Despite acknowledging that the Scuderia made “too many mistakes” last Sunday in the Hungarian Grand Prix, Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur has come to the Maranello team’s defense regarding the strategy decisions which were made at the Hungaroring circuit in Budapest.
During a challenging weekend at the Hungaroring racing track, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz had to settle for seventh and eighth places, respectively, despite the fact that expectations were different before the Budapest trip.
Carlos Sainz showcased a remarkable start, quickly advancing from 11th on the first lap, capitalizing on the Soft tires he started with. However, his progress halted due to the poor pace of the SF-23 cars and he eventually lost ground to Mercedes’ George Russell later in the race. On the other hand, Charles Leclerc faced a dismal afternoon.
Although the Monegasque finished sixth on track, he was later demoted to a position behind George Russell’s Mercedes due to a five-second time penalty that he received for speeding in the pit lane during his final pit stop at the Hungaroring. Moreover, a 9.4-second stop during his first tire change further hindered Charles Leclerc’s performance and chances of fighting for a top five finish, leaving him approximately 20 seconds behind his expected minimum race time.
“I think that first, we will need time to understand what we did right and wrong,” – the Ferrari boss explained when asked to reflect on the strategy calls made by the Maranello team in the Hungarian Grand Prix – “The format was different and it’s not so easy to analyse the perfect weekend and you need to get all the results to be able to do a retro-engineering on this. But on our side it’s much more the fact that we made too many mistakes from the beginning to the end. It’s not just about the pit stop or the pit entry or the quali or the management of the tyres. The potential was probably better than what we showed [on Saturday]. At least with Charles, we lost 20 seconds in the race.” – the French manager pointed out.
The Italian side faced criticism on social media for their handling of Carlos Sainz during the Hungarian Grand Prix, as the Maranello team did not allow the Spaniard a free pass despite using the softer compound of tires in the first stint.
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Following Charles Leclerc’s sluggish pit stop, his teammate managed to overtake him and was running in front of Charles before the final stint. However, during the subsequent round of pit stops, Carlos Sainz was pitted second out of the two, sacrificing his track position as the Monegasque took advantage of the powerful undercut in Budapest.
“It was the best way for us to protect the result of the team.” – the French manager believes, as explained in his post-race interviews – “At the end of the race, if you have a look, I think that the potential of Charles, considering the fact that Carlos has to start with soft and how we were with the life that Charles would have finished probably 20 seconds ahead of Carlos, it means that it was a good choice.” – he continued.
When asked if Ferrari would have done things differently without the problems encountered by Charles Leclerc, Fred Vasseur replied: “Nobody can predict before the call that you will get the penalty, you will have the issue with the wheel gun and so on. It’s always easy to redo the race after the chequered flag and to say it would have been different. But I think at this stage it was the right call and I’m still convinced.” – the Ferrari team principal concluded.
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