Mixed feelings

Scuderia Ferrari HP leaves Azerbaijan with a sense of what might have been, as the closing stages of the race at the Baku City Circuit did not go the way the team would have liked. It had looked as though both cars would finish on the podium after Carlos Sainz had just moved up to third place on the penultimate lap, but a collision with Sergio Perez wiped it out. Charles Leclerc, starting from pole, finished second behind Oscar Piastri, picking up 18 points, but even this was tinged with disappointment as, after making his only pit stop of the afternoon, it seemed that victory was within his grasp. Nevertheless, the team can take some satisfaction from a solid job done throughout the weekend, which confirms the progress made in terms of performance, which will have to be put to good use in a few days’ time in Singapore.

The race. At the start, Leclerc kept the lead ahead of Piastri and Perez, the latter having got ahead of Carlos after the start. On Medium tyres and with a clear track ahead of him, Charles controlled the pace and pulled away from his pursuers prior to his pit stop for Hard tyres on lap 16. He rejoined ahead of Piastri, but the Australian overtook him three laps later at turn 1, as his Hard tyres were already up to temperature, having stopped one lap before Leclerc. Leclerc tucked in behind Piastri’s McLaren and there then came a race long duel between the two, while the Ferrari driver also fended off Perez. Then, with five laps remaining, Charles’ tyres cried enough, having paid the price for running in Piastri’s slipstream for almost 30 laps. Carlos had stopped for Hard tyres on lap 17 and by now had closed on Perez making up a ten second gap running in clean air, while in turn, the Mexican was now right behind Leclerc. On the penultimate lap, Perez attacked at turn 1, but Charles kept the inside line forcing Perez to be late getting back on the throttle. Sainz pounced, passing the Red Bull to move up to third, with the aim of getting in his team-mate’s slipstream. Perez tried to take back the position on the run to turn 3 and the two cars touched, crashing into the barriers, effectively ending the race, with the final lap run in Virtual Safety Car conditions.

Straight back on track. Today’s second place was the team’s 14^th of the season and Charles’ ninth, which puts him third in the Drivers’ standing, making up eight points on Max Verstappen. Scuderia Ferrari HP has made up the same gap to Red Bull, who no longer lead the Constructors’ classification as they trail McLaren by 51 points. Racing resumes next week with round 18, the Singapore Grand Prix at the Marina Bay track, yet another street circuit.

 

Charles Leclerc #16

We lost the victory based on two factors today. The first was tyre management on our out-lap from the pits. We expected it to take a long time for everyone to warm up their tyres, which was the case for our car, but not at all for McLaren, who got their tyres up to temperature immediately and gained a big amount of time there.The second was not fighting Oscar harder when he overtook. I knew we had a long race ahead and my target was to look after my tyres, stay within DRS range and overtake him later down the line. However, we underestimated the speed they had on the straights today, running a lower downforce package than us, which made them too fast to attempt to overtake them.Overall, it wasn’t the best day for our team, but we now head to Singapore and will come back stronger.

Carlos Sainz #55

It's a real shame, the important thing is that both Checo (Perez) and I are ok after the crash but it’s obviously frustrating. I stayed on the normal racing line and didn’t do anything strange, the same as every other lap, so I didn’t expect the contact on my rear tyre. It’s part of racing but it hurts and we lost a lot of points today.I was having a very good race and was very quick. I think P3 or even P2 would’ve been possible, but it is what it is. Time to turn the page and focus on Singapore.

Fred Vasseur - Team Principal Scuderia Ferrari HP

The first part of the race went very well for Charles and his pace was mega. Then we need to analyze the laps immediately after his pit stop as the pace proved to be too slow and in the end he had no tyres left anyway. Probably we were a bit too conservative at the start of the second stint but having to drive in dirty air was difficult for Charles and the result was it damaged the tyres. We will review everything carefully.As for the incident with Carlos and Checo (Perez), they were side by side at the start of the straight leading to turn 3 and they both wanted to keep in Charles’ slipstream. It seems to me that Checo had plenty of space on his left hand side and did not move at all, while Carlos had no room on his right hand side. We leave Baku with a result below expectations but it was good to see that as in Monza we were fighting with McLaren and we were competitive. We need to keep the focus and continue to fight as there here are many more races to go.