Vasseur predicted a festival in Qatar: 'And it became a festival'

On Friday night, after free practice and qualifying for the main race, cracks came to light on the Pirelli tyres. They were minimal, but still the FIA and Pirelli did not want to take any chances. There was an immediate warning that there would be extra, mandatory pit stops on Sunday, to avoid accidents due to punctured tyres. Sunday afternoon came confirmation of that. Pundits and fans, meanwhile, wondered: could Pirelli and the FIA not have seen 'tyre gate' coming, as the kerbs (which caused the problem) had obviously not been put down a day earlier?

Vasseur 'praises' Pirelli and FIA

Frederic Vasseur, Ferrari's team boss, understands very well that the FIA and Pirelli intervened at the last minute. " I think the reaction was quite good, but at the end of the day it's always safety first for me," the Frenchman said in conversation with, among others GPblog. "We did a good race, it was a good show. I would say that the reaction was very appropriate and now it's a bit of a shame to be in this situation."

That there were tyre durability issues two years ago means there was some frustration among the teams and a lot of F1 followers anyway. It all didn't have to go this way, was the tendency. "It's a frustration for sure because the situation is not ideal. We are working to prepare for the weekend. On Friday, we have our own plan to prepare the long stint and to save these kind of tyres. At the end, they said that ‘you have to completely change the plan.’ It's not ideal for sure, but I think the situation is like it is."

"We'll have to discuss how we could arrive in this kind of situation on the track that we know. Honestly, for me, the situation about the tyres is one thing but I would say that the biggest issue for me of the weekend is track limits. Because track limits, you know when you are going to Spielberg that you will have issues with track limits and we had issues with track limit, you will get the results two hours after the race. When we came before the weekend, we told them exactly the same, that it will be the festival and it was the festival."

'F1 fans were left in the dark'

All those violations of track limits made drivers on the track completely lose track, says Vasseur. "We have to find a solution. I think it's not even good for the show. At least on the pit wall, you have the number of strikes, you can follow the story."

"You know where you are and so on but I'm thinking about the guys who are in front of their TV. They don't have the story about the strikes and at one stage, you see ‘Gasly five seconds, Gasly ten seconds, Gasly fifteen seconds.’ We have to think also about this. I think that we can anticipate this kind of issue," the Ferrari boss said.