After Carlos Sainz crashed into the barriers in the second segment of qualifying and during the race at the São Paulo Grand Prix, Ferrari’s hopes rested entirely on Charles Leclerc. Despite struggling to find pace with a tricky car throughout the weekend, the Monégasque driver managed to keep the McLarens behind and come home in fifth place.
Referring to Leclerc’s statement that he was responsible for choosing the faulty set-up that made the SF-24 struggle on both the wet and the intermediate tyres on Sunday, team principal Fred Vasseur was asked to share his opinion on the same post-race. Dismissing the premise, the Frenchman underscored Leclerc’s inclination to always shoulder the blame and indicated that he was not liable for the set-up direction.
Vasseur further commented that nailing the pit stop strategy during a chaotic race interrupted by heavy showers and multiple on-track incidents was a rather challenging task for both the drivers and the pit wall. Ascribing more blame to their set-up choice than the decision to pit early, he explained that their inconsistent pace throughout the race compromised their results.
“He’s [Charles Leclerc] always the first one to blame himself, but I’m not sure that he’s in charge of the set-up.
“It’s a difficult Sunday, but I think overall it’s not a dramatic weekend. And it’s more on some choices that it was quite difficult to anticipate the pit stop.
“Unfortunately, you can say at the end of the day if you stay on track [and] you are waiting for the red flag it’s the right call. But if you crash, you look stupid.
“Honestly, this kind of weekend is quite difficult. It’s difficult to manage from the pit wall and from the car.
“But it’s more the pace today and the set-up that it’s perhaps dramatic because the pace was really difficult.
“We were probably six or seven tenths slower than [Lando] Norris at the beginning of the [final] stint and probably six or seven tenths faster than him at the end of the stint.”
On the topic of Leclerc being the first driver to make a pit stop on lap 24, Vasseur was asked whether they had anticipated the Monégasque coming out behind Oliver Bearman and Lewis Hamilton on track. The 56-year-old acknowledged that they had miscalculated the pit lane loss time on a damp track—resulting in Leclerc losing valuable track position.
However, refusing to label their decision as consequential, Vasseur remarked that delaying their pit stops to pit during the red-flag period would’ve been the “game-changer” move, as the top three finishers demonstrated.
“No, we underestimated the loss in the pit exit. It was very, very slippery and he [Charles Leclerc] lost a couple of tenths. It was enough to lose the position.
“But I don’t think if you overdo the race, I’m not sure it’s a game-changer because at the end we would’ve pitted the lap after with the VSC or whatever. It was not a game-changer.
“The game-changer on the strategy would’ve been to stay on track and to wait for the red flag.”
In terms of whether the Scuderia had the race pace to challenge the McLarens in São Paulo on a dry track, Vasseur confessed that they lacked the pace to do so since the circuit didn’t suit the characteristics of the SF-24 very well. Nevertheless, he explained that the right set-up choice and tyre management would’ve allowed them to overcome the deficit of one or two tenths to McLaren.
“It was not the best one for us. It’s very difficult to predict because we are speaking about plus or minus, one or two tenths.
“It’s a matter of set-up, of management of the tyres. It’s very, very close. It was not our favourite track, I think.”
