Ferrari wins at Monza, Vasseur: “Exceptional drivers, what a strategy”

Monza is Red

Charles Leclerc won at Monza as in 2019. Ferrari once again sent the Tifosi into raptures, this time with a strategic gamble that paid off. The Monegasque and Carlos made just one stop against the two of the McLaren drivers and this tactic paid off.

“It was a good strategy, it was the plan from the beginning – said the team principal Frederic Vasseur to the microphones of Sky Sports – It’s true that we were surprised by the degradation at the end of the first stint, but we probably suffered less than the others so we stuck to our plan. It was a bit risky, but by increasing the gap to 4th-5th place the risk was not that big because if it had gone badly we could have kept 3rd or 4th like at the beginning of the race. Having said that the drivers did an exceptional job in managing the tyres without over-pushing. Everything went well, like in Zandvoort, but here we won. Honestly at one point we thought about going for a two-stopper, but in the second stint we had no degradation at all. Charles was completely comfortable, he didn’t push too much and we felt safe. When we realised that the worst case scenario was to finish 3rd or 4th coming back later we told ourselves to stay consistent with the lap times compared to Piastri and Norris and it went well”.

“Charles kept everything under control and drove perfectly. In any case, you have to take risks in this job, you have to evaluate them and manage them, but I think it went very well, the team was exceptional. When the McLarens were recovering, we just calculated every lap with what delta we could resist Piastri and we felt more and more safe. On the last lap I said to myself: we have 5 km, we have a 4 second advantage. We finish the lap and we win. I think it was a bit early to come back with Charles, at that point McLaren had already planned the two stops while for us it was early. We wanted to cover them to do the same race, but we knew it would be very long and that it would be a risk to come back early. You only realise the real emotions 1-2 hours later, because when you are on the pit wall you are so focused on the race that it is difficult to realise, but with all the fans on the straight I think we will soon realise the situation” added Vasseur.