Ferrari team boss 'frustrated' with Leclerc after disappointing weekend

08:00, 02 Jul 2024
6 Comments

It was a difficult weekend for Ferrari all around at the Austrian Grand Prix. Since the Italian team scored a one-two finish in Monaco, they've consecutively had some difficult weekends. In Spain and Austria, Ferrari was the fourth fastest car on the grid, making them now slower than the fast-charging Mercedes team that is gaining ground on their third place in the constructors. Despite a Carlos Sainz podium, Vasseur told GPblog and others in the paddock that he was disappointed with how the weekend panned out.

"Today was okay. We were convinced to have a tyre advantage at the end. To be able to come back on Russell on the last couple of laps. Unfortunately for us we were a little bit nowhere with the traffic. And we had some guys at the end of the second stint with a new set of tyres. They were lapped, but faster than us. But we were in the middle of this pack. It didn't run very well," Vasseur said when asked about Sainz's pace.

'We can be frustrated with Charles'

"When you try to summarise the weekend, I think we can be frustrated with Charles. We had the potential to do a much better weekend and to score many more points. But it is like it is now. We have to sit down to discuss this together. To see what we can improve. And it's one out of 24 and we will be back next week." Leclerc had a tough weekend. The Monegasque was unable to set a lap on his final qualifying run after an error, and a first-lap clash meant Leclerc was battling outside the points for the rest of the race, eventually finishing in 12th.

The Frenchman is looking ahead to the third leg of the triple header in Silverstone and hopes that Ferrari can continue to develop their car. "When you bring something, as the upgrades are now a bit less powerful than it was in the past, sometimes you have a deficit on the tuning of the car. And you need one or two weekends to be at the top of the upgrade. It's why the FP1 and the FP2 in Silverstone will be helpful." Vasseur concluded.

6 Comments
Sandy333 03 July 2024 at 14:09+ 0

Vassuer a non native speaker of English meant, frustrated with Charles side of the garage and his race and not Charles the person.

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Mech Engineer 02 July 2024 at 08:38+ 55009

Why is the team frustrated with Charles when it was their fault for sending him out so late and then the car having problems in the pit lane delaying his out lap and ultimately missing the cut off time??

Alex2015 02 July 2024 at 09:03+ 229

Charles made himself the mistake. Instead of overdriving he could have been more cautious. Yeah trying to put up these heroic laps goes both ways is like 50-50 either genius or total failure. Compare this flamboyant approach with Sainz which is reliable and brings steady points. Ferrari made a fantastic choice for their next season driver lineup.

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Mavric 02 July 2024 at 09:14+ 19032

In the main race charles got hit by oscar and had to pit in sprint and quily it was dirver and teams fault

Alex2015 02 July 2024 at 09:30+ 229

if he qualified higher he'd have had less chances of finding himself into mid-pack fights, especially at start

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Joost F1 02 July 2024 at 10:29+ 24421

Correct, this is Perez' excuse always as well, but if he would just qualify better, lets say on the front 2 rows, then he could avond almost all the shenanigans in the back!