A victory that pays off
It’s a Fred Vasseur visibly satisfied the one who meets the media in the paddock of Monza after the beautiful victory of Leclerc. A victory obtained thanks to an excellent management of the wear of the tires on both reds that allowed above all Leclerc to bend the fearsome McLarens that, up to this point of the championship, seemed to be unbeatable in terms of race pace. The first words were obviously of satisfaction for a success that repays the Ferrari team and its fans
“It’s certainly a great victory. For Ferrari and for Charles, winning in Monaco and winning in Monza, I think that together with Imola, these are the three races you want to win in the season. It’s a victory that has more of an emotional value than a mathematical one because in the end, winning in Monza doesn’t bring more points than doing it in Baku. So mathematically speaking, it’s a victory like any other but emotionally speaking it’s definitely something very important because we’ve had huge support from the fans since the beginning of the week. Starting from Monday at the factory in Maranello where we already had a lot of people in front of the entrance and the best way to repay them was to win. It is not easy, and you can not always have everything under control, but for sure for the team it was the best way to repay them. I am very happy with this victory, for the team, for Charles, for all the people who came to the circuit. I think we did a good job this weekend.”
Winning strategy built over the weekend
The Prancing Horse team principal then illustrated the working method and the considerations that led them to the one-stop strategy but with a very long second stint which then brought success for Leclerc.
“By this morning we had understood that the strategy was that a stop was probably the best option, but we needed to do some kind of slow introductionnot to push too much in the first laps and we were really under control in the first two laps. And that’s also what gave us the win but it was not easy. When you don’t have so much data on the track and therefore, you don’t do long stints on the hards before the race. I think only Tsunoda did a long stint on the hard compound on Friday morning. It wasn’t significant because it was too early in the weekend. Then we had to make the decision to save two sets of hards for the race. It meant we arrived on Sunday afternoon with no data or clues about the wear, the potential and the degradation of the tyres. It’s more about the drivers who have to play a big role in the first lap of the stint to give their feedback also to the pit wall. We managed the gap by giving ourselves lap time targets to see how far we could go without changing tyres. Our drivers were good at managing the wear and keeping the expected lap times consistently. Maybe Carlos, knowing that we could have made a pit stop, unconsciously pushed a little less. But it is quite normal that at the end of the race it is said that a driver pushed more or less or whatever. But it is up to their sensitivity to understand whether they are overloading the tires or not.
As the race progressed we realized that we were keeping the expected pace so we decided to continue without stopping in the pits. Then you can never be sure because at a certain point you can have the performance of the tires collapse but it didn’t happen. And it all worked out really well for us.”
Certainly a victory that for Leclerc is very different to the very important one obtained in Monaco at the beginning of the season.
“I think it’s much more difficult to win in this situation than it was to win in Monaco.for example when you take pole position and lead the race from the first lap. Today Charles had to fight, he had to manage the tyres and it was tough. He had to push. I think it is more meaningful to win in this situation when you are not sure if you are the fastest and in the end it is a much better reward for a driver to win like that than when you take the fastest lap and start from pole position. In the last laps to keep the situation under control we were constantly calculating how much we could give Piastri on each lap and setting a target for Charles. It was only on the last lap that we realised we were safe because at that point we had an advantage of about four seconds and at that point you only start to fear reliability. It is not always easy to maintain but the most important thing is not to think too much about the podium because that would be a mistake.”
The importance of the new aerodynamic package
On how much the aerodynamic upgrade package that Ferrari brought to Monza contributed to the final success, Vasseur’s opinion is that it was mainly for qualifying:
“Honestly it’s quite difficult to understand the impact of the upgrade package on a track like Monza because we are in such a different configuration to the rest of the season so it’s difficult to make any assessments. But in the end when you see qualifying and you have six or seven cars within a tenth of each other, every single element makes a difference and even a gain of a cent has to be pursued. At the end of yesterday we had four cars within two hundredths of a second so, from this point of view, you could say that the update was crucial, however today’s pace in the race was more related to tyre management. It’s in qualifying where you have six-eight cars within 1 or 2 tenths that every single update can make the difference”
Still in the running for the constructors’ world championship
Finally, a thought for the final part of the season, given that Ferrari, with the points collected in Monza, has moved to within just 39 points of the leaders Red Bull in the constructors’ championship.
“From tomorrow we will focus on Baku. It would be a huge mistake to try to draw conclusions or change our plans. It is a very long road to Abu Dhabi. We have something like 450 points on the table and the fight is very tight. Honestly it is the first time in F1 that we are in this situation where eight drivers can win the race if they are not involved in accidents. Everything changes from one session to the next. For me the most impressive moment was probably Spa where we had McLaren in FP1, Red Bull in FP2, we started from pole and Mercedes won the race. I had the feeling that it is almost like that everywhere. Except for Lando, who dominated last week in Zandvoort. We can expect that until the end of the season it will be like this, a huge fight.. It is true that with eight cars, with this level of competitiveness. One team can do a one-two and the other finish seventh and eighth, not to mention the possible retirements. This can make a huge difference in terms of points but for now let’s focus on our return to winning ways.”
#Vasseur #emotionally #special #victory #FormulaPassion.it
