The Azerbaijan Grand Prix ended badly for Scuderia Ferrari, with a disappointing double DNF due to technical problems that stopped the cars of Carlos Sainz and – above all – of Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque was leading the race at the time of an engine failure, while it seemed that he was going to be rewarded by a courageous aggressive strategic choice by Ferrari.
In fact, the Maranello team had taken advantage of the Virtual Safety Car caused by Carlos Sainz’s retirement with its top driver, calling Charles Leclerc to the box to change the medium tyres with hards in advance. The decision to stop under the VSC regime was a risky choice, but one also by other teams, including Mercedes.
However, Red Bull judged it too reckless and chose to keep Max Verstappen, who was following Charles Leclerc on the track at the time, on a different race plan. At the end of the race, the Ferrari team principal, Mattia Binotto, bluntly defined the choice made by the Milton Keynes team as “wrong”. According to Christian Horner – boss of the Red Bull team – and Max Verstappen, it would have been “interesting” to see who would prevail in the end. Certainly, compared to the indecision shown in Monaco, the Ferrari pit wall responded extremely quickly to the development of events. It is no coincidence that Mattia Binotto pointed out that in this case his team was particularly reactive.
Listening to the radio messages between Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen and their respective race engineers in the excited stages of the Virtual Safety Car entry, it is interesting to note that there is a strong conviction, on both sides, in pursuing diametrically opposed choices.
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Lap 9/51
Ferrari: “Update on the flap, when you can. Update on the flap, when you can”
Leclerc: “Plus A”.
Ferrari: “Received. Box now. Box now. Box now “.
Leclerc: “Box Box”.
Ferrari: “Received”.
Red Bull: “Do the opposite of Leclerc, Max. The opposite of Leclerc”.
Red Bull: “Let me know if you entered”.
Verstappen: “No, no. He has entered, he has entered ”.
Red Bull: “Received. Thank you”.
Lap 10/51
Ferrari: “So: Perez and Verstappen stayed out. Both”.
Verstappen: “Did he have a ‘free’ pit stop?”.
Red Bull: “Most of the group didn’t stop. But he did, he had a free pit stop. He is now third “.
Verstappen: “How many laps are left?”.
Red Bull: “42, including this one”.
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