The Scuderia director assures that Leclerc would have won with a red flag or a Safety Car in the final phase. He highlights the Monegasque's pace on the hards but admits that Saturday's qualifying cost them the race.
Fred Vasseur left Madrid with a mixture of satisfaction and frustration. The Ferrari director, aware of the potential shown by his team at the Spanish Grand Prix, regretted that circumstances did not accompany Charles Leclerc in his fight for victory. The Monegasque, who chose not to pit during the Virtual Safety Car, inherited the race lead and maintained a competitive pace for almost 50 laps on the hard tire, however the absence of a red flag or a Safety Car in the final phase forced him to pit late, losing the podium and settling for fourth position.
"You see that there are always positive and negative aspects, no matter the weekend, Charles's pace in the race was more than good. We did a stint of 49 laps I think on the hards and the pace was still there" declared Vasseur after the race. The Ferrari director explained the team's strategy: "All the teams did the same with one car on softs or mediums and another on hards to cover all the options, he was leading the group on the hards and I think with a second incident, a red flag, it was victory."
Vasseur was clear when evaluating the impact of circumstances on the final result: "A Safety Car would have been P2 or P3, it's more a strategy thing than anything else and on his side, the pace was good. It's the only thing we can do on Sunday, if we failed at something it's more on Saturday in qualifying. Today I think we did what we had to do, we took the risks we had to take and the pace is what we need to have" he analyzed.
Ferrari's race, however, was marked by Lewis Hamilton's retirement. The Briton, who had produced a great start to challenge Max Verstappen for third place, was forced to retire due to a brake problem: "The pedal was long at the end of lap 1 and we tried to fix it from the pit wall, but it happened again a couple of corners later, on this type of circuit it doesn't make sense to take excessive risk" explained Vasseur.
The Ferrari director confirmed that Hamilton reported the problem from the second lap and that the team decided to retire him to avoid a crash. Hamilton himself acknowledged after the race that he had the car to fight for victory: "I think we had the car to fight for a victory today and unfortunately it didn't work out" declared the Briton. Hamilton's retirement was his first retirement of the season and represents a hard blow to his championship aspirations.
Vasseur preferred to focus on the positive aspects of the weekend. Leclerc's race pace shows that Ferrari has the potential to compete with Mercedes and McLaren in race conditions. The problem, according to the French director, was in Saturday's qualifying, where the team could not extract the maximum performance from its tires: "If we failed at something, it's more on Saturday" he insisted.
Ferrari now looks toward Baku, where it hopes to turn its race pace into tangible results. The Italian team knows the championship is at stake and that it cannot afford more mistakes. The performance in Madrid leaves a clear lesson, Ferrari has the speed but needs to execute perfectly every weekend to aspire to victory.
