Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz point out strategy in F1 Las Vegas GP and the radio comments, as Frederic Vasseur says it won’t be difficult to manage.
For a brief moment, it looked like the Ferrari pair of Leclerc and Sainz were going to take on George Russell in F1 Las Vegas GP. The Monegasque made two places to second and was hustling the Brit for at least a lap before graining set in and he dropped off massively.
So much that Sainz caught him up and Leclerc tried to swap as quickly as possible. But the Spaniard didn’t last for long as well before being forced to pit. Having had to stop slightly early, they found themselves in traffic, but crucially the Spaniard was ahead of the Monegasque.
By the second stop, Ferrari asked to swap back as Leclerc found some pace but there was confusion and both the drivers lost time to both Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. Sainz was forced to cut across the pit entry – surprisingly evaded any investigation – and it delayed his stop.
Ferrari were simply not ready. The second stop created further drama after Leclerc was seemingly told that Sainz will not attack him but the Spaniard still did and passed him. That allowed him to finish ahead on the podium and left the Monegasque unhinged on the radio with list of swears.
The Monegasque wanted to score more in his own battle against Lando Norris, but from the teams’ perspective, they ended up third and fourth. Both Leclerc and Sainz tried to play down their frustrations, while Vasseur noted on ‘whole picture’ scene as he stated that they will be able to manage it.
Post-race radio from Leclerc –
Race engineer: “Pick up, please.”
Leclerc: “Yes. Whatever you want. As always.”
Race engineer: “Charles, you did your job, OK. Thank you.”
Leclerc: “Yeah. [laughing] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I did my job, but being nice f***s me over all the f***ing time, all the f***ing time. It’s not even being nice, it’s just being respectful. I know I need to shut up but…”
Race engineer: “Charles, Charles….”
Leclerc: “…At one point it’s always the same. So. Ahhh my f***ing God.”
Race engineer: “OK. But anyway… you did the right thing for the team. And pick up please.”
Leclerc: “Yeah, yeah. F***ing pick up what the f**k we want. And the radio is on. I’m sorry. That was, not me.”
Leclerc: “And my bad for the first stint, I was shit driving as well.”
Leclerc, Sainz to Sky Sports F1 –
Leclerc: “It’s okay. I mean, every time there are these kind of frustrations, obviously there’s not the background for everybody and it’s there’s just no need for me to go into details of everything that’s discussed, so I won’t go further into that discussion. Frustrating, yes, however, it doesn’t change anything for the team. It’s a bit frustrating for the drivers. The second place is always nice, but at the end of the day, it’s okay. I think I did my part on the first stint obviously when I had the tyres that were completely gone.
“I didn’t want to fight at that point, so I let Carlos by and then, yeah, the rest is we’ll discuss it within the team, but I don’t want to go into details. And no, it’s not about favouring one or the other. It’s about things that we have been told and that from perspective. But that’s all good. I’ve already said too much, so I don’t want to go into the details and whatsoever, but it’s just frustrating when it’s like this, and it’s been frustrating for me, but I can understand that nobody understand.”
Sainz: “There was this situation where I had to let by Charles, I lost a lot of time there. Yeah, I’m not gonna lie, and I’m not happy about that. But at the same time, I think Mercedes was just simply a quicker car today, and maybe probably, one way or another, they would have beaten us today. The podium was the maximum today. What I’m not happy about is obviously the execution of the race. I think we can do a lot better than that. I don’t like using the radio to complain or to do anything.
“I don’t like using the media to criticise or to demonstrate or to prove if I’m happy or not. I prefer to do that behind closed doors, because there’s never good outcomes from these kind of comments on the media. But obviously, I’m the first one that I’m not happy, and I was the first one trying to get out of the way by pitting and getting out of the way. But the whole situation was a bit messy, and I’m the first one today is not happy, but this is what it is.”
