Fifteenth lap of the Monaco Grand Prix. Charles Leclerc is the leader of the race, with a good margin over Carlos Sainz (5 ”526) and Sergio Perez, he is 8” 083 behind the leader. Ferrari goes, and Red Bull, which was hoping for rain to try to overturn the hierarchies that emerged clearly in qualifying, also sees this possibility vanish.
The race saw all the riders at the start with wet tires, and the teams choose the path of prudence, taking time to evaluate the transition to the Intermediates. AlphaTauri and Pierre Gasly go against the tide, taking the risk of trying to fit a set of ‘greens’ on lap three. While in the leading positions the race progresses in a linear way, all the teams observe Gasly, the times are immediately fast but there is the doubt that even with a margin of a few seconds per lap the Frenchman will struggle to recover. On the other hand Pierre on the twelfth lap passes Zhou and Ricciardo, sending out an important signal.
Two laps later, Perez is the first ‘big’ to talk about a passage to the intermediates, and from the Ferrari garage the question is asked to both drivers, receiving different answers. For Leclerc it’s okay, while Sainz says he wants to try the direct switch to slicks.
On lap 16 Perez stops in the pits and mounts the intermediates, on the exit lap ‘Checo’ runs even slower than those who mounts the wets, but Ferrari does not call either Leclerc or Sainz to the pits. It is an unclear first step in the Scuderia’s strategy, because the margin that both Leclerc and Sainz had over Perez would have allowed both of them to ‘cover’ Red Bull, leaving another car on the track ahead of Verstappen.
Having lost the opportunity on lap 17, it was clear for Ferrari that it would not be difficult to respond to the Mexican with Sainz, as Perez recovered a good seven seconds in the second lap.
On lap 18 Leclerc was thus stopped (who stopped with Verstappen) but when the two got back on track Perez was already in front. Ferrari could still aim for Sainz’s direct transition to soft, which took place on lap 21, and at that moment the Scuderia decided to call Leclerc back to the pits as well.
At this juncture, Charles understood that he had lost his position on Sainz, and the next lap Red Bull with a double call also switched to slicks, managing to keep Perez in first position, and to overtake Leclerc with Verstappen.
Mistakes on the simplest day
This is what happened today in Monaco, a race that saw Leclerc conclude with a very eloquent radio team: “We can’t do this”.
The mistakes made by Ferrari strategists came in a scenario that was totally in their favor. Leclerc and Sainz occupied the first two positions and in the first 15 laps they built a small but important margin, and above all, the low temperatures of the track did not allow any gain in the undercut phase.
If the Scuderia had limited itself to ‘covering’ Perez with Sainz, and Verstappen with Leclerc, they would certainly have won the Monaco Grand Prix and Charles would have won more points than Max in any case. won the race.
To complicate the scenario a bit, Sainz’s desire to go directly from wet to slick, in itself not a bad choice, but which has changed the cards a bit. The decision to stop Leclerc for the transition to the intermediates is explained only by the desire to have at least one of the two cars on the track with that type of tire, which later proved to be completely wrong in the economy of Charles’ race, since he used that train of tires for just three laps before being called back to the pits to switch to slicks.
The strategists also underestimated the performance of the intermediates, which immediately proved to be very fast by those who mounted them first, namely Gasly, an assessment at the basis of Red Bull’s decision to stop Perez and Max.
Mattia Binotto pointed out that without a slower car encountered on his exit lap (Latifi’s Williams) Sainz would have had a chance to win the Monaco Grand Prix, and in fact Perez only narrowly missed the Ferrari after his pit-stop, but the problem remains of the choices that put a driver down from the podium who over the weekend confirmed himself to be the best performing ever.
Even in the event of Sainz’s victory it would have been a very negative element on Sunday for the Scuderia to finish with Leclerc in fourth place, if only for the position Leclerc occupies in the standings and for what the Monegasque has shown in this first phase of the championship. .
Now there will be time for analysis and remedies. In recent years, Ferrari has confirmed that it knows how to treasure its mistakes, and at the end of the weekend in Monaco there will be several points to analyze.
There is obviously also a lot of positive that emerged in the Principality, because until the strategic choices were made, a dominant Ferrari was seen, even more than was expected on the eve.
However, for the second time in eight days, he collected less than expected, and although it is true that in front of a championship that has not yet reached the first third of the journey, the values in perspective are important, it is also important to put hay in the farmhouse when it is possible to do it.
#Ferrari #win #simple