Who bet for a win not Ferrari the day before the Monaco Grand Prix he probably earned a decent nest egg. On the other hand, the risk must be rewarded and it certainly was for the Maranello team harder to lose Leclerc’s home Grand Prix rather than winning it with at least one of the two cars, starting with the monopoly of the first row. Moreover, it is true that the rain heavy made everything more complicated from a strategic point of view, but i problems with traffic lights they had also eliminated the only hypothetical danger for the two F1-75s, namely the standing start. And in fact the two redheads had taken quietly the command of the race with Leclerc who had come to have just under 10 seconds ahead of Sergio Perez, third at that moment. We don’t want to make free sarcasm, but in all honesty it’s hard not to say that at Maranello they managed to accomplish a real feat by losing a Grand Prix in Monaco from first and second on the track. The defeat has matured from one series of unhappy strategic choices took between lap 16 and lap 22, 6 laps in which not a single variable of Ferrari’s predictive models evidently showed a correct value. We spent some time listening to all the radio teams of those laps in detail and we have made a detailed analysis of times and positions on the track and we believe we have a fairly clear vision of what happened that we are now going to illustrate, in an attempt to explain what were the choices in our opinion you are wrong from the Ferrari pit wall e how much room for maneuver they actually had the engineers of the redhead.
With the track drying up, the main strategic doubt was clearly whether to do a few laps on intermediate tires before switching to slick, or whether to try to resist on the track with extreme wet tires to switch directly to dry tires. saving a pit. It was therefore a question of understanding if the 20 seconds or so of the pit stop could be gained in track with laps on the intermediate or not. The answer that the track gave is that depending on how many laps you did on the intermediates it could be convenient or not, so everything hinged on the timing of the pit stops. To open the dance was as we know Sergio Perez on lap 16, attempting a strategic gamble against Ferraris. The choice of the Red Bull team made perfect sense on several fronts. On the one hand, if the strategy had actually worked, they would have had a real chance to fold at least one of the reds, on the other hand, if it had not gone well, he would have paid the driver who is theoretically not in contention for the championship. The ride out of Perez with intermediate rubber is complicated because to bring the tires up to temperature at least one turn is needed. Start here on dialogue between Sainz and the Ferrari pit wall in which the pilot repeats that several times would rather not stop to cover Perez’s strategy to make only one pit and go directly to dry tires. After a few exchanges though the call of the wall is quite decisive and reaches the height of the tobacconist’s curve. “Box and confirmation, we have to cover Perez”. Right now Leclerc is 7 seconds ahead to the Spanish pilot ed both of themthanks to Perez’s slow outlap, they still have the necessary margin to pit and re-enter the front to the Mexican. Verstappen is still on track with wet tires.
The first big mistake of the Ferrari wall – Sainz is now at the entrance to the Rascasse and is about to enter the pit lane when, surprisingly, the counter-order arrives via radio “Stay out, stay out”. Obviously the Spaniard is happy to carry out the strategy he preferred, but the final call not to return it’s not his, but of the low wall. Leclerc is also not included, so on the first lap after Perez’s pit stop Ferrari does not respond with either of the two cars. The Mexican is also lucky enough to find Norris in front of only a few corners because the English driver also stops in the pits, leaving the way free for Red Bull number 11. Once the tires are up to temperature Perez can start pushing and on lap 18 he goes record a “tempone” in 1: 25.215, almost 7 seconds faster than Sainz. At the start of this lap Leclerc has an advantage over the Mexican of about 24 secondsbut loses 1.5 seconds in the first sector and 3.7 seconds in the second sector reducing its lead to about 19 seconds before the pools and about 17 seconds at the entrance to the pit lane. The advantage, therefore, was no longer sufficient to cover the Mexican, not even for Leclerc. Yet, surprisingly, Leclerc is called to the pit to mount the intermediate tires. Ferrari’s forecast blunder is all in what Leclerc is told at the pit exit. Xavier Marcos, in fact, opens on the radio with an extremely excited voice telling his pilot that he is out he will be very close with Perez. Leclerc ends the pit lane and enters the track instead in total solitude. Perez is already 4.4 seconds ahead. A error of evaluation that has the sensationalsince it is not about hundredths or tenths of a second but more than 4 seconds.
