In the final race before the summer break, Scuderia Ferrari HP picked up 18 points courtesy of a fourth place for Charles Leclerc and a seventh for Carlos Sainz, which following George Russell’s disqualification were updated to third and sixth, with a new total of 23 points. It was a very close race, with the first six crossing the line in under 10 seconds, even with all 44 laps run under green flag conditions, with no Safety Cars. The numbers prove just how competitive Formula 1 is at the moment on a day when the team has closed the gap to the Constructors’ championship leaders to 64 points. Charles and the team are still third in their respective standings, while Carlos is fifth.
The race. On the Medium tyre, Charles kept the lead off the line but on lap 3, he had to give best to Lewis Hamilton. On the Hard tyre, Carlos passed Lando Norris to move up to sixth. After around ten laps or so, all the Medium runners made their first pit stops, with Charles now on Hards behind Hamilton, while Carlos stayed out until lap 20 to switch to Mediums. Leclerc’s situation remained the same even after the second stop when once again he found himself behind Hamilton, but now he was third, because out in front was George Russell in the other Mercedes, who had switched to a one-stop race. Carlos could see he wasn’t quick enough on the Medium so came in again for another set of Hard tyres and set off in pursuit of Sergio Perez in seventh place. He caught him without too much bother and passed him. Charles had a more exciting end to his race: he had to defend from Oscar Piastri, eventually relinquishing a podium place to the Australian on lap 36. Then he had to fend off Max Verstappen who never really looked like passing the Ferrari, so that Charles finished fourth.
Season so far. There’s one more week of work before the 14 day stoppage as set out in the regulations and so it’s the right moment to look at the season so far. The last few races have not been that satisfactory, but compared to this time last year there are clear signs of progress. So far this season there have been two wins against zero from 2023, this year we have 10 podiums, against three last year, when the team was 312 points behind the leader as opposed to the current 64. Clearly, it’s not enough and the team must continue to work hard to make the SF-24 more competitive. That’s what the focus will be on so as to prepare as well as possible for the next part of the season starting with the Dutch and Italian Grands Prix.
Charles Leclerc #16
I cannot be too happy with today’s race, as we had expected to be on the same level as Mercedes. On the positive side we managed to keep the two Red Bulls and one McLaren behind us.
In terms of tyres and strategy, we had expected to see a lot more graining on the Hard, but they worked well, while we struggled more with the Medium. I thought we were stopping too early for the first stop, but with hindsight the Hard was a really good tyre and as we saw with George (Russell), the one-stop might have worked better, but in the end we did a good job to stay in front of Max (Verstappen).
I had hoped for a better result going into the holidays, but that’s how it is and at least I know I got everything I could out of the car.
Carlos Sainz #55
It was a difficult race. We decided to start on a different strategy from everyone around us. The start and the first stint were very good, but unfortunately, I think we didn't have enough pace to make it work to our advantage.
It's been a challenging first half of the season for many different reasons, but I'm sure that after the summer break, we will come back stronger. Thank you, everyone, for your support. See you in Zandvoort.
Fred Vasseur
Team Principal Scuderia Ferrari HP
Overall, in terms of pure performance this race was okay for us even if we would have preferred to go into the summer break with a podium place. We were all surprised by the very low degradation of the Hard and conversely the very high deg on the Medium. This meant that George (Russell) had the best strategy and behind him everyone finished within ten seconds, something which is actually very good for the sport and the championship.
Our overall pace was good, and today we were able to finish ahead of the two Red Bulls and one McLaren, which in Spa-Francorchamps is not too bad. I think this weekend, on a potentially difficult track for us, we have found some more performance, but we are still lacking one or two tenths to be able to properly fight for the wins again. We will focus on this right tomorrow and after the break to increase our competitiveness for the coming races.