F1 | Vasseur: “We damaged ourselves with several problems”

A double zero that weighs more on morale than on the rankings. After the victory in Monaco, Ferrari arrived in Canada with a certain enthusiasm, although within the team they were aware that the Montreal track has few characteristics in common with that of the Principality.

The double zero has two causes: on the one hand the difficult qualifying on Saturday, which ended with both cars out in Q2, thus having to settle for a sixth row which, clearly, greatly complicated the hopes of recovering and achieving a good result. This weighed especially because, once in the group, it was difficult to move up the ranking, especially when the riders were stuck in the trains.

On the other hand, there was no shortage of reliability problems, especially with Charles Leclerc, who from the first stages of the race had to deal with a Power Unit failure which progressively cost him several tenths per lap. At the beginning, when the track was wetter, the problem affected around five tenths on the straights, but as the track progressed and the asphalt became drier, the situation worsened, with a loss of around a second for each pass.

For Leclerc at that point there was very little to do, considering that he was progressively passed by many opponents. The Cavallino’s hope was that a red flag would give the opportunity to stop and repair the fault, but this was not possible. For this reason, using a Safety Car, Leclerc returned to the pits where he carried out the “power cycle”, a procedure that can be considered as a sort of restart of the car. Thanks to this “reset”, which however took some time to complete as usual, the single-seater no longer suffered any problems, but at that point the situation was already lost. Leclerc tried the slick option, but at that moment the track wasn’t yet ready and the choice didn’t pay off, having to then return to the pits to fit another set of intermediates.

“We had an engine problem and we lost eight tenths per lap for 10/15 laps. At a certain point we expected a red flag to perform a power cycle and then be able to restart. However, the red flag didn’t come and we had to recall the car losing a lap and, at that point, his race was over. I’m not sure that the problem derives directly from the Power Unit, it’s more a question of management and controls”, explained Frederic Vasseur to Sky’s microphones before also explaining Sainz’s race.

“As for Carlos, he didn’t start very well, he found himself in the middle of the group and at a certain point he had contact with Bottas and Ricciardo and damaged the front wing and the floor. It was a difficult weekend.”

Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Despite himself, the Spaniard immediately lost positions at the start and was then stuck in traffic from which he was unable to extricate himself, until he even had some contact. In one of these accidents, Sainz also reported potential damage to the floor: in reality, there was in fact a phase of the race in which the Madrilenian lost several points of aerodynamic load, but most likely because something was stuck in the area of the fund. The moment the piece was removed from the bottom, the engineers from the pits immediately saw an improvement in the aerodynamic data, as indicated via radio to the driver himself. Despite himself, however, Sainz was then involved in an accident with Albon after losing his car in a spin following a run over a curb in chicane six-seven, putting an end to his race.

“The conditions didn’t harm us, we harmed ourselves. Regarding the engine it was a technical problem that we need to understand exactly and we will see it tomorrow. As for Carlos, the problem is that he got stuck in the group at the start of the race, when there was only one dry line. Then the damage was too significant, he lost twenty points of load in terms of aerodynamics, something like losing between six and eight tenths per lap. At that point it becomes difficult to overcome when you have such a big damage,” added Vasseur, who clearly underlined that the problems and mistakes made by the team during the weekend weighed more than the external conditions.

With a race full of (negative) episodes for Ferrari, there was clearly no way to see what the real pace of the SF-24 could be but, according to Vasseur, today the Ferrari was not lacking pace. “More than anything else on Saturday we lacked pace, today it wasn’t a problem of pace, but rather of reliability. On Saturday we understood exactly what happened, because on Friday we had a very good pace, both on the flying lap and on the long distance, but I think and hope that we found out what it was. Today it wasn’t a question of pace, I think Charles managed to stay in the group, if he hadn’t had the problem the pace would have been discreet.”