F1 | Vasseur: “The single stop is a risk, but planned before the race”

The gamble, in the end, paid off. Ferrari leaves Monza with an extraordinary and unexpected victory in front of its fans thanks to a risky strategy, which worked perfectly, and a Charles Leclerc who whispered to the set of Hard tyres with which he did 38 laps, managing the graining and bringing the Reds back to the top step of the podium in front of its fans.

At the end of the feat signed by the team and Leclerc, Frédéric Vasseur, Ferrari team principal, spoke to Sky Sport Italia to comment on the race, the great victory obtained and explain how the strategy was born that led the Monegasque to achieve one of his greatest victories since he has been racing in Formula 1.

Vasseur, a risky strategy… But it paid off. What a victory!
“The strategy was good and it was planned from the beginning. It’s true that the degradation surprised us in the first stint, but then we managed it better than the others, we stuck to our plan. It was risky, but by increasing the gap from fourth and fifth place, if it had gone badly, we would have finished the race third and fourth as we were practically at the start of the race. The drivers were exceptional in managing the tyres, they treated them well without pushing more than necessary. Everything went well like in Zandvoort, only here we won”.

Have you ever had doubts about the strategy you thought up?
“Honestly at one point we thought we would go for a two-stop, but in the second stint we didn’t degrade. Charles was comfortable and didn’t push too hard. We felt safe. When we realized that the worst case scenario would be third and fourth place we went for it. We asked the guys to keep a constant pace per lap and they did very well. Charles had everything under control and it went very well.”

Ferrari should have taken risks to win. You did everything perfectly.
“It went well, because in any case in this job you always have to take risks. You have to evaluate them and manage them, but it went well on everyone’s part. The breaks went well and also the team was superb. This increases everyone’s confidence.”

What were you thinking in the last laps at the pit wall, when Leclerc was getting close to victory? When did you start to believe in it?
“I have to say nothing special. We were just doing calculations at each lap to understand what the time delta was to keep on Piastri to be safe. I understood on the last lap that we could really do it and we believed in it.”

You allowed Norris to undercut Leclerc because you were confident in the single stop, so…
“After the first stint we thought the McLarens had pitted too early. They were on a two-stopper and we thought so, that’s why with Leclerc we didn’t defend the undercut by Norris. We knew it would be a risk to pit so early.”