It’s not over though: Leclerc at this point has intermediate tires and needs a lap to bring them up to temperature and then of at least 3 laps to realize the compound advantage compared to the 20 seconds lost in the pit. Verstappen is still behind the F1-75 number 16, also with intermediate tires. Ahead Sainz begins to lose handfuls of seconds per lap with the wet tires, but is still with the same pit stop as with all those who chase him. Meanwhile Leclerc meets Alex Albon on its path that inexplicably ignore the blue flags for a full circlemaking the Monegasque lose over 3 seconds and letting him pass only once he spun at the Saint Devote. Albon even gets angry on the radio with his engineer who reminded him to let Leclerc pass, saying that talking to him distracted him. Incomprehensible conduct on the part of the Thai pilot.
Leclercanywayis still ahead of Verstappen, he finally has the intermediate tires in temperature and in a few corners he approaches Perez, showing that he has much more pace. The track is clearly drying, but the outlap with dry tires remains a critical point. Leclerc’s intermediate tires are still practically new, so they could handle another couple of laps at high pace without any problems. Perez has his intermediates now cooked and the race could still be somehow open.
Ferrari’s second serious mistake – At this point comes the second error of Ferrari, which goes to make a double pit with both drivers. If for Sainz the choice is correct, given the now destroyed wet tire, it is enormously difficult to understand the meaning of Leclerc’s stop. The Ferrari wall seems pushed by fear of undercut by Verstappen in a phase of the race in which the opposite strategy, that is the overcut, pays more given the difficulties in the out laps. Bring in Leclerc after just 3 laps from his previous pit means having set up a two-stop strategy on him with the transition to the intermediate, without having given him the opportunity to recover the additional stop time on the track. We do not know if this call was the result of a communication error, also given Marcos’ last-minute attempt to communicate to Leclerc to stay on track, but for sure something important went wrong. At two, Red Bull is enough at that point wait for a ride, taking advantage of the slow outlaps of the red drivers, for cover immediately and take home the first and third places. The out laps of the drivers of the Austrian team are also very slow, but obviously in Monaco, once the position on the track is obtained there is no way to overtake and Horner’s two standard bearers can easily handle the situation.
Ultimately, therefore, the errors of the box wall that we can identify there are mainly two: the first is that of do not cover Perez’s strategy with either driver, inexplicably canceling the pit call to Sainz a few meters from the pit lane. The second is to have set up a two-stop strategy for Leclerc without giving him time to recover the time of the second pit on the track. A dry tire in the first pit or more laps on the intermediate tire would have guaranteed the Monegasque in all probability victory in the home Grand Prix. Something keeps on not work in the strategic sector of Maranello, and the impression is of a chronic indecision in these phasesdictated by what appears to be a democracy instead of a strong hierarchy. It also seems that some patterns are applied in a fixed manner, such as the fear of undercut, without fully realizing the changing track situationsand at the same time seeking strokes of genius without instead strictly mark opponents when you are in an advantageous position. It therefore seems that the strategic sector of the red must necessarily make the same qualitative leap that many other departments have made in recent years to be at the pace of a team that has a world-class car and driver.
The rest of the race goes on with virtually nothing happening, and the graph almost comically shows how Fernando Alonso staggeringly holds two-thirds of the cars behind for all the remaining laps.
However, we would like to conclude this long analysis with another consideration. If Ferrari clearly got the strategy wrong, a point on which he had, in the opinion of the writer, openly reason concerns the cutting of the yellow line at the pit exit by the Red Bull drivers (or at least Max Verstappen). In the sentence the judges put in writing that the pre-race notes of the race director they were a simple “copy and paste of the previous year” and therefore did not reflect recent changes in international regulations. A demonstration of lack of professionalism which is astonished, both in drawing up such notes, and in writing such a statement, confirming that from a legal point of view the Federation is totally adrift. The commissioners then climb into a motivation that speaks of Verstappen’s rubber which had not completely crossed the line, but only partially and other quibbles of this type, giving the perception that you are trying in every way not to alter the result of the race. Moreover, an ex-post penalty from Red Bull would have been sportingly unfair also against the Austrian team, which would not have had the opportunity to try to recover the penalty in the race. There lesson by Masi apparently did not teach that the fairest way to enforce the regulations is not to interpret them according to the common sense of the moment, but to apply them to the letter.
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