Ferrari trio of Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz and Frederic Vasseur reflect on mixed F1 Belgian GP where they still lagged behind their rivals.
While they had headlines made on Saturday after a surprise inheritance of F1 Belgian GP pole by finishing second on the road to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. That somewhat raised the expectation of a minimum podium finish for Leclerc at least.
Sainz’s final qualifying lap wasn’t good enough and it set him to fag end of the Top 10. That’s what led to start on the hard compound in an alternate strategy which didn’t work out in the end, especially with the short stint on the medium tyre after his first stop.
It looked somewhat promising to start off but ended up to be a slower strategy especially due to the medium tyre degrading more than the hard. There was disappointment certainly, but not as much on the side of Leclerc, who didn’t look happy.
The only positive point was him getting third after disqualification of George Russell and the fact that he managed to hold off Verstappen and Lando Norris. His displeasure stemmed from the fact that they were beaten by Mercedes straight up which was not expected.
He was okay getting beaten by Red Bull and McLaren, who looked to be faster, but he didn’t expect to get beaten by both the Mercedes car – even though one was disqualified. Team boss Vasseur, expanded on the strategy and the overall performance of the team.
Race result –
Leclerc: “What happened is that we were not fast enough. I felt like we were the fourth fastest car today. McLaren and Red Bull was expected, Mercedes was faster than expected. And yeah, on a normal race, dry track, it’s very difficult to keep them behind on a track like this. We did a good job to keep Max and Lando at the end behind, but fourth [third] was the best we could hope for. Pre-race, I think fourth was what I thought would be the best result possible, with two McLarens in front and one Red Bull. But again, that’s what makes me not so happy about, is that we have two Mercedes and one McLaren in front. The Mercedes, we thought that we were on a par with them. So it’s worse than expected.”
Sainz: “I feel like we took some risks at the start, starting on the hard. We even won a position [from Norris]. So I was very optimistic and positive about this strategy. We managed to extend it quite a bit to lap 20, with hindsight, not long enough, because probably one-stop seemed like a good possibility. And yeah, probably the main thing is that we didn’t do a one, but we also didn’t do an optimal two, because we boxed too late for the two, or too early for the one. It’s easy to say now in hindsight, but I felt like the race was promising a lot more. After 20 laps, I was like, we might have a shot at the podium. And then suddenly I finished P7 nine seconds behind the P6, so clearly, there’s something that we will have to look. At the same time. I think our direct competitors today were quicker, so I don’t think it would have changed much.”
Vasseur: “One thing when, well under control. Performance of the car, I would say, that if you finish less than 10 seconds behind the winner in Spa after 50 laps, you can imagine that the pace is decent, but… I’m quite happy with the overall performance. A bit disappointed with the position, I would say, because the target was not to finish P4 [P3], P7 [P6]. Overall the pace was okay, and I have the feeling that even from Friday, if you look at the picture of Friday morning, that everybody was thinking that Max will fly and win the race even with the penalty – and that Mercedes was struggling like hell in FP2 or FP1 I don’t remember… and they are back.
“That, because it’s at the end of the day, it’s so tight that we are speaking about one or two tenths per lap and 10 seconds over 50 laps. It means that if you are able to fix a small issue or to make a small step in terms of setup or whatever, that it’s making a huge difference at the end in terms of classification. And it’s probably the good side of the championship today is that you have four teams [fighting] for the race… Drivers, you have six drivers in 10 seconds at the end. And this is for me it’s mega in Spa. We had the same in the past with safety car and we didn’t have safety car.”
Strategy –
Leclerc: “It is very, very difficult to know at that point because when you have so many cars, obviously we were in the position where we were second on track which when you are to get undercut by one or two, three or four cars, it starts to be quite tricky and takes a lot of risks. It was just better to align ourselves to the other strategy. We didn’t know even what was the hard like, because we hadn’t run it before the race. So all of this, I don’t think it’s fair to say that we did a mistake at that point, and I understood the point of view of the team. I just felt like the raw pace is not good enough.
