Ferrari trio of Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz and Frederic Vasseur lament the last stint on the hard compound for their F1 Chinese GP shortcoming.
Having had a low-key qualifying in F1 Chinese GP, the belief at Ferrari was of fight back in the race on Sunday. It did not start off well when both Leclerc and Sainz lost places to Mercedes’ George Russell and also Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg.
While they were able to clear Hulkenberg early on, it was a bit more handful to get the better of Russell. And by then, McLaren’s Lando Norris along with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez pulled up a good enough gap where strategy became a key point for Ferrari return.
And it seemingly arrived when the VSC was deployed for Valtteri Bottas. But with the extension of VSC and subsequent SC, it neutralised the grand prix for all. Even then, Ferrari had some hope of a direct challenge, but it didn’t work out against Norris or Perez.
The hard compound didn’t work as much or as desired for both Leclerc and Sainz. They couldn’t make any in-roads per se to be fourth and fifth eventually. Post-race, the last stint was the talking point, while the Spaniard revealed he expected this kind of performance.
No pace, layout –
Leclerc: “I don’t know. But I didn’t find it – I don’t think we found it as a team. Especially on hard tyres, which is a bit strange, because the strength of this car since the beginning of the year is that it’s very solid in all conditions with all tyres. The race was a bit of an outlier, because as soon as we put on the hards, we were half a second off – so that is very strange. But we’ll look into it and try to understand what went wrong on that front. It cannot be because of the layout because, a compound doesn’t work on one layout and then you go on hard then you are slow.
“So, it is very strange, especially compared to the McLaren, because with Lando, at first, I really thought we were going to fight with him. I was doing good tyre management until the safety car, but that reset a little bit all strategies, which is a bit of a shame, because I think we were doing a good job, but then on the hards we were just slow. I think we were expecting this weekend to be very similar, or in line with, whatever we had seen since the beginning of the season, but we were struggling quite a bit more.”
Sainz: “It just hasn’t been a very good weekend for us as a team. I think we were just not strong enough this weekend, P6 and P7 in quali and clearly also lacking a bit in the race. Just a clear lack of pace compared to the McLaren of Norris, and in the end, P4 and P5 given how bad the start went for both cars, and how early I had to pit for the hards to then one-stop from there, P5 actually is a good result given the circumstances.”
Race pace gone against Red Bull –
Leclerc: “They [Red Bull] have been very, very strong. We expected to be closer in terms of race pace but I still believe strongly that our medium race pace was very strong, very difficult to show because we were in traffic but once we went longer in the stint, we were strong. However, as soon as we put the hards, we were miles off but not little bit, we were like half a second slower than McLaren when I was pushing and I knew the lap times of Lando, so that is very strange.”
Expected performance –
Sainz: “For me, I was particularly struggling with the fronts, the low-speed corners I was just understeering like crazy. We were having to run the kerbs a lot to turn the car, driving a very unnatural way in some places. When you look at the onboard, it is a bit wild all over the place, going on the sand and grass in some places. Quite crazy how much we were struggling but when I saw the track map and I drove the car in the sim, I kind of saw that this was going to be a tough weekend for the car characteristics and clearly we need some upgrades if we want to be more competitive in this sort of long duration tight corners.”
Lost at start –
Vasseur: “Well, it’s not a good help to lose a position at the start, but at the end we are behind Perez and Norris at the start and we finish behind them also at the end of the race. I think if we lose something today, it’s more on the last stint. Carlos was a bit unlucky with the timing of the pit stop because he pitted 3 or 4 laps before the VSC, and then the Safety Car. He was a bit scared to do a very long stint with the last set of arms. And he was a bit conservative at the beginning, but he did very well to manage the long stint like this. And if we miss something, it’s to start from too far away on the grid, for sure. This is more yesterday. And today we were a bit less performant, I think, on the hard than on the medium. The medium was under control, and I think that we were in a good position at the end of the stint of medium. But we lost a little bit the ground with the hard.”
McLaren ahead –
Vasseur: “There is no normal weekend. And so, from the beginning of the season, we know that our pack is very, very tight. And perhaps that Max sometimes is a bit faster. But we have a pack with six or seven cars in one tenth. I think in Quali, yesterday, it was one tenth or one tenth, between P2, P3 and P8 or P9. That means that for details, you can move from hero to 0. And when you start from P9, the race is much more difficult because you have dirty air in the first laps. Even if you are faster, you struggle to overtake. Because if you don’t have the big gap, you damage the tyres in the first ten laps, and then you are dead. I think it’s really a matter of putting everything together. We didn’t have a clean weekend on our side. We made too many mistakes. And we know that in this group, if you don’t do the perfect job, you won’t be in front.”
Here’s how F1 Chinese GP panned out
Here’s link to a F1 Discord channel, join in to interact
