Disappointing result
Even the Principality of Monaco, a circuit that on paper should have been more favorable to Ferrari compared to the early races of the 2023 Formula One season, did not bring joy to the team from Maranello. The Monaco race ended with a result even more bitter for Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz than what they experienced in the already disappointing qualifying session yesterday: the local idol crossed the finish line in sixth position – the same position he started in – while the Spaniard even dropped from fourth to eighth position, partly due to a couple of avoidable driving errors.
Distant podium
Emblematic of the day for Ferrari was the fact that George Russell, despite a five-second penalty, managed to comfortably defend his fifth place from the assault of the two red cars. At the end of this challenging day, Ferrari’s team principal, Frederic Vasseur, also spoke, overall defending the performance of his drivers and the red team, highlighting how – when the rain poured down on the Principality – the Maranello team tried to take some risks to aim for a podium. However, those risks ultimately didn’t pay off.
Fred Vasseur’s comments
“It’s difficult to have a clear picture at this point,” Fred Vasseur commented to the microphones of Sky Sport F1 at the end of the 2023 Monaco Grand Prix on Monte Carlo – “The drivers haven’t even spoken. It was certainly a chaotic race. I think the first stint was good, Carlos tried to push a couple of times on Ocon but got stuck behind him,” emphasized the head of the Ferrari pit wall, “and he saw Alonso and Verstappen pulling away from him.”
“We stayed behind with no chance to overtake,” Fred Vasseur added, “and then when the rain arrived, we decided to take a risk because we were fifth and sixth, and we could have ended up seventh or third, so we took a risk. The conditions were difficult to manage because no one had such bad weather forecasts. Mistakes? There were a couple of incidents, even George Russell went off. That’s how it went here; now we focus on Barcelona. There, we return to a normal track. The pace in qualifying was good here, and we will try to replicate it in Spain, where we will bring some updates that we hope can give us something more in terms of performance,” the French manager concluded.
Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection! Click here to enter the F1 online Store and shop securely! And also get your F1 tickets for every race with VIP hospitality and unparalleled insider access. Click here for the best offers to support Charles and Carlos from the track!
