Criticism of Ferrari came as soon as the race was over at Paul Ricard, when television coverage gave the impression that the wall was indecisive and confused about Carlos Sainz’s tire strategy.
The Spaniard had a midfield game set up , and Ferrari had to make a decision on whether they would go all the way. His conclusion was that they would not do it, and that his driver would have to go through the pits again.
But while Sainz was battling with Sergio Pérez for the last spot on the podium, the French GP broadcast showed how Ferrari was calling him to the pits, just as he had overtaken his Red Bull rival, and once he had passed the entrance to the pitlane.
To that message, Sainz yelled back: “No! Not now, not now!”
Ferrari director of strategy Iñaki Rueda has explained that the moment that message was broadcast on television made it appear that the team had made a big mistake, when in reality things were much more under control.
In his intervention in the usual video about the strategy that Ferrari makes after each race, Rueda said: “The way in which the television production transmits the data to the spectators has a time delay.”
“In this case, you saw that Perez and Carlos were fighting on lap 41. We were talking to Carlos, and we saw that he couldn’t overtake Perez on the back straight, and we actually told him to pit at turn 10. “.
“Of course he was fighting with Perez. He thought he was going to catch him on the next lap, so he decided to say, ‘Please don’t go in. Not on this lap.'”
“Now, you watch live TV and that radio message comes on the TV at Turn 15 , just after the pit lane, which is absurd, because do we call the driver so late that he can’t react to our instruction? ?”.
Rueda pointed out that since the expected lifespan of the medium tires is 25 laps , and Sainz needed to do 35 laps on them, taking them to the end was not going to be an option.
Furthermore, with a five second penalty for an unsafe release that had occurred at his first stop, there was no chance of Sainz breaking away from Pérez and George Russell long enough to hold position.
Instead, Ferrari opted to slow her down long enough to secure fifth place and the bonus point for the fastest lap of the race.
“The penalty changed our whole approach for that last stint, because even though Carlos had managed to overtake Russell and Perez, he was never going to be able to open a five-second gap on them if he had to look after those medium tires until the end,” he said.
“With that in mind, we decided to have Carlos pit and make sure he came back and got an extra point for the fastest lap,” the Scuderia director of strategy concluded.
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