Poleman Charles Leclerc was leading the Monaco race when Ferrari made several strategic errors during the change from wet to dry tyres, which not only caused the Monegasque to lose the lead to Sergio Pérez, but also took him off the podium and made him finish fourth.
“Sometimes mistakes can happen, but generally there have been too many,” said a furious Charles Leclerc after another chance to win his home race evaporated.
“It’s tough, like it’s been in other years here, so I’m getting used to it and I’m coming home feeling disappointed, but we can’t do these things, especially at the moment we’re in.”
Team principal Mattia Binotto believes Ferrari will learn from their misjudgments as they get used to fighting for wins again, something they hadn’t been able to do consistently in recent years.
“I’m sure those situations will make us stronger,” Binotto said. “And we’re quite aware that being competitive is a given, and winning is something else. And it’s another level of difficulty.”
“And I think as a team we’re still making progress, still learning, and maybe it’ll take a little longer.”
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari F1-75, returns to the box and withdraws from the Spanish GP
It is the second victory that Leclerc and Ferrari have lost, after the Monegasque driver retired when he totally dominated the Spanish Grand Prix due to problems with the power unit, which has made the leadership of the drivers’ world championship go to hands of world champion Max Verstappen.
“Clearly it’s a disappointment when you have the fastest car and you get pole but you can’t win the race,” Binotto added. “In a way it’s a disappointment.”
“What happened in Spain was a completely different story, we had reliability problems while we were clearly leading the race. Here I think there were circumstances that made life a bit difficult for us. But we were not very good at judging and deciding, so Yeah, it’s a disappointment.”
Leclerc added this to finish on the Monaco GP: “Unfortunately everything has gone against us, so it hurts when it happens to you at home, but that’s life and we will come back stronger.”
