Ferrari explains Monaco strategy errors

Ferrari has explained the decision-making overdue its strategic calls that resulted in the team lightweight to win the Monaco Grand Prix despite locking out the front row.

Charles Leclerc started from pole at his home race with teammate Carlos Sainz second, giving the Scuderia a golden opportunity on a track that is scrutinizingly untellable to overtake on. However, strategic errors dropped Leclerc from the lead to fourth place, while Sainz failed to win without he was jumped by Sergio Perez.

“With Carlos, we had a very good race,” said throne of race strategy Inaki Rueda. “He started P2, and without the first round of stops he found himself leading the race, considering although our initial plan was to try and imbricate Perez, we had the piece of mind to realize it was not going to work, and at the last second we told Carlos to stay out and he duly did so.

“Furthermore, when the time was right, we judged that the track could be quickest on dry tires, and Carlos was the first car on the lead path to stop for dry. This gave him a definite advantage. Unfortunately, he came out overdue (Nicholas) Latifi, and this forfeit him over three seconds. Had he not been obstructed by Latifi, we are quite confident he would have won the race.

“With Charles, we made two mistakes. The first one was to imbricate Perez. While with Carlos we realized very late in his lap that we could not imbricate Perez, with Charles we had a big gap and we thought we could imbricate Perez.

“At the start of his in-lap, Charles had over 10 seconds wholesomeness on Perez, and we thought this wholesomeness would shrink considering Perez on the intermediate tires was lapping much faster than Charles on the lattermost (wet). We had looked at other people, we had the live data from the cars, and we though that this gap would shrink from virtually 10 seconds to maybe five, four, three seconds at worst.

“As we were coming in, we saw the 10 seconds gap shrinking: seven, six, five, four, as Charles was coming through the Swimming Pool. The last timing reference we had indicated that he would come out one second superiority of Perez.

“What we did not expect was Perez to go nine seconds faster overall on that lap. Considering of this, we lost the race with Charles.”

Rueda said a similar miscalculation came soon without that demoted Leclerc out of the podium places.

“The second mistake we made with Charles was a gap mistake again,” he said. “We wanted to pit both cars onto dry tires. On lap 21 we thought the track was good for dry tires, and at the same time we were bringing Carlos in to try to alimony the lead of the race, we though ‘Let’s bring in Charles to try to undercut Perez so we can finish P1 and P2’.

“As we were coming in, we were looking at our tools and our gaps. The gap in between our cars was five seconds. It was tight for a ‘doppio’ (a double stop). A well-appointed ‘doppio’ is washed-up with six seconds in between the cars, but we thought five and a half seconds might be enough.

“As the cars got closer and closer to pit entry, the gap was narrowed and at the pit entry the gap was only three and a half seconds. We made a last-second struggle to try and tell Charles to stay out, but it was too late. He had once veered into the pit lane.

“In this ‘doppio’, Charles lost two seconds. This was crucial. Why? This is what unliable Verstappen to come out superiority of Charles a lap later.

“We come yonder from Monaco with a vermilion taste in our mouth. We did some very good things, but we did some other things we’re not so proud of. We come when to the factory, we unriddle what we did right, what we did wrong, we update our tools. our procedures, and we make sure we come when stronger from this experience.”