Ferrari limited the damage after a disappointing qualifying in the Singapore Grand Prix – Vasseur: We have no regrets about Sunday
For Charles Leclerc, the Singapore Grand Prix was a race of two halves. After his pit stop, the Monegasque driver had a lot of fun, according to his own statement, but “the first 25 laps were a nightmare,” he says.
Because the Ferrari driver was stuck behind Nico Hülkenberg (Haas) and Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and couldn’t find a way past. “I just hoped that they would have to come into the pits very soon, but that never happened and they just stayed out for a very long time,” he says.
Alonso had only just come into the pits on lap 25, and on lap 29 Leclerc finally got past Hülkenberg because he was no longer using the DRS. ‘From then on, it was a good race,’ he says. “Once they were in the pits, we maximized our points.“
”I think we were as fast as Lando for the last 25 laps,” says Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur, seeing encouraging signs. ”Maybe he did push-cool-push and charged the battery to try for the fastest lap, I don’t know, but at least we were back on pace and that was encouraging.”
According to the Frenchman, Sunday’s race in Singapore was not about keeping up with the race winner anyway. “It was about getting back, scoring points, and I think we recovered well.”
LAP 37/62
Leclerc makes his first pit stop of the race and has come back out in front of HulkenbergF1 SingaporeGP pic.twitter.com/WoA2ya831W
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Of course, fifth and seventh places are a disappointment for Ferrari when it comes to Friday’s form. “On Friday, we were in much better shape than fifth and seventh. So that means we have missed something this weekend, that’s for sure,“ says Vasseur.
”But if you start from ninth and tenth on the grid in Singapore, then we have done something wrong on Saturday. It’s not Sunday that we got wrong, but rather we have to do a better job on Saturday.”
Qualifying to blame for result
Ferrari’s disappointing result is due to a poor qualifying. Neither Ferrari managed to set a time in Q3: Carlos Sainz crashed his car into the wall, and Leclerc was thwarted by track limits.
“Up until Q2, we were clearly matching Norris for pace, but we didn’t manage a single lap in Q3 with either car,” says Vasseur. “And if you start from ninth and tenth on the grid in Singapore, you can almost forget it.”
Leclerc takes the blame for the poor qualifying and looks back: ”I said that the tires were not in the right window, and they weren’t. But the tires are often not quite in the window, and still you have to do the job as a driver. And I didn’t do the job as a driver yesterday.”
“So yesterday, I was more to blame in qualifying for not managing a single lap, and today I paid the price for it,” said the Monegasque.
Vasseur: Sunday was good!
Vasseur emphasizes that, in terms of Sunday alone, Ferrari has nothing to blame itself for. ‘That was probably the best we could have achieved,’ he says. “Maybe we would have got George [Russell] still, but that was the maximum.”
The start on medium tires was also the right choice. Vasseur explains: ”If you start on soft, you might win a position, but if you want to be aggressive, you might come in like Lewis [Hamilton] on lap twelve or fifteen and have no other choice because you’re stuck.”
“With the medium, we had the option of driving for longer and I think that was a good strategy,” said the Frenchman. ‘Splitting the two cars and having one make an early stop and the other a late one was also a good decision.’
We didn’t have Norris’ pace…
He sums up: ”It was a good race. We had strong pace and a good start with Charles, then a good strategy, a good pit stop and tire management that was as good as in the last few events. I think we can be satisfied with that.”
And yet, in the end, it remains to be said that Ferrari probably did too little with the weekend compared to its potential. “Looking at the pace of the McLaren and Max [Verstappen], I’m not sure how many points we gave away,“ says Leclerc.
”I think we had the car to finish ahead,” he says, though he doesn’t think Ferrari had Norris’s pace in Singapore. “We lost a few points, but it was a good race to catch up. But that was just the price for qualifying.”
