Ferrari were unable to match the pace of the Red Bulls at the Emilia Romagna GP , despite Leclerc being able to dominate part of Saturday’s sprint race until he ran out of tyres.
After a poor start, the Monegasque found himself behind Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez throughout Sunday’s grand prix, unable to launch any attack even when the Mexican went off track in the Variante Alta and the Ferrari was able to close.
Those from Maranello decided to look for an alternative strategy and stop Leclerc 13 laps from the end, making him fall behind the McLaren of Lando Norris, which he passed without problems. Red Bull reacted by putting Pérez in, and although Leclerc seemed to get closer with new tires, he would end up making a mistake that would force him to make another pitstop and after which he would only manage to reach sixth place.
In his meeting with the media, the Ferrari team manager, Mattia Binotto , admitted that Leclerc’s second stop had not been due to tire wear, but rather looking to cause a surprise: “No, we were not running out of front tyres”.
“I think at that point in the race, the pace with Sergio Perez was very, very similar or slightly better. But we felt we no longer had a chance to attack and overtake Perez on those tyres. So we made the pit stop trying to wait. for them to stop too, which they did.
“So they were both on new tyres, and it was like restarting the race with maybe 15 laps to go, and on soft tyres. And I think it somehow worked out quite well because Charles was very close to Sergio and trying to attack before committing. the error”.
Criticism soon arose about the failed strategy of pushing hard and not settling for third place, with some suggesting that it would have been more effective to stop on the last lap looking for the fastest lap bonus point: “Yeah, maybe that would have been good too. But for us, I think at that moment it was more important to try to attack and overtake Sergio, so we saw that there could be an opportunity and a possibility, and we did it.”
Leclerc’s incident (which made him go from third to tenth, although he would later manage to come back to be sixth) came a day after Carlos Sainz suffered in qualifying, when his engineer asked him to push in Q2 despite already having a good time .
However, Binotto assures that they do not regret being hungry instead of racing with a calculator in hand at the Emilia Romagna GP: “I think I will never regret asking a driver to push. I think it is part of our job , it’s part of their job to try to push themselves to the limit, and mistakes can happen.”
“I think this year’s cars are obviously a lot stiffer on the curbs and somehow if you make a little mistake you pay for it quite a bit. But there are no regrets. I think we made the right decision and that’s it.” concluded.
For his part, the driver admitted he had been too ambitious with the curbs, but denies taking too many risks at that point on the Imola circuit.
“I don’t think he was taking a particularly big risk there. He was fast and the car felt good in that corner, especially in the race. I think it was one of the areas where Checo was a little bit less competitive, and on that lap he obviously knew there was a chance.”
“So I tried to push a little bit harder, and it was too much. Other than that, I don’t think I took any unnecessary risks on the other laps over the weekend,” said the #16, who remains the championship leader.
