reaching +11.
The excess of ambition was not so much in the use of the Medium , compound then chosen by all the drivers who started on Soft (in addition to Sainz, also Norris, Gasly and Vettel), except Ocon (Alpine). In this respect, Ferrari are trying to understand in detail the setup errors committed between Friday and Saturday since this is the cause of the failure of that strategy.
But why try an undercut so early, with 44 laps still to go and above all against a car, the MCL35M, very kind on the tires (Imola on Soft, an example).
Because on Sunday in Portimao the teams entered the race with much less certainty than the other GPs. Mainly due to the asphalt.
Obviously to (almost) everything there is always an explanation. Head of Race Strategy Ferrari, Inaki Rueda , said it directly in the usual post-GP debriefing.
“The two drivers started with different tires, Carlos had the soft and Charles the medium. After the Safety Car, we found ourselves with the two cars behind Norris and with the strategy we wanted to make the race as difficult as possible for the McLaren driver, ” said the Spanish engineer after the race.
Carlos Sainz’s stop should have led, in theory, to overtaking Norris, while Charles Leclerc would have done so towards the end of the race thanks to the better performance of the Hard compared to the McLaren driver’s Medium.
“We stopped Carlos on lap 20 and forced Norris to stop on the next lap. Meanwhile, Charles was in clean air and we stopped him five laps later to mount hard tires. The strategy was to take advantage of those younger tires at the end of the race”.
The plan didn’t work.
In these hours the teams are flying to Barcelona where next weekend there will be a very important fourth round of this, for now, exciting 2021 Formula 1 season. An excellent test bench for everyone.
At Ferrari there is a great desire to redeem the last two weekends, Imola and Portimao , where less was achieved than was shown and hoped for. Remembering that to reach the third place in the constructors standings there are still 20 battles and not 20 wars. Because war can also be won, even if you lose some battles.
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