Vasseur defends Ferrari's strategy after unexpectedly low tyre degradation
Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur labelled his outfit's performance as "okey", but the Frenchman hopes that the Scuderia can find "two tenths of a second" to move itself back into contention.
In the final race before the summer break, Ferrari picked up 18 points courtesy of a fourth place for Charles Leclerc and a seventh for Carlos Sainz. With the disqualification for George Russell, Leclerc inherited a third-place on the podium while the Spaniard moved up the order to sixth.
Starting on the mediums, Leclerc kept the lead off the line but on lap 3, he had to give best to Lewis Hamilton. The Monégasque stayed behind the Briton after the first round of pit stops with around two seconds separating the duo.
The situation remained the same even after the second stop when once again he found himself behind Hamilton, but he dropped down to third, because out in front was George Russell in the other Mercedes.
In the closing stages, Leclerc had to defend from Oscar Piastri, eventually relinquishing a podium place to the Australian on lap 36. However, he inherited the last spot on the podium after George Russell was disqualified from the Spa race.
His team-mate, Carlos Sainz started on the hards, and despite the harder compound, he managed to pass Lando Norris to move up to sixth at the start.
The Spaniard stayed out until lap 20 to switch to Mediums, but he made a very early second tyre change, dropping his yellow-banded tyres for another set of hards. In the closing stages, Sainz caught Sergio Perez without too much bother and passed him to finish seventh.
Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur revealed that his outfit was also caught out by the unexpectedly low tyre degradation in the 44-lap race.
"Overall, in terms of pure performance this race was okay for us even if we would have preferred to go into the summer break with a podium place.
"We were all surprised by the very low degradation of the Hard and conversely the very high deg on the Medium. This meant that George (Russell) had the best strategy and behind him everyone finished within ten seconds, something which is actually very good for the sport and the championship.
Although the last few races have not been that satisfactory for Ferrari, compared to this time last year, there are clear signs of progress. So far this season there have been two wins against zero from 2023, this year the Maranello-based outfit has collected a total of ten podiums, against three last year, when the team was 312 points behind the leader as opposed to the current 64.
"Our overall pace was good, and today we were able to finish ahead of the two Red Bulls and one McLaren, which in Spa-Francorchamps is not too bad.
"I think this weekend, on a potentially difficult track for us, we have found some more performance, but we are still lacking one or two tenths to be able to properly fight for the wins again. We will focus on this right tomorrow and after the break to increase our competitiveness for the coming races," concluded Vasseur.
