F1 | Ferrari not received: immediately forget the Canadian bathroom

The last time Ferrari emerged from a race weekend with zero points was in last year’s Australian Grand Prix. In 2023 in Melbourne it was a penalty that removed Carlos Sainz from the points, but yesterday in Montreal the Scuderia penalized itself.

Many things happened in the Canadian weekend, lack of technical reliability, a chaotic race and a mistake by Sainz, but above all there is the lack of competitiveness of the car. In a world championship with 24 Grands Prix, an ‘off’ weekend can happen, but it is important that the team traces the origin of the problems and takes advantage of them to develop the necessary corrective measures.

“It’s a long list,” commented Frederic Vasseur at the end of the race, referring to what went wrong. In Leclerc’s case the problems started on the second lap of the race in the form of a drop in power from the power unit.

After a long series of corrective measures tried by Charles under the guidance of his engineers, the team came to the conclusion that the only remedy could be a ‘power cycle’, a sort of complete reset of the PU components.
“We were hoping for a red flag to be able to carry out the reset – admitted Vasseur – it had arrived in Monaco but unfortunately not in Montreal”. Leclerc thus had to return to the pits to complete the operation, but it all cost him one lap: end of hope.

Charles continued until the fortieth lap, when the order arrived to withdraw the car, a call that put an end to the Monegasque’s via crucis. “I understand Charles’ frustration perfectly – explained Vasseur – you’re in a group with your rivals, you see that you’re missing 10 or 15 km/h and you have no chance of overtaking. You ask for explanations and your engineer tells you that you are missing 80 horsepower, I completely understand that motivation is difficult to find in these types of situations. I understand the frustration well, if Charles wasn’t frustrated in these conditions, well, I would be worried.”

The zero in the standings was also due to Sainz’s misadventures. With twenty laps to go, Carlos managed to overtake Alexander Albon, taking ninth place, but the passage over a wet curb sent him into a spin, and he was then hit by Albon himself, unable to avoid contact.

After the race Vasseur also highlighted a previous contact between Sainz and Bottas which cost the Spaniard damage to the front wing and the floor, but Carlos himself did not mention the episode as the reason for the lack of speed on the track. “It was a race to forget for the whole team – admitted Sainz – we knew that today would be difficult given that we already struggled on Saturday to find decent grip and a good balance of the car. Throughout the race I tried to do my best, and when I started pushing to catch up with a group of cars with DRS, I made a mistake touching the curb which put an end to my race.”

Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-24 Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“We need to work in view of the Spanish Grand Prix to understand what we did wrong this weekend – concluded Carlos – and make sure we don’t find ourselves in this situation again on future occasions. It’s time to move on.” However, the reason that put the two Ferrari drivers in the position of struggling for two days with a lack of traction remains unclear.
“On Friday our pace was good – explained Vasseur – in qualifying the conditions were difficult and a couple of cars had the same problem as us, but I won’t go into details. Looking ahead to the race we were quite confident, then everything went wrong.”

Ferrari had to give up 25 points to Red Bull and 28 to McLaren in the Constructors’ standings. “The Monaco weekend was a difficult weekend for Red Bull, this weekend the same happened to us. But, as I said, we are no more potential world champions after a good weekend than we are lost after a difficult weekend. We will return to Spain, and we still have many races to go. Good weekends and more difficult weekends certainly await us, but what matters is to continue working with the same approach, continuing the development work, continuing to solve the problems without losing the motivation that is firmly established in the group.”