After an extremely tough start to the weekend for Ferrari with Carlos Sainz getting knocked out in Q2 and Charles Leclerc only placing his car on the sixth grid position, nearly a second off pole despite a clean lap, Ferrari managed to turn things around on race day with a very good P3 and P5 finish.
The disappointing qualifying only caused the Scuderia to feel like P6-P7 will be the best possible finish. When asked about this huge break of expectations after the race, Vasseur explained how the tightly packed grid plays a huge role.
He also explained that Ferrari are just better in race pace compared to qualifying pace, which has been evident since the start of the season.
“First, from the beginning of the season, it’s very, very tight. It doesn’t matter if you are in front of the group or at the back of the group, it’s still tight. I think also that from the beginning of the season, we are probably in better shape in race mode than quali mode.
“It was important for the team to do the best with what we have. We knew that it would be, it’s never impossible, but difficult to win with Lando this weekend. But we had to do a good job, to do the best of what we can do.”
Vasseur also felt that Sunday was a perfect day with Leclerc in terms of perfect strategy from the pitwall, great work by the pit crew, and excellent tyre management from Leclerc earned the podium for the team.
“I’m really, really pleased with the job done by the team, because from the start, to the strategy, to the pit stop, to tyre management, I think we did the maximum of what we could do and it’s a very good result for the team.”
Ferrari’s decision to undercut with Leclerc paid off handsomely. Stuck behind Piastri and Russell in the first stint, they boxed at the end of lap 24. It got them track position.
From there, the 26-year-old managed his tyres very well, holding off Piastri over the last 25 laps, in spite of the Australian creating a 9-lap tyre offset.
The French team boss explained the plan was to pit early beforehand.
“The plan was for us to pit in lap 25. It means that [lap] 24 was not a huge risk.
“Yes, that’s when you anticipate a little bit but track position is crucial in Zandvoort. I think that Piastri at one stage was faster than us, but when he came back on us he was not able to overtake, and then you start to damage the tyres and you lose a bit the pace on this.
“Track position is the first target and it was the right call to pit [on lap] 24.”
The podium is Ferrari’s 819th in Formula One.