Race, results –
Leclerc: “I felt like I had everything in control but then from one corner to another, I lost three seconds per lap. It was absolutely crazy. That took me by surprise and we lost quite a lot there but on the hard we were strong, but obviously, it wasn’t enough to do better than third and fourth. I put too much stress on the tyres in the first stint, so that was my bad. When I started to feel the medium was going on Lap 6, that was like it doesn’t look great for rest of the race but then with the hard, it felt everything in line with everything that I expected, then we were in good place. I think if you had told me that we would finish fourth after the first stint, I probably would have taken it.”
Sainz: “Yeah, more challenges, more things going on than maybe what we expected. At the same time, I think today Mercedes was just the quicker car, the quicker package. I think George and Lewis drove a very good race. At the same time that us, we just struggled too much with graining, more than what we were anticipating. And yeah, it meant that we couldn’t push on the tyres. We were having to save so much that we couldn’t use the pace of the car. And yeah, we were just simply not fast enough. So yeah, not our day. We just simply didn’t execute in general. We just didn’t execute a very good race. I think we stayed out one lap too late on Mediums, two laps too late on Hards.
“And by the time I was going to pit, we had this messy radio communication in the pit entry, which probably made me lose that lap that I was completely grained and I had to let pass Charles plus the two or three seconds that I lost in the pit entry. That means a lot of race time that maybe would have meant we could have ended up fighting Lewis. But yeah, it just shows that in this sport, you need to do things perfectly week in, week out. We’ve been doing things really well in strategy and on race management all year around. But today wasn’t our day. We just didn’t do things well and we will have to learn from it and make sure we come back in Qatar stronger.”
Letting Sainz go, working well –
Leclerc: (Sainz said in Las Vegas that they working well together, is it so?) Yes. As for the race, I think I did [let him go by] it on the first straight and I didn’t even have the message from the team. I said it on the radio that I will do it. I don’t think [I delayed].”
What happened with Leclerc –
Sainz: “Yeah, I think he grained the Medium tyres and I managed to get ahead before the pit stop on Mediums. Then I did grain my Hards and he was coming quick behind me and me anticipating what was going to be a situation, because Lewis was straight behind Charles at the time, and I was pretty sure the team was going to ask me to let Charles by because he was quicker at the time. As I was on grained tyres, I asked the team two or three times to box me, to get me out of the way, and get me a new set of Hards to make sure that I wasn’t losing a lot of race time by having to let Charles by and then having to fight Lewis at the same time.
“For some reason we didn’t box and I ended up having to let Charles by a lap later than was planned and losing a lot of race time. And by the time I was going to box, then we didn’t even box. So I guess he’s not happy, but I’m also not happy with the way things were handled at the time. And yeah, I think no one’s happy today in the team because we all expected a bit more. I’m on the podium, so at least I got that for the team. But at the same time, I don’t think we could have finished much better than P3 and P4 today.”
Situation with drivers, managing –
Vasseur: “We’ll have to discuss this because at this stage of the race that we were discussing with Carlos for the pit stop he was in the shadow of Lawson, Tsunoda perhaps and he wanted to pit, we wanted to keep him on track. We were discussing like this and on the top we had to swap and it was a bit of the chaos but when they arrive in the car they have their own vision of this, but don’t worry we’ll discuss later today. We have to avoid to fight but at this stage I think that opening the stint you have to be really on the management side.
“Carlos he was already Lap 3 or 4 of the stint but I think it’s more the fact that the situation was really difficult for everybody, we will discuss tonight it won’t be an issue. As I said, I’m not worried at all – I think, again, it’s always the same story that they have to make comments or they don’t have to make comments. They are doing comments on the [slow-down] lap and they don’t have always the full picture. We will discuss together and it won’t be an issue.”
Here’s Carlos Sainz radio in pit issue: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-las-vegas-grand-prix-sainz-furious-after-ferrari-pit-stop-confusion.1816599176298756628
Here’s how F1 Las Vegas GP panned out
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