By Carlo Platella
In Azerbaijan Ferrari comes close to a second consecutive victory, but in the end it is McLaren who takes revenge after the Monza snub. Oscar Piastri’s success has the taste of a mockery for the Prancing Horse, with Frederic Vasseur confirming the impression that in Baku the Rossa was the car to beat. The Team Principal, however, does not lose heart and encourages his team to get a result in a week’s time in Singapore, to keep their World Championship hopes alive.
The decisive episode
Vasseur retraces the key moments of the defeat in Baku: “TOwe would have done better to enter a lap earlierbut that’s a different story. The plan was to build a gap and pit a lap later.” The Team Principal, however, does not believe that the pit wall made a mistake: “It wasn’t a risk, on the contrary. I think that when you have a 5-second advantage over Piastri, if you respond [alla sosta] the next lap, you don’t expose yourself to the risk of a Safety Car. It’s probably not optimal, but at least you’re on the safe side.”
The timing of the re-entry was not the only factor that facilitated Piastri’s re-entry on Leclerc. Vasseur also reflected on the excessive caution in the introduction of the tyres after the break: “We were a bit shy on the outgoing lap. Clearly we lost to Piastri on the in-lap, but also in getting back into the rhythm. We were convinced that to make the tyres last 30 laps we had to do a slow introduction and avoid pushing too much on the out-lap, but without losing the position”.
The wall of dirty air
In the immediate post-race Charles Leclerc attributed the difficulties in overtaking McLaren to a less incisiveness of the Ferrari once the hard tyres were mounted. Vasseur however does not share the Monegasque’s analysis: “Maybe, but I’m not entirely convinced.. I think it’s more about the fact that for 30 laps we were behind someone in dirty air. […] This ruins the tires a lot. We probably had a better pace today than Piastribut that’s how it goes.”
“Two weeks ago in Monza it was probably the opposite: the position on the track is important and when you spend 20 laps behind someone you put a lot of pressure on the rear tyres to try to overtakewhile the front is in dirty air and slides more”. Vasseur then returns to what happened to the Monegasque’s Ferrari at the end of Baku: “After 25 laps you start to degrade the tyres more than the person in front of you. I think this is what happened during the first stint to Piastri who was behind us. He was behind us for 10 laps and then in the last five we opened up a big gap”.
Towards Singapore
Overall, Vasseur appears satisfied with the competitiveness shown by Ferrari in Azerbaijan: “The pace was good all weekend, from the first lap of FP1 to the end of the race. This is the most important thing. If with the same pace we could score more points next week, it would be a good step forward.” The Team Principal’s gaze is already turning to Singapore: “The story could be different, because the type of corners will be similar, but with much more aerodynamic load. […] After Singapore we will have a break before Austin. We will have time to talk about it, but First I want a good result in Singaporeas we did last year. We are in a good moment and we have to continue like this to collect more points than those made today”.
Ferrari is 51 points behind McLaren in the constructors’ standings, but the French manager is not giving up: “It will be ups and downs until the end of the season. The important thing is to win when you are in a good position, but also to collect points when you are not. We failed in that in Canada, England and Austria. It is probably costing us a lot. But now we are back in shape and able to fight for pole and victory every weekend. There are still 300 points available. Everything is possible, it will be a long fight. Today things didn’t go our way, but better weekends will come.”
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