Frédéric Vasseur found himself at the end of the Spanish Grand Prix commenting in depth on the contact between Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz and the final – unsatisfactory – result that Ferrari managed to bring home at Montmelò.
The fifth and sixth place finishes took a backseat. Attention was placed on what happened in the first stint between the two drivers: a contact in Turn 1 defined as “Not necessary” by Leclerc, while Sainz replied that he had not seen anything strange in what had happened.
The Ferrari team principal, however, tried to put out the internal fire between the two drivers, with Leclerc faithfully following the instructions of the pre-race briefing – again according to his statements – while Sainz, free from constraints with Ferrari at the end of the season, he took a different approach.
“It was a small contact but we didn’t lose anything in that situation”, the French manager immediately clarified. “We were fifth and sixth at the time and I think at one point we were behind some cars and, although we were very close, we had lost a few seconds. I think we were a lap away from catching Russell at the end of the race. We started fifth and sixth and we ended up in the same positions for me the conclusion is that we have to do a better job on Saturday.”
Leclerc complained at the end of the race that he had had problems in the race due to damage to the endplate of the front wing, the result of contact with Sainz’s Ferrari. Vasseur, however, firmly denied this possibility.
“From the data we didn’t see anything about problems with Leclerc’s car after the contact with Sainz. I think it was more of a timing problem. I think Charles lost something like half a second at that moment, but we can find 10 other examples in which we lost half a second in the race.”
Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-24
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
With the internal struggle between the two Prancing Horse drivers extinguished, or tamed via the press, Vasseur drew attention to the gap that Ferrari had from its rivals throughout the Montmelò weekend. Around two and a half tenths seen both in qualifying and in the race, also explaining the different strategies adopted with Sainz and Leclerc during the race.
“Yesterday we had a gap from the leaders of 2, 3 tenths. Today in the race the gap was practically the same. If we consider 66 laps we finished at 20 seconds, that’s 2 and a half tenths per lap. We need to take a small step forward on Saturday , in qualifying, and we have to do it because when you start from behind then you have to overtake and take risks with your strategies.”
“Sainz, like Russell, entered first precisely because we had to cover George’s strategy, then mounting Carlos Medium and Hard. With Leclerc our plan was to extend the first stint and go a little longer to have more opportunities to use the Soft, but a lap was missing.”
Barcelona goes to the archives, but Vasseur thinks that things will be different at the Red Bull Ring, the next stop of the Formula 1 World Championship scheduled for next weekend.
“In Barcelona the situation was this, we were behind Red Bull, Mercedes and McLaren. But the situation was different in Monaco and it will change every weekend. There are not 6 tenths of a gap between each car as has happened in the past. Now we have 3, 4 teams that are on the same level, or within 2 tenths. This means that positions can change due to tire management, temperatures, set-ups, for many reasons.”
“A small step forward can guarantee a big gain. This means that everything is open. It will be open in Austria because of the weekend with the sprint format, but also because of the characteristics of the track which will better adapt to those of our single-seater.”
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