After the Austrian stage, the fed-up Ferrari fans were hoping for a similar success at the Silverstone circuit. However, the Maranello stable burned out instead, taking only an unflattering ninth and tenth place. According to team boss Frédéric Vasseur, the race was largely affected by the problems that occurred during Friday’s practice.
Winning the last two points is certainly not the result that Ferrari was counting on after a relatively decent qualification in which Charles Leclerc took the second row and Carlos Sainz was placed right behind him. However, it was obvious from the start of the race that the Ferrari cars lacked pace.
Vasseur after the event, he named one of the reasons for this failure. It is said that the absence of Leclerc in the second free practice due to an electrical problem played a big role. “The first difficulties arose already on Friday, when Charles could not do race simulations and we only tried soft tires. The relegation scared us a little with them.”
“For that reason, we decided to choose medium-hard tires and hards in the race, but even on harder compounds we were afraid to push the saw. We were too conservative, because we expected more tire degradation. I think we didn’t push it hard enough. It was not the right choice, we lost a lot. In my opinion, Charles could have done a lot more before the safety car came out.” believes the head of Ferrari.
The turning point came when Kevin Magnussen’s car caught fire on the 33rd lap. The aforementioned safety car came onto the track and Ferrari failed again at that moment. Leclerc switched to medium-hard pneumatic tires during the VSC and Sainz’s team didn’t even call him to the pits.
“We were unlucky with the safety car and lost several positions. However, the main problem was the pace, which was too conservative on our part. Without the safety car, we would have been further ahead, but overall it is not the result we expected. It’s not good for us.” acknowledges Vasseur.
In any case, Leclerc couldn’t even overtake Alex Albon on Williams in the end, which is definitely not a good business card for Ferrari. The Reds boss thinks they should have achieved more. “I think we could have done a much better job with this package. If we had put it together yesterday, we would have been in the front row. What we saw today is probably the result of the start of the season because we were afraid of relegation.”
“From second to tenth place it’s tight and even a small mistake costs us a lot. But we will reset and continue to develop the car. We will bring new parts soon. On paper, Silverstone wasn’t the best track for us, but that doesn’t change the fact that we didn’t use our package enough. We have to do a better job next time. After Silverstone we will go to Budapest, then Spa awaits us. So we will visit a lot of different circuits, and the key will be to adapt our package to that as well,” added the native of France.
The hot topic this weekend was certainly the improving McLaren, as evidenced by Lando Norris’ famous second place in the race. So what are you? Vasseur does he mean that Ferrari also succumbed to the “papayas”? “They have already made progress in Austria. Although Norris was slower than us, he was clearly the third fastest on the track. Silverstone suits them better than us, we’ll see what happens in two weeks.”
2023-07-10 06:16:10
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