Ferrari had a disappointing weekend at Silverstone. The Scuderia came no further than ninth and 10th in Britain. Charles Leclerc switched to hard tyres on the early side and it did not work out well. Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur argues that in retrospect it is very easy to say his team made a strategic mistake.
During the opening phase at Silverstone, Leclerc was fighting hard with George Russell for fourth position. In this, the Mercedes driver was driving on soft tyres and the Monegasque on medium tyres. Leclerc managed to keep the Briton behind after several tough battles and was eventually called in by his team on lap 18 for a tyre change.
Vasseur states that preventing Russell's undercut on Leclerc was the reason for bringing the Ferrari driver inside. "We were fighting with Russell, and we were thinking that he would pit, and we would have to fight with Russell, but for sure, now, after the race, it's quite easy to say that we would have extended," the team boss told GPblog.
Ferrari has long had problems managing its tyres and in Britain Ferrari also went wrong with this, Vasseur argues. "Where we lost out the most was at the stage of the race, when we put the hard with Charles, I think we did something like 10 or 12 laps before the safety car, and he had zero deg, and he could have pushed much more. It was a misunderstanding on the 'deg' [tyre degradation], but this is coming from Friday, not Saturday."