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Fred Vasseur claims Ferrari “made too many mistakes” across the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend that contributed to another below-par performance by the team’s high standards.
From sixth and 11th on the grid, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz trailed home seventh and eighth respectively, a staggering 70 seconds behind race-winner Max Verstappen in his all-conquering Red Bull.
After finishing ninth and 10th at the British Grand Prix, it is clear the team has fallen dramatically off the pace.
Leclerc’s race, in particular, was undermined by a wheel-gun issue with regard to the fitting of a left-rear wheel that cost him around seven seconds, and later a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
Team principal Vasseur felt Leclerc might arguably have finished P5 but for the two time-consuming incidents, and was left to lament “a missed opportunity”.
In fairness, even before the 70-lap event, however, it appeared Ferrari did not maximise its strategy around the newly introduced alternative tyre allocation that will be trialled for a second time over the Italian Grand Prix weekend at Monza in early September.
Conceding that finishing sixth and seventh was “not the results we were expecting coming to Budapest, Vasseur added: “I think it was largely compromised after the quali with P6 and P11
“First, we need time to understand what we did right and wrong because the format was different. It’s not so easy to analyse the perfect weekend, and you need to get all the results to be able to retro-engineer this.
“On our side, it’s more the fact we made too many mistakes from the beginning to the end, and it’s not just about the pitstop, or the pit entry, or the quali yesterday, or the management of the tyres and so on.
“In the end, the potential was probably better than what we showed (in qualifying), and then, at least with Charles, we lost 20 seconds in the race.”
Suggested to Vasseur by Speedcafe that it was not the first time in recent Ferrari history mistakes had undermined the team, he replied: “I’ve spent the last 35 years of my life, or something like this, on the pit wall.
“Every single Monday of my career you have to do the list, and you have a long list of mistakes.
“Sometimes you can see it, sometimes not, but the job of the team principal is to do the list with team members and to fix it.
“I’m very open with you to say that we are doing too many mistakes, but I think it’s true that if you ask the (same) question to Toto (Wolff), he will be approximately on the same lines as me.”
