Missed opportunity
The Dutch GP at Zandvoort ends without a Ferrari driver on the podium. The Maranello team brought Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc to fourth and fifth place, and there were also some radio squabbles between the two and with the pit wall. Hamilton in particular first accused his team of making him lose time and then showed that he did not appreciate the strategy that had been planned for him by the Maranello pit wall.
Analyzing the race on Sky Sport F1 microphones, Fred Vasseur tried to calm things down, attempting to explain from his point of view what happened in those tense moments: “After the race it’s always easy to talk. I think the pace was good with both cars and we could have achieved a better result today. If we missed something, though, I think it was more yesterday in qualifying than today“, said Vasseur.
Read more Leclerc: “We have to go home unsatisfied. There was potential to do more”
A strategy not to reveal
Then the French manager added: “Today the execution was not perfect, we had a bad start with Charles, we lost a position to Piastri; then there was another bad pit stop with Charles and then with Lewis there was a misunderstanding: we didn’t want to talk on the radio, but at that stage we expected to go to the end (with Hamilton, ed.). We had Antonelli behind who was struggling, so we said to ourselves ‘let’s go to the end’. That’s why we didn’t swap positions, because Charles still had to pit. Probably we could have done better, but it was also difficult to explain the situation to Lewis without revealing our plan to the others and this then led to that decision. But I don’t think we missed anything because of that decision – concluded the Ferrari team principal – probably the problem was more yesterday in qualifying, because overall I think the pace was good. It was in the Sprint and also today. But finishing sixth after the first lap we found ourselves too far back“.
Read more Hamilton is furious with the wall: “Great way to waste time, great job”
