Ferrari trio of Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz and Frederic Vasseur were happy to recover points in F1 Singapore GP, but stresses on qualifying miss.
Having looked pretty solid on Friday, Ferrari lost out in F1 Singapore GP qualifying. Both Leclerc and Sainz made it in Q3, but the Spaniard had a crash on his out lap after marginally missing out on the correct tyre temperature to start the lap.
Leclerc managed to stay on but faced similar issue and had a slight off at Turn 1 which meant his lap was deleted. This left them ninth and 10th to start the grand prix. And the first stint didn’t deliver as they would have hoped to after getting stuck and losing places.
Leclerc was stuck behind Nico Hulkenberg and Fernando Alonso, while Sainz dropped outside the points after having to take evasive action from Franco Colpainto. They then had to strategise, where the Spaniard pitted early to use the undercut value to the maximum.
The strategy worked after he managed to pass cars not just via undercut but also on track. He was well inside the Top 10 but could only recover to seventh. Leclerc, meanwhile, went deep in his first stint to have some clean air running after Hulkenberg and Alonso pitted.
He managed to clear them in doing so but was behind the Mercedes pair. While he passed Lewis Hamilton, he couldn’t clear George Russell and had to settle for fifth. Leclerc blamed himself for the qualifying mistake which left them in a vulnerable position in the race.
Much like the drivers, team boss Vasseur too reckoned that Ferrari lost out on Saturday with their qualifying trouble. He didn’t know if they would have cleared Lando Norris, but a podium was on against the likes of Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri.
Race –
Leclerc: “I did from the end of the first stint to the last laps. I loved it. The first 25 laps were a nightmare, because I was just a sitting duck behind Fernando and Nico, and I was just hoping that they had to box very soon because I was behind. But that never really happened, and they went very long and so I had to just wait. But overall, it’s been a good race from that moment onwards. As soon as they pitted, we maximised our points. We just paid a little bit the price of a bad quali yesterday. And actually I would also like to come back on the things I said after qualifying. I obviously said the tyres were not in the right window, which they weren’t. But looking back at it, there’s been plenty of times where you have the tyres a bit out of the window and you still have to do the job as a driver. And eventually I didn’t do the job as a driver. So I think the blame was more on my side in quali to not put a lap in, and today I paid the price of that.”
Sainz: “From Lap 1, we obviously were even further back in the midfield. And we took a bit of a bold, aggressive strategy, pitting so early to try and get out of the that midfield battle, and undercut the whole midfield, which we did, and then go to the end on the hard, which worked for us. So yeah, bit compromised by the start, but then some good overtakes, some good pace when we needed it, and at least we made it through the field, if not something similar to what happened to Checo [getting stuck] could have happened to us. I managed to actually do a pretty good job and find a balance between overtaking a lot of cars and managing the tyres to the end. It was never going to be an easy task, but I think I did a reasonable job about it, and I managed to bring home P7 after being very far back after the start, and having to take avoiding action.”
Vasseur: “The big emotion is that it is always good to finish the weekend on a positive thought. I think Singapore was a very good race. It shows that having a race like this just increases the frustration after a negative Saturday. However, I prefer to be frustrated on Sunday evening after a poor Saturday but a good race, rather than being frustrated due to a poor race. I think it is good also to finish like this to attack the three to four weeks break with a positive thought. I don’t know if Lando was pushing at maximum in the last 20 laps, but he decent pace all weekend. On Friday, we were in better shape than a fifth and seventh place. It means we lost something during the weekend, that’s clear. If you start ninth and tenth in Singapore, you know you did something wrong on Saturday.
“We shouldn’t blame anything or anyone on Sunday. It’s about doing a better job in qualifying. I think we were P2 in Q2, we were P2 at one place or something like this, it was just Q3 that we had one lap due to the red flag, and we beat the opportunity. But in the other hand, you are chasing the last kph, but everywhere when you are only one tenth, and you make a mistake in Turn 1, and it’s like it is that you want to blame something on someone, but it’s part of the game, and you have to be focused. Honestly, to do a more consistent weekend, I think it’s true for everybody, but when you are in this pack, as soon as you do a small mistake, you look at this race, 11 free practice now, it’s quite difficult to recover.”
Debris, brakes –
Leclerc: “Not really, I just wanted to make sure that it was all good, not to do two laps with a slow puncture or whatever. That [brakes] was a concern. I mean, not a concern, but that was something we had to manage, and we knew it before the weekend. I think everybody on the grid had to manage the brakes, so we weren’t the only ones. This was a little bit tricky, but we did a good job on that.”
Strategy –
Vasseur: “To start soft, you can make one position perhaps, but at the end of the day, if you want to be aggressive, you will pit Lap 12 or 15 like Lewis did, but you don’t have another choice because you have to pit Lap 12 because you are stuck, at least to start with medium, but we had the opportunity to extend, the scenario of the race was a bit different, and I think it was a good strategy, but the fact that we split the car to do one early stop and another one we extended was also a good call I think, and it went pretty well due to the track position at this stage.”
Wasted opportunity, gap –
Leclerc: “I would say yes, but looking back at the pace of the McLaren, and of Max, I’m not sure how many points have we missed today. George definitely, I think we had the car in order to finish in front. I didn’t check again the pace of everybody, but what I’ve heard about Lando’s pace, I don’t think we quite had that in the car, and I don’t know where the others were behind him. So a few points lost, yes. I think it was a good recovery today. But again, we paid the price of a bad quali. It will happen that I do mistakes on the Saturday, and I’ll have good qualifying also sometimes. But today I paid a little bit of price for a bad Saturday.”
Sainz: “I think in general, the last couple of races have been a bit of a wasted opportunity. And I’m not happy with how the things have gone on these last two weekends. At the same time, you never know what there’s around the corner, and we might be surprised with how we can perform in Austin, Mexico, Vegas and these tracks. So I’m going to keep myself optimistic six races left in this long year, but yeah, going to work on my weaknesses, and put myself in a better position for the last six races. Just try and feel a bit more confident going into Turn 1 in qualifying, because clearly these last few weekends haven’t been the best approach. So I’m hopeful that we can qualify a bit further up, like we were doing at the beginning of the year. And that makes the whole weekend a lot easier.”
Vasseur: “I don’t know with the others, because I’m not focused on the others, but the last 25 laps, I think we did the same race time as Lando, perhaps he was doing some push-pull-push to recharge the battery to try the fastest lap, I didn’t follow, but at least we were into the pace, and it’s encouraging, but the target was not to match Lando today, it was to come back, to score points, and with this I think we had a good recovery. Yes, the result of the weekend is not what I expected, but the result of the Sunday is a good one, it’s a good race. As you said we had a strong pace, a good start for Charles, Carlos was a little bit on the dirty side and a bit blocked.
“But then a good strategy, good pit stop, good tyre management, in the line of the last couple of events, and I think we can be pleased with this now, we have a couple of weeks to prepare the last six, and to be ready for Austin, but it’s our chance. And I said before that if we miss something this weekend, it’s not Friday, it’s not Sunday, it’s in between, but clearly until Q2 we were into the pace with Lando, and we didn’t do a lap in Q3 with two cars. Then you have to start from ninth and 10th, and in Singapore it’s almost done. It’s probably the best that we could achieve today, but we could have got George, but it was the maximum. It’s not today that we missed something, it’s clearly yesterday Q3.”
Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-singapore-grand-prix-norris-takes-the-lead-as-verstappen-fends-off-hamilton-on-the-race-start.1810898011988896734
Here’s Carlos Sainz on taking evasive action
Here’s how F1 Singapore GP panned out
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