Ferrari had by far their worst weekend of the 2024 season at the Canadian Grand Prix.Charles Leclerc (engine) and Carlos Sainz (crash damage) retired from the race as the team scored no points, losing out in both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships.
Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur discussed it in his post-race written media session.
The Frenchman confirmed his Spanish driver also picked up floor damage during a wretched race for the team. Sainz had already lost his endplate following contact with Bottas at the hairpin, before he spun at turn 6 and collected Alex Albon in the process, forcing him to retire after limping back to the pits.
“It’s a long list.
“On one side of the garage with Charles, we had, not on lap one but lap two, we lost part of the power, but massively.
“And we were expecting a red flag to do a power cycle and to try to come back, but the red flag never happened. We had a red flag in Monaco, but not in Montreal.
“And at one stage we had to pit and we lost almost one lap, but it was done.
“And we tried to put the sticks, but the race was over.
“And on Carlos’ side, he was not in a good position after turn two.
“And at one stage, I don’t remember exactly when, because the list was quite long, but he had a contact with Riccardo or Bottas, he damaged the front wing and the floor.
“The issue is that at the beginning, everything went wrong and I hope that we put all the tough, all the shitty part of the season on the same weekend.
“But it is like it is.”
Leclerc had been suffering with engine issues from the get-go, leaving the 26-year-old with one hand tied behind his back. He valiantly stayed around the top 10 for most of the race while he was in it, until the switch to hards happened.
Vasseur did not want to into details on his car issues, but he did confirm it was not just purely the engine causing the problems Leclerc had.
“No, not yet, because it’s too early [of a] stage [to tell], but it’s not just the engine itself.
“I think it’s more the control of the engine and we had to stop the engine completely.
“The power cycle was taking 30 or 40 seconds. Not the best pit stop of the season.”
Asked about Leclerc getting frustrated over the radio and looking to stop early to try something different, Vasseur completely understood his frustration as the engine issue was costing him over half a second on the straights.
“For sure for Charles when you are into the car, you are fighting in a group.
“[When] you see that you are missing 10 or 15 kph and you have no chance to overtake and your engineer is telling you that we are losing something like 80 horsepower, you can perfectly understand that the motivation is difficult to find in this kind of situation.
“You know that you are in Canada, that you won’t overtake with this kind of deficit.
“You perfectly understand the frustration. If he was not frustrated in these conditions, I would be worried.”
Following the Canadian Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc is now 56 points behind Max Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship, with Ferrari now 49 adrift in the Constructors’ Championship.
