Ferrari had been in a prime position throughout the weekend in Monaco, leading from early free practice to a one-two finish in qualifying with local driver Charles Leclerc taking pole position.
However, errors at the time of the pit stops in the race cost the victory in the Principality, something that made the Monegasque very angry, who saw how he lost a unique opportunity at home to win.
For its part, Red Bull was aggressive and went through the pitlane first with Sergio Pérez to mount the intermediate tires, but the Italians were wrong to call Leclerc at the moment when Sainz also stopped to put on the dry tyres .
The decision to wait too late for the pit stop meant that the Mexican could make up for lost time at the start of the test, and perhaps it would have been better to have gone with the same strategy as Sainz.
When Ferrari opened the radio to call their drivers to the pits, both were very close on the track, so Leclerc, who was behind the man from Madrid, had to wait a few valuable seconds that also made him lose position with respect to Max Verstappen, his main rival for the title so far.
The Monegasque said after the race that his team had made too many mistakes, something he couldn’t afford when they are fighting for the championship. The team’s chief executive, Mattia Binotto , admitted that they were serious mistakes, but that the key was to understand why they happened and what factors contributed to the decision-making process.
“I think we have to admit that if you’re leading the race and you’re in pole position, then we may have done something wrong,” explained the Swiss. “We made mistakes and we were wrong when we called the drivers to the pits.”
“Now, what is the process that led us to make mistakes? I think the first mistake was underestimating the pace of the interval and the difference we had with the other cars in terms of track position,” he continued.
“We also made a mistake, because we should have called them earlier, at least one lap, or else, as we did, we should have stayed out to go from the extreme wet tire to the dry ones,” added Binotto. “Now that we’ve made these mistakes, what is the process that led to that? We’re going to need some time to analyze it and have a clear explanation.”
The boss of the Italian team acknowledges that the result was influenced by the participation of other single-seaters, and that is that when Carlos Sainz was on his lap after changing to dry tyres, he found a lap, Nicholas Latifi, who, according to the pilot, It cost him the victory.
“When you lead the race in Monaco, you should be in a position to, if not hold the lead, at least finish second. To finish fourth is to show that we did something wrong, I don’t think that’s a matter of luck or not,” Binotto said of how Leclerc fell positions.
Although the Monegasque was very unsatisfied with his team’s mistakes , he agreed that detailed investigations are needed to better understand where they went wrong.
“I think we’ll have the answers a little later,” said the team manager. “Obviously it was a complex thing, we will have quite a few meetings in the next few days to understand it, so now we have to discuss and go into a little more detail.”
