Former Mercedes vice-president Norbert Haug was interviewed after the Monaco Grand Prix, when Charles Leclerc started from pole position and kept an early lead in Monte Carlo, before everything went wrong due to a Ferrari strategy which led to the Monégasque driver finished outside the podium and becoming furious over team radio. Charles admitted after the race that he was “hurt” by “too many mistakes” made by Ferrari in Monaco.
Ferrari decided to call Charles Leclerc in on a drying track to change the full wets with intermediate tyres, but only three laps later the Maranello team once again called him to the box for slicks. At the last moment his race engineer informed him to stay out, but it was already too late, as the Monegasque driver had already entered the pit lane, in a move which sent him to fourth place, behind his Maranello teammate Carlos Sainz and the two Red Bull cars of Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen.
Carlos Sainz had anticipated the right strategy call and in the end he was able to salvage a second place finish, but could have even won the race had it not been for the Williams of Nicholas Latifi who held him up atva key moment of the race in Monaco.
Norbert Haug beieves the preesure at Ferrari is affecting the performance of the team, as has been the case several time regardless of the people working for the Maranello team:
“What Ferrari did in Monaco will certainly not go down in motorsport history as a great moment of strategy, but rather as a stroke of genius that was as unnecessary as it was self-manufactured,” Norbert Haug told RND – “From the outside, it seems there is so much pressure internally at Ferrari to make decisions particularly well, when perfectly normal decisions would be a much better choice. Ferrari certainly tripped themselves up in Monaco, turning a sure win for their title contender Leclerc into a fourth-place finish and giving his rival Max Verstappen a completely unnecessary and, in the worst case scenario, possibly World Championship-deciding gift. Unfortunately, it is part of Ferrari’s history that such blunders happen from time to time and thus torpedo otherwise brilliant results. At the next race, the pressure will not be less in this way.” – he added.
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Ferrari is now focused on the Azerbaijan Grand Prix which takes place this weeke, as Charles Leclerc hopes to recover the nine points gap to Max Verstappen at the top of the Drivers’ Championship. Scuderia Ferrari is trailing Red Bull by 36 points in the Constructors’ standings.
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