After a hectic start to the race in which Ferrari saw Carlos Sainz lose and regain the lead, the team found itself with an unexpected threat, that of Lewis Hamilton.
Ferrari asked the Spanish driver to give up the position to Charles Leclerc after verifying that the Monegasque had more pace after his first stops. Hamilton started third after his pit stop, but gradually caught up with the two F1-75s .
A safety car with 14 laps to go prompted a flurry of pit stops, but the Italian outfit opted to keep then-race leader Leclerc on track, calling only Sainz to the garage to fit him a new set of soft tyres. .
The #16 radioed that it would be “difficult” to keep the other cars behind on soft tyres, and it was. After losing the lead to Sainz after the race restarted, he also found himself overtaken by Sergio Pérez and Lewis Hamilton .
Leclerc acknowledged after the race that it was “disappointing” to have missed out on victory, having seen his main title rival Max Verstappen finish seventh due to chasos damage.
Asked by Motorsport.com why Ferrari called up Sainz instead of Leclerc, team principal Mattia Binotto said they were “too close to stop the two”, and being aware the Monegasque was on newer tyres. They kept him on track.
“There wasn’t enough space between them to stop both of them, because the second one would have lost a lot of time and would have dropped several positions,” Binotto said.
“Why then did we decide to stop Carlos? Because Charles had the track position. He was leading, so he would have remained the race leader.
“His tires were fresher compared to Carlos. He had I think six or seven laps less.
“And Carlos, by stopping and being second, could have protected himself at least in the first corners, because we knew that going out with the hard ones, it would have been a little more difficult. That was the reason why we made that decision.
“We were expecting more degradation from the soft tyres. We knew Charles would have a rough three or four laps at the start but would pick it up later, but the soft didn’t degrade as much as we expected.
Binotto thought that Ferrari ‘s decisions on race strategy were “the correct and appropriate ones at all times”.
“If we had stopped, maybe the others would have been left out and he would have started fourth on soft tires but with all these cars ahead of him,” said the Swiss.
“Would I have gotten those positions back? I’m not sure. I think in hindsight it’s always easy to say we could have done something different.”
“Once again a safety car came out at the wrong time, because we were comfortably leading the race at the time.
Binotto and Leclerc were caught on camera speaking immediately after the Silverstone race, but the Ferrari team principal said he was only trying to comfort him.
“I knew he was disappointed and frustrated, which is understandable because he was comfortably leading the race and felt good going really fast by the time the safety car came out.
“And for him today was a great opportunity in terms of his championship chances, because he was leading while Max was having some problems.
“So when the safety car came out, he had a tough end to the race and there’s no question he was disappointed.
“So when I spoke to him, I knew he was disappointed. But what I told him is that he had a fantastic race.”
“I just told him to keep calm, because the way he drove was fantastic.”
“Today he was unlucky again, because for a safety car to come out when you’re leading with a few laps to go, that’s bad luck. And I think generally that’s why I think we just try not to be there. too disappointed”, concluded the one from Ferrari .