“And when it’s like this, unfortunately, you can do whatever you want with the strategy, but you’re always going to lose places. We are just not fast enough. The one-stop was one of our plans, but I knew that it was very, very, very unlikely for me to do so. Just for the reason I explained before, when you are in front to keep going and to get undercut by three, four cars and just lose so many positions if the one-stop doesn’t work, it was just better to align ourselves with the guys behind. But we knew it wasn’t too far, But I think they just had more pace, so they made the one-stop work, because they were super, super strong. So we had it on our card. It was just not possible in our race situation.”
Sainz: “Starting on hards, if anything, we would have needed to commit to extending another 10 laps at least. On a two-stop, maybe boxing five, six laps earlier to spend as much time as possible on that hard tyre that today was performing really well.”
Vasseur: “The main issue is that you start with medium and you have to take this decision lap 11 when everybody’s pitting and you have no clue about the degradation of the hard. That it means, I think Russell was at the back of the pack that he pitted and he was by his own for a couple of laps not into the fight and at one stage you realise that we had zero deg or he had zero deg with the hard, but if you have a look on the tyre degradation and the plot is zero degradation. And no [we didn’t think of one-stop for Leclerc], because when we pitted with Charles it was too early to imagine something like this.
“I think quite often the strategies are also driven by the position on track. It means that you can take risk when you are at the back of the pack, you can make it easier to take this kind of waste when you’re leading the group and yeah after the race it’s okay it could work. It means perhaps at Lap 15, we pitted with Charles we could have extended, but
if you have to pit at this stage, you have thee cars around you pitting for hard at this stage that is when you didn’t do a long stint on hard, it’s very difficult to imagine that you will do 35 laps in Spa.”
Short stints –
Vasseur: “Everybody had a huge deg on the medium, except when you start the race and the first couple of laps when everybody’s on the management side, and we were able to keep the medium alive, but as soon as you put medium during the race, and I think Perez did it also – and he did his second stint was with medium – and he did six or seven laps. Because when you have to push with the medium, the deg was huge. This was the right call. It was not the plan, but I think that sometimes it’s difficult for me to remind everything after the race, but I think that Perez pitted before us, four or five laps before us,
and he was struggling again with the medium.
“And the first stint in medium you can’t consider them, because that we are managing – and the first… even Alonso was into the group, the first 10 laps, and then they started to push a couple of laps to create the gap with the first car of the second group, but you can’t draw a conclusion on this part. It means that we were still expecting to have a better medium than the reality – and it’s when Perez pitted that it was obvious that when he pushed two laps in a row the deg was huge.”
Positive or not, bouncing –
Leclerc: “It wasn’t positive, because if it was a Red Bull in front, then I think it would have been a positive weekend. But now it was a Mercedes, which we thought we were on a par with them, and they had the edge on us. So, yeah, I don’t consider this result a very positive one. And yeah, there was more bouncing at the end of the race, the more we were pushing in the high speed, obviously more struggles we have with it. So in the last stint a little bit more, but it wasn’t crazy.”
Sainz: “The quicker we got into the corners, the worse it got.”
Harder to overtake –
Vasseur: “To overtake in Spa, you need to have a smaller advantage that at some other tracks, and it’s a couple of tenths. But first top eight you don’t have this kind of delta between the cars, it means that it’s very difficult to overtake, and also this weekend, when you overtake quite often it’s when you have a tyre advantage or you pit later and you have a laps into the tyres or something like this. With zero deg on the hard at the end of the race, we were all with the same potential on the tyres. It’s a very marginal delta between the cars, and in the end not enough to overtake for everybody, except [in case of] mistakes.”
Here’s Lewis Hamilton moving ahead of Charles Leclerc: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-belgian-grand-prix-hamilton-powers-past-leclerc-to-take-the-lead-at-spa.1805830020515450195
Here’s Oscar Piastri passing Charles Leclerc: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-belgian-grand-prix-piastri-pulls-off-brilliant-move-to-pass-leclerc-for-p3.1805832574596919780
Here’s Oscar Piastri on losing time behind Charles Leclerc
Here’s how F1 Belgian GP panned out
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