After several years in which Ferrari has not been able to challenge Red Bull and Mercedes for race victories, not to mention World titles, former Formula 1 driver Ralf Schumacher believes the Maranello team has to “relearn how to make the right decisions”.
Ferrari needed a win in the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix after the power unit failure that prevented Charles Leclerc from taking the victory in Spain, but the Italian side made several key strategy mistakes in Monte Carlo, once again handing the win to rivals Red Bull.
Charles Leclerc was in the lead on the streets of Monte Carlo when the Maranello team called him in to change his full wet Pirelli tyres for intermediates only for the circuit to dry out in just a few laps, which meant the Monegasque driver was again called to the box, this time for slick tyres.
Ferrari therefore gave up track position in the first stop to cover Sergio Perez, who had been running third at that moment of the race. After the pit stops played out, Charles Leclerc found himself in fourth place while Sergio Perez was in the lead and went on to win the Monaco Grand Prix. The other Ferrari of Carlos Sainz was close to taking the lead himself as he only stopped when it was time for slicks but a lap behind the Williams of Nicolas Latifi meant he lost a lot of time against Sergio Perez.
Ralf Schumacher shared his thoughts on the Monaco Grand Prix, in his latest Sky Deutschland column:
“The Monaco GP was ultimately decided by a strategic mistake by Ferrari in the pits. It was decided to split the two Ferraris and to proceed with different tyre tactics. It initially made sense for Charles Leclerc as he was very fast on the rain tyres. The mistake was that they reacted too late to Sergio Perez’s undercut. Carlos Sainz wanted to run the slicks and not intermediates. Charles should have just stayed out longer. As it was, the chaos was perfect [for Red Bull] and Sergio Perez won.”
The former Formula 1 driver added: “In the fight for the World Championship it becomes difficult if you keep making mistakes like this.”
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Ralf Schumacher feels the Monte Carlo race is a sign of the rust that remains on Ferrari after several seasons of fighting in the midfield zone: “For me, this mistake shows one thing above all: Ferrari have to relearn how to make the right decisions when fighting for victory at the front. This is a new situation that they haven’t had in recent years.”
Before to Charles Leclerc’s win the opening round of the 2022 Formula One season, the Bahrain GP, the Maranello team had not won a race since Sebastian Vettel was P1 at the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix.
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