Scuderia Ferrari leaves Monaco with a handful of points after rain that arrived for the final quarter of the race did not do Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz any favours, as they took the chequered flag in sixth and eighth places respectively.
A long train of cars. At the start, Carlos and Charles ran in their grid positions – fourth and sixth – stuck in a not very quick train behind Esteban Ocon who was dropping back from the leaders, Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso. Carlos tried to attack the Alpine driver but he was unable to get ahead, not even managing to pass him in the pit stops, having stayed out one lap longer than Ocon. Trying the overcut was not easy as Sainz also had to defend from Lewis Hamilton. Charles tried to go much longer, staying out on track until lap 44, when rear tyre degradation reached a point where he had to pit to switch from Hard to Medium. Eight laps later, the rain hit the Monaco track, when Sainz was fifth, with Russell yet to pit ahead of him and Leclerc was seventh. At first only part of the track was wet, so the drivers attempted to keep going on slicks, but eventually conditions worsened and everyone came in for Intermediate tyres. Carlos then went off the track in sector 2, losing positions to Hamilton, Leclerc and Pierre Gasly. As Russell switched straight to Intermediates he was able to stay ahead of the Ferraris. By the end of lap 55, the top ten had all changed tyres, with Charles and Carlos running sixth and eighth respectively to the finish.
Now for Sainz’s home race. The Championship resumes immediately with the seventh race, the Spanish Grand Prix taking place next weekend. Carlos will naturally have plenty of support from his fans, watching the Madrileño in action from their own Grada55 grandstand.
Charles Leclerc #16
We were on the backfoot from the moment we got the penalty yesterday. When it started to rain we could have gone onto the Inters early, but we decided not to as there were still a lot of cars on slicks and so we decided to wait in the hope of a Safety Car which 90% of the time you would expect here in those conditions.
Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, you might take a different decision but at the time it seemed like a good opportunity to make up a lot of places. I have no regrets about the decisions we made regarding our strategy. It is what it is, but it’s really the grid penalty that worked against us.
In the second stint, it was all about keeping the car on track and bringing it to the finish. There are still a lot of races left this season and we have several updates coming which I hope will let us get closer to the Red Bulls.
Carlos Sainz #55
It was an eventful race in Monaco today. The final result is not what I was aiming for because I had good pace with every compound and P8 is frustrating. Pit stops were key today but they were all difficult calls, especially the change to Inter tyres, as the rain picked up very quickly and the spin with the slicks obviously made me lose some positions.
I leave Monaco with a bitter taste, but next up is my home race and we need to keep focused.
Frédéric Vasseur, Team Principal
In the first stint of our race the pace was okay: Carlos tried to push a couple of times to get ahead of Ocon who was slow in front of him, allowing Verstappen and Alonso to get away at the front. Then when the rain came, we were P5 and P7 and we decided to take a risk and try for P3. The conditions were very difficult to manage because the rain turned out to be worse than forecast, so you cannot really blame Carlos for the mistake, but we need to look at why our pace was not so strong in the wet.
Looking at the weekend as a whole, our qualifying pace was good and we have to aim to repeat that next week in Barcelona. The field is so tight you have to put everything together and the slightest mistake is costly. We will have some updates on the car which should be a step forward in terms of performance, so let’s wait and see what we can do in Spain